Putting & Green Reading

This has helped me with alignment and starting the ball on line.

What're you linking? Just brought me to golf accessories.

Use a level. I’ve got a small 1 foot one I use.

Put it on various parts of the green to help train your eye.

Illegal in tournament rounds and I wouldn’t playing for money, but if your putting green has some slope it helps.

Feel. Feel. Feel. It’s the entire game on or around the greens. How hard to hit it how much break to allow. I always find the lowest part of the green and figure every break towards that if it’s relatively flat.

I do a couple things. I do all these things pretty quickly, so it's not an over analysis. First, I pace out every putt to give myself a general gauge of how much pace I need to play. It's surprising how much a distance can vary visually if you aren't using some sort of physical measurement. You may look at two putts and think they are the same length and they turn out to be a couple feet different. That can make a huge difference with pace.

My club pro had a good process to help think about how putts roll. Take a look at your putt quickly from behind the ball, parallel to the putt and behind the cup and think about how water would flow on that surface. That will give you a general idea of how the ball will roll and if it's uphill, downhill, both etc. Amateurs usually under-read break and miss low-side. Until you get dialed in, it's not a bad practice to account for a little more break.

Once you find a line you like, and have a gauge on speed pick a spot about a foot in front of the ball on that line and just try and get the ball rolling over that spot at the speed you think you need. I use a long line on the ball as well to help line up to the spot I'm aiming at.

It may seem like a lot of process, but all can be done in under a minute, most of it just walking to pull out the pin.