My Articles
Non extensive list of article directories, blogs and other sites that published my articles. (Jul 2010)
> A New Golf Putting Tip on Effective Green Reading In this article you can find an explanation of “Marcel White’s technique for green reading” more detailed than the one delivered in a previous article.
In my last article I wrote about several gadgets and procedures that may (or may not) help in golf putting. In that article, among those procedures considered useful and in total accordance with the rules, I introduced “Marcel White’s technique for green reading”. I mentioned then that it had never been revealed before.
After the article went on line I received some comments and had some discussions about that technique and discovered that it had not been a good idea to introduce it in the middle of the article together with other subjects. Some readers suggested that I should write a more detailed article focused exclusively on that point. Here it is!
Situation NR 1. Let’s start with the easiest feature this technique can provide. When considering your next putt, discover if the hole’s level is below or above the ball’s level.
Perhaps you think this is a piece of cake but it isn’t. If you are on a sloping green evaluating your next putt, as you move from one point to another, your perspective changes giving you misleading perceptions and you find yourself not sure about it being uphill or downhill. Consequences can be devastating if you consider downhill a putt that actually is uphill, or vice-versa.
This is the approach I recommend to solve the problem.
a) Look for a spot that is roughly at the same distance from the hole and the ball and not very close to the ball-hole line and don’t care if you are on the higher or lower part of the green in relation to that line. Stand on that point. I always try that my distance to the ball-hole line beats the ball-hole distance. Standing on that point, you, the ball and the hole are forming a triangle, an isosceles triangle because two sides of it are equal. Remember that the spot was chosen to be at the same distance from the hole and the ball.
b) Align yourself in order to let your shoulders parallel to the ball-hole line. Use both your forefingers to handle your putter and raise your arms, keeping them straight, till the putter’s shaft is horizontal in front of you and parallel to your shoulders. Now, your eyes and the club shaft define a plane in which any straight line parallel to the club shaft is horizontal. So, just move slowly both arms, keeping the putter horizontal, till you see it touching the hole. Now, the image of the club shaft you see on the ground is a horizontal line that will tell you if the ball is above or bellow the hole and how much.
I agree this is not as accurate as an electronic meter but, so far, the choice is between this technique and nothing allowed by golf rules. Besides, we can take some steps to improve it.
First, do it while the pin is in the cup. It’s vertical and will help to see if the shaft is horizontal because both lines are perpendicular.
Second, you can train your eyes as much as you want because horizontal lines are everywhere to help you confirm your guesses. For instance, any house or building has horizontals on the top of doors, windows, walls, etc. Put yourself with your shoulders parallel to a wall, holding your putter the way mentioned before and move both arms at the same time in order to adjust the shaft image to the top of a door or window and calibrate your horizontals. You’ll discover that this technique is pretty accurate.
A final note on situation NR 1: It doesn’t matter if a putt starts, or finishes, uphill or downhill. If ball’s level at start is below hole’s level you face a uphill putt. If ball’s level at start is above hole’s level you face a downhill putt.
See image 2 for downhill example.
Situation NR 2. Now, an interesting question is perhaps crossing your minds: if you line up with the ball and the hole, will this technique work to reveal the lateral break? Yes, it will, but it is not that simple!
So, get down, in line with the ball and the hole, and find two spots you can remember, on the grass, at each side of the ball-hole line and at similar distances from it. The two spots must define a second line that is perpendicular to the ball-hole line. You and those two points are now forming the isosceles triangle needed to use this technique. As before, the next step will be to raise the horizontal putter to discover which one of the spots is at a lower or higher level and how much. That is the lateral break. If you suspect of a double break repeat the entire process close to the hole. Just take care to avoid slowing the game.
I recommend that you start using this technique in situations NR 2, only after you are in full control of it in situations NR 1. To practice, you can go to a sloping putting green and start using 2 tees and fixing them on the ground instead of looking for the two spots needed to define the triangle. After some practice you’ll find that you can do without the tees.
As far as I know, this is the best and most reliable technique to improve your green reading without breaking the golf rules. With it you get a clearer picture of your putting zone in every situation. But don’t forget that your objective is to sink the next putt, not to get a topographic image of the green. Provided you know how to use all the information you gathered, a nice putt is on the way. Otherwise, it will have been a waste of time. If this is the case, in this site you can find more suggestions that can help.
Marcel White (2010/4/15)
> Gadgets and procedures that may (or may not) help, in golf putting
Learn how to deal with breaking putts. First, a quick review of procedures and devices not allowed, or not useful, or both and why they are not the solution for golf putting problems. After, a quick review of procedures allowed to deal with breaking putts, that are the solution for some golf putting problems.
