"Everybody can get better on 15 minutes per day."
"You can even get better on 5 minutes per day."
Tom Tucker, Unrenowned Golf Coach 😄
Tom's Featured Tip: Why Amateurs Miss Breaking Putts on The "Amateur Side"
Lesson Comments: What Students Have To Say
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Why Amateurs Miss Breaking Putts on The "Amateur Side"
The Best Training Aid For Indoor or Outdoor Practice
The Divot Board
This is the most useful ball striking development training aid that I own.
Why Amateurs Miss Breaking Putts on The "Amateur Side"
For simplicity, all advice on actual swings or drills is provided from a right handed perspective.
Before I get to this week's golf article, here's some information I wanted to pass along. It relates directly to being able to continue to enjoy playing golf at a ripe old age, as well as to building strength to help you play better at any age.
I play poker weekly at my home, and to get to the poker table, players have to walk past my home gym setup.
One of the younger players asked me why I bother working out at my age.
My was simple and brief: that at my age (79 - born in 1946), my goal is to stay as strong as I can for as long as I can.
I'm always looking for current science based information on strength training to maximize my training efforts. To that end, I just read a great study published by the American College of Sports Medicine. It's the most comprehensive update to resistance training guidelines in 17 years, and what they found is worth this six minute read, check it out here:
The Strength Training Rules Just Got Rewritten.
Back to golf.
I saw this in a Lou Stagner newsletter and added a few comments of my own, enjoy.
We've all heard it. You miss a breaking putt on the low side and your playing partner says, "You missed it on the amateur side." Pros miss high. Amateurs miss low.
But WHY?
A 2024 study in PLOS ONE by Hasegawa, Okada, and Fujii dug into this, and the answer is more interesting than "read the green better."
The Study
Twelve JGTO tour professionals and twelve amateurs putted on breaking slopes around 10 feet from the hole. Two conditions: a subtle 1% side slope and a steeper 3% side slope. All participants wore goggles that blocked their vision after contact. As soon as they made contact with the ball, the goggles would quickly flip to "blackout” mode and they couldn't see how the ball broke and where it ended up.
What They Discovered
On both slopes, amateurs underestimated how much the break actually was. They started the ball too low, and the ball broke below the cup. Classic amateur side.
But it gets worse for amateurs. Not only did they tend to underread the amount of break, but whatever break they did think was there, they tended to set up and line the face up with even less break than they thought was there. It's not just that they couldn't see the break. They couldn't act correctly on whatever they did see. To put this in a simple example: The putt has 24 inches of ACTUAL break. The amateurs saw 12 inches of break, but when they lined up they were only playing 8 inches of break.
Why This Matters
Mark Sweeney, the inventor of AimPoint, teaches that golfers tend to visually under-read putts by about 50%, and that the cost of under-reading is usually much worse than the cost of over-reading. Sweeney notes that a putt over-read by a foot will usually finish a lot closer than a putt under-read by a foot, because the under-read putt has legs after the miss.
Analysis
Most amateurs treat putting as a stroke problem. They buy new putters, work on mechanics, practice how the stroke looks. Those things can matter. But this study points out something many of us need to consider. It's not just that you misread the break. It's that even when you have a reasonable sense of the amount of break, you STILL don't aim high enough. Your brain recognizes the break, tells your body to play more of it, and your body doesn't go far enough.
You could read the green perfectly, and your aim would still not be as "high” as you think you are aiming. This is why putts end up on the amateur side.
If you are like many amateurs and struggle with your reads, next time you're practicing breaking putts, try this: pick your aim point, then move it a little higher. If it feels like too much, you're probably getting closer to where you actually need to start it.
Spend time on your practice green dialing in your reads, and then dialing in where you are actually aiming/starting your putts. Start tracking your high side vs low side misses. Focused effort on this part of the game will help lower your scores!
Try it, you'll like it!
Email Comments: to TomTuckerGolf@gmail.com
Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer, The Stack and Tilt Swing
Love your practice, own your swing, own your health, and remember that golf is a game of discovery. Don't be afraid to experiment when you practice, it's good for your golfing brain.
Tom
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Use your club or hand to re-set the board after your strike
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All the best,
Tom Tucker
Teaching Professional, Batavia Country Club
WGTF ' "Top 100 Golf Teacher"
USGTF Class "A" Teaching Professional
IGPA Certified Golf Psychology Coach
Cell: (716) 474-3005
Email: TomTuckerGolf@gmail.com
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"There are no substitutes in the quest for perfection1"
~ Ben Hogan