Green reading

For me, walking up to the green is the most important in understanding slope. Look for which direction water will drain from the green. Most greens will flow towards a pond, lake or other body of water. Obviously, watch your playing partner putt to get an idea. I watch even if our lines are not similar. When on the practice putting green, practice uphill, downhill, level and putts you have no idea how it will break. Start familiarizing yourself with the type of grass your putting on (Bent, Bermuda, Poa). The ball roll and break are influenced by the breed of grass. Hope this helps!

As others have said, most greens are designed for water to flow off of them.

They usually are designed for water NOT to flow into bunkers.

Grass will usually grow downhill or to sun. Greens surrounded by tall trees can have mismatches between grain and slope. Usually slope wins.

Look at the cup or for old cups on your line. The rough edge is away from you down grain, and into you if into the grain.

On sunny days, down grain is shiny, into grain is darker.

If you see multiple conflicting things, aim at the hole and try to get the speed correct.

Have you tried plumb bobbing? It's an older form of the new aim point. Stand 6-10 feet behind your ball and directly in line with the cup. Hold your putter by the handle and hold it out in front above your head. If the shaft is in line with the cup, it's a straight putt, if the cup is to the right of the shaft, it's a left to right putt and if it's to the left of the shaft, it's a a right to let putt. Now this won't work on extremely long putts or extreme double breakers but it will definitely help in the short to mid length putts. Also, if your not playing in a sanctioned tournament, you can scrape the grass on the green with the face of your putter to see which way the grain is running, if it catches and doesn't slide, that's the direction the grain is going and it will have a tendency to make the ball roll more in that direction, not massive amounts but a little more.

The plumb bob is old school and not many people use it anymore, I do and I find it very helpful and it doesn't take as long as aim point although I'm not a pro and not fighting for the next place on the leaderboard but I do have an 8.8 handicap and am a descent player and it helps me get it close.

whatever you do don't take green reading lessons from LPTiger5...

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As others have said, most greens are designed for water to flow off of them. They usually are designed for water NOT to flow into bunkers. Grass will usually grow downhill or to sun. Greens surrounded by tall trees can have mismatches between grain and slope. Usually slope wins. Look at the cup or for old cups on your line. The rough edge is away from you down grain, and into you if into the grain. On sunny days, down grain is shiny, into grain is darker. If you see multiple conflicting things, aim at the hole and try to get the speed correct.

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I agree with about all of this.

One thing I would warn against is listening to a lot of fellow competitors. People just have different philosophies. You’ll have people in the same group playing 4 or 5 inches worth of break difference. The guy playing less break is usually hitting it harder to take some break out of it, and if they miss, it’s going to run by 2 or 3 feet. While the next guy will play more break, and let it kind of trickle with break, but they usually risk leaving it short a foot or two.

Neither method is wrong, just know the method that is more comfortable for you and ignore the guy that does the other one.

Thanks all, will work on all of it! Lots of great advice as always!