Everybody agrees that golf putting is the most important part of the golf game. At first sight, however, improving the putting performance doesn’t seem so rewarding as working with the driver or any other of the golf clubs inside the player’s bag. No wonder that the great majority of average golf players don’t devote any serious attention to golf putting. And when it comes to breaking putts, even fair and good players are usually, and understandably, moving in the desert. Believe me, the great majority of what you can read about this subject are laughable pieces of absolutely worthless text.
We have to deal with two main problems.
First: To read the green, that is, to evaluate the shape of that area between our golf ball and the hole.
Second: To know what to do, supposing the green was correctly read in the previous step.
There are some gadgets and procedures available to assist golfers in the first step that will be analysed in this article. Some of them are not allowed in the golf course because of golf rules and others are just useless. Only two are useful and permitted by golf rules and one of those two, as far as I can figure, has never been revealed before. But if any of my readers can prove that someone else has disclosed it before, please let me know because, in that case, I owe the author an apology.
Let’s start our comprehensive review. If you are not interested in “solutions” that aren’t useful or violate golf rules, skip to c).
a) Plumb bobbing. A procedure that is allowed but useless.
I won’t give too many details about this technique. Those interested can "google" plumb bobbing in golf and get countless results.
Briefly, stand behind the ball and look straight to the hole, hold the top of the grip between your thumb and forefinger, extend your arm slightly and let the putter hang freely in your grip. Block the view of the ball with the lower end of the shaft of the putter. Only keep your dominant eye open. If the hole looks like it is on the left of the shaft, then you should expect the break to be from the right to the left and vice-versa.
All this is pure fantasy. It’s always possible to position the shaft, the ball and the hole in the same alignment. If they are not aligned it’s because the players have done what they needed to do in order to see what they wanted to see. It’s a kind of confidence booster to reinforce what they probably already saw by careful visual examination of the putting surface.
If you are not convinced imagine the pin is in the cup standing vertically. Imagine also that you have a big door that turns around the pin. Rotate it, in your mind, till it is over the ball and stop. The door is a vertical plane that, if you were plumb bobbing, would contain the pin, the hole, the ball, the putter’s shaft and your dominant eye. How can you measure any break in this situation? The answer is: you can’t, unless you cheat and move your head a bit to get it “out of the door”.
b) Devices to measure break and provide the direction of the fall-line. Very useful gadgets but not allowed.
We are now referring to objects, either electronic or air bubble based, which display the most important piece of advice needed for the management of breaking putts: the direction of the fall-line, an information that is critical to establish the shape of the curve the ball will follow after the putter stroke.
Fortunately, in my opinion, they are not allowed. However, due to its usefulness, they are currently used by golf professionals to map the greens before tournaments.
Here you have the names of some of them, not as an endorsement but with pure informative purposes:
“eez-read”, an air bubble based break meter
“exelys break master”, an electronic break meter
A quick reference also to “the green reader”, a disguised sophisticated plumb bobbing device, not allowed by golf rules.
And now, let’s see the solutions that are available to assist in green reading and that are useful in golf putting and in full accordance with golf rules.
c) Guessing the direction of the water flow. Very useful and allowed.
This is a very effective procedure I highly recommend. Observe carefully the ground close to the hole and imagine someone poured a fair amount of water in the cup till it overflowed. The direction the water would take is the fall-line or line of maximum slope. How to make full use of it is out of the scope of this article but it is carefully explained in my ebook Golf Putting Lines.
d) Marcel White’s technique for green reading. Very useful and in total accordance with the rules. This is the one that has never been revealed before.
Let’s start with the easiest feature this technique can provide. You are on a sloping green but you are not sure about your next putt being uphill or downhill because, as you move from one point to another, your perspective changes giving you misleading perceptions. Consequences can be devastating if you consider downhill a putt that actually is uphill, or vice-versa. Use this approach to solve the problem. Look for a spot that is roughly at the same distance from the hole and the ball and not very close to the ball-hole line. Standing on that point, you, the ball and the hole are forming a triangle, an isosceles triangle because two sides of it are equal.
Align yourself in order to let your shoulders parallel to the ball-hole line. Use both your forefingers to handle your putter and raise your arms, keeping them straight, till the putter’s shaft is horizontal in front of you and parallel to your shoulders. Now, your eyes and the club shaft define a plane in which any straight line parallel to the club shaft is horizontal. So, just move slowly both arms, keeping the putter horizontal, till you see it touching the hole. Now, the image of the club shaft you see on the ground will tell you if the ball is above or bellow the hole and how much.
I agree this is not as accurate as an electronic meter but the choice is between this technique and nothing allowed by golf rules. Besides we can take some steps to improve it.
First, do it while the pin is in the cup. It’s vertical and will help to see if the shaft is horizontal because both lines are perpendicular.
Second, you can train your eyes as much as you want because horizontal lines are everywhere to help you confirm your guesses. For instance, any house or building has horizontals on the top of doors, windows, walls, etc. Put yourself with your shoulders parallel to the wall and calibrate your horizontals.
And now, an interesting question is perhaps crossing your minds: if you line up with the ball and the hole, will this technique work to reveal the lateral break? Yes, it will!
So, get down, in line with the ball and the hole, and find two spots you can remember, on the grass, at each side of the ball and at similar distances from it. The two spots must define a second line that is perpendicular to the ball-hole line. You and those two points are now forming the isosceles triangle needed to use this technique. As before, the next step will be to raise the horizontal putter to discover which one of the spots is at a lower or higher level and how much. That is the lateral break. If you suspect of a double break repeat the entire process close to the hole. Just take care to avoid slowing the game.
As far as I know, this is the best and most reliable technique to improve your green reading without breaking the golf rules. With it you get a clearer picture of your putting zone in every situation. But don’t forget that your objective is to sink the next putt, not to get a topographic image of the green. Provided you know how to use all the information you gathered, a nice putt is on the way. Otherwise, it will have been a waste of time. So, if the results don’t show, I’m sure it’s time to read Golf Putting Lines Ebook and discover the pleasure of making good breaking putts. It was one of my objectives when I wrote it.
Marcel White (2009/11/23)
> Beware of a Common Pitfall in Golf Putting
This article deals with a problem very well known among golf players: Does the next putt break to the left or to the right? Sometimes, observations from the ball's side and the hole's side lead to different conclusions. Find out why this is so and how to avoid the pitfall in order to save precious strokes to your golf scores.
Now you are on the green, holding your putter, facing the pin and trying to evaluate the shape of that area between your golf ball and the hole. Forget about the strokes needed to reach the green. That's past, that's history. And because it's not the right time to put pressure on yourself, forget also
a) that the last few yards on the green can take more strokes than the 3 or 4 hundred yards between the tee and the green
b) there's no such thing as a recovery for a missed putt
Let's assume that you are aware of all that and take golf putting seriously. So, the most important thing you desperately need now is to know the slope of your putting area, that is the green's zone your ball will cross on its way to the hole. You observe carefully from the ball's side and there's no doubt it will break slightly say, from north to south (n/s). Now, let's have a look from the other side to get a clearer picture. And . . . oops! It breaks slightly from south to north (s/n).
Now you have a big problem that all of us (who look from both sides) faced several times. If your group is alone on the golf course and your buddies aren't pushing too much, you can repeat the entire process but the results won't change. Perhaps it's because the shadows are distorting the image or, perhaps, some objects in front of you (trees, fences, etc) are giving you a wrong perception. Still more likely, perhaps you are a biased observer. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps! But the truth is that the data your eyes sent to your CPU doesn’t match, so your brain gets confused with that and any commands coming to your muscles will reflect that dilemma. It's easy to predict there's trouble ahead.
Some of us, in this situation, decide to forget what they saw from the hole's side. It's a wise decision. At least you’ll act according to what you see when you take your stance to putt. But you can almost safely bet that you won't make that putt. Why? Because if the break is there it won't disappear just because you decided to ignore it.
Another solution is to try to emulate King Solomon's method, when he ruled that a baby was to be cut in two pieces, one for each of two women who wanted the child (fortunately the case was settled before the King's command was executed!). Using this method you just aim straight to the hole. The rationale is that if you see one thing from one side and the opposite from the other side, chances are that the solution is just in the middle. If you are a lucky guy, it might work. But don't expect too much.
My conclusion, after lots of missed putts and careful observations and experiments, is this: When you see something it's better to believe it's true and not a product of your imagination. If you see a n/s break, it's probably there. If, from the other side, you see a s/n break, it’s probably also there. You have a putt with double break and your observations just privileged the green's area closer to you in both cases. You shouldn't be surprised to get a better and more detailed view of what is closer to you, should you? And don't forget we are talking about slight breaks, not clear double breaks where we can use the method explained in Golf Putting Lines Ebook.
The double break theory explains why some of us only use the information gathered from the ball's side and don't report a major cognitive dissonance. On one hand, our brain is a bit more confident because it's acting according to what our eyes see when we putt. On the other hand, we witness that the ball starts breaking as it's supposed to. There's only one disturbing factor: it rarely enters in the hole, because we didn't consider in our "putting equation" the second break that was there waiting for the ball. Next time try to make a small adjustment and reduce the anticipated break a little bit. It has worked with me and perhaps it will work for you too. Good luck!
Marcel White (2009/8/11)
> A Black Hole in Golf Putting
Marcel White (2009/6/14)