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Teaching pros .What percentage

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  • Teaching pros .What percentage

    Of your lessons are putting? I find online there are so many golf swing instructions but very few about putting in comparison. Even though putting accounts for 40% of the score. What gives?

  • #2
    IMO, it's because putting performance is more about reading greens than it is about striking the ball, and green reading skills are developed more by practice and experience than they are via instruction.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Benz View Post
      IMO, it's because putting performance is more about reading greens than it is about striking the ball, and green reading skills are developed more by practice and experience than they are via instruction.
      Agree to a great extent, but if you can't hit the line that you chose (even if it was wrong) with the correct weight, good luck is your only hope.
      Practice hitting the line you chose - find a spot on the putting green that presents a straight line to the hole and putt, putt, putt. Then repeat the next day, and the next.
      Then learn to read greens, with your eyes or your feet or whatever. But do all of that quickly and decisively!!! (you've got a maximum of 40 seconds when it's your turn to play).

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      • #4
        Originally posted by rulie View Post

        Agree to a great extent, but if you can't hit the line that you chose (even if it was wrong) with the correct weight, good luck is your only hope.
        Practice hitting the line you chose - find a spot on the putting green that presents a straight line to the hole and putt, putt, putt. Then repeat the next day, and the next.
        Then learn to read greens, with your eyes or your feet or whatever. But do all of that quickly and decisively!!! (you've got a maximum of 40 seconds when it's your turn to play).
        All good points.

        However, my point was that such skills are more easily (IMO) and commonly developed through practice and experience than they are through instruction.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Benz View Post

          All good points.

          However, my point was that such skills are more easily (IMO) and commonly developed through practice and experience than they are through instruction.
          Instruction and practice helps to hit the chosen line. Experience helps to choose the line.
          Not sure that we're disagreeing.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by rulie View Post

            Instruction and practice helps to hit the chosen line. Experience helps to choose the line.
            Not sure that we're disagreeing.
            I suspect that we are in agreement.

            My perspective may be skewed because I'm a reasonably good putter and have never thought about taking a lesson (in that area).

            On the other hand, my irons are a different story....

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Benz View Post

              I suspect that we are in agreement.

              My perspective may be skewed because I'm a reasonably good putter and have never thought about taking a lesson (in that area).

              On the other hand, my irons are a different story....
              I also consider myself a fairly good putter, and a good reader of greens. For me, even with practice, the issue is more often hitting the right line than determining that line. I do play our home course much more than other courses, so reading the green should be less of an issue.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by rulie View Post

                I also consider myself a fairly good putter, and a good reader of greens. For me, even with practice, the issue is more often hitting the right line than determining that line. I do play our home course much more than other courses, so reading the green should be less of an issue.
                I am hoping focused practice can help with that. A couple of years ago I realized my biggest putting weakness was hitting the aim line.

                Last winter I spent a lot of time in the basement on a cheap putting mat working on a putting stroke to address that. I could not work on "read" because the floor offered no real slope or break to work with. But that helped isolate the other factors to work on, like the path of the stroke and squaring up the putter head at impact to set the ball in motion down a desired line. Speed was less of an issue with distance being more or less a constant.

                It worked pretty well, as I gained more confidence in putting this past year because I could rely more on hitting my line.

                So, now that the snow is flying, the putting mat went back into service last week and I think I can do even better.

                I have various manner of gates and guides to encourage and give feedback on the accuracy of my strikes.

                On the green, read and speed will be a variables for each putt, and there are different ways of improving on those. But working on a stroke that deliberately focusses on more consistently squaring up the club face and rolling the ball down a desired path, I think can help reduce at least that aspect of variability in putting.

                Fortunately there are no rules limiting the number of golf balls you can carry during a match!

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                • #9
                  There's more room for improvement, from a strokes-gained perspective, if you focus on ball striking.

                  With putting, if you can get the speed down, it's kind of hard to screw up from there.
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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by ZachOly View Post
                    There's more room for improvement, from a strokes-gained perspective, if you focus on ball striking.

                    With putting, if you can get the speed down, it's kind of hard to screw up from there.
                    Without specific statistics, it's hard to debate that one way or the other.

                    That said, I would probably disagree with your assertion regarding ball striking versus putting as a means to improve.

                    IMO, improved ball striking will only make a material difference in score in a few situations per round. Conversely, given that there are 18 greens to be played per round, improved putting is more likely to gain more strokes.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Benz View Post

                      Without specific statistics, it's hard to debate that one way or the other.

                      That said, I would probably disagree with your assertion regarding ball striking versus putting as a means to improve.

                      IMO, improved ball striking will only make a material difference in score in a few situations per round. Conversely, given that there are 18 greens to be played per round, improved putting is more likely to gain more strokes.
                      I agree, if you typically have 5 or 6 three jacks a round and could get that down to two, that's a good improvement.

                      I also think a lot of people's make expectation is not realistic, even pros miss short ones but rarely three putt.
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                      • #12
                        Most don’t know how to identity issues let alone build an improvement plan around it. A lot of people want to make swings look pretty and claim them as their own design but don’t have a model for putting in their head like they do for a golf swing. Perception is everything with putting and diving deep into what the player sees is rarely how a putting lesson starts. It usually starts with something cosmetic like stance grip or ball position, when what we see on tour is that those are variable to each player and not fundamental. Just my opinion. I have over 200 individual test results from players in 2021 including alot of local Pga pros. I ask the same question to them as the OP here - why don’t you teach putting more?

                        “Because no one wants a putting lesson”

                        Maybe it’s because the advanced level instruction isn’t offered?

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by ZachOly View Post
                          With putting, if you can get the speed down, it's kind of hard to screw up from there.
                          Having good touch is a start but you’ve looked at 1/3 of the process. Imagine good touch on a 30’ putt with 5’ of break (which is normal) that is Misread and Mis-aimed and the player is hole high with a 5’ bender from the side. Touch was good, aim and read being off from this far leads to 3 putts.

                          Read Aim Speed is a beautiful matrix of possibilities.

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                          • #14
                            I want a putting lesson But I’m one of the guys you see on the putting green as often as on the driving range
                            I think there is about 1 guy chipping or putting for every 20 others who are at the driving range
                            I can see the demand for putting lesson is probably 20 times less than a swing lesson

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by NickStarchuk View Post
                              Most don’t know how to identity issues let alone build an improvement plan around it. A lot of people want to make swings look pretty and claim them as their own design but don’t have a model for putting in their head like they do for a golf swing. Perception is everything with putting and diving deep into what the player sees is rarely how a putting lesson starts. It usually starts with something cosmetic like stance grip or ball position, when what we see on tour is that those are variable to each player and not fundamental. Just my opinion. I have over 200 individual test results from players in 2021 including alot of local Pga pros. I ask the same question to them as the OP here - why don’t you teach putting more?

                              “Because no one wants a putting lesson”

                              Maybe it’s because the advanced level instruction isn’t offered?
                              As someone who had a putting lesson from a qualified instructor, I can provide a little feedback from my experiences.

                              I'd asked a few pros about putting previously and received a few tips or things to do with setup, etc, but no real changes.

                              I should preface that I have always been a decent putter and never felt that I needed to work on my putting much.

                              A little over a year ago, I had a lesson with ta guy who is one of two level 3 Sam Putt Lab instructors in Australia. The info that I got from the session was game changing for me. I learned that I was setting up .8 of a degree closed, but my face was opening at address to somewhat offset this motion. Any left to right putts that I'd have would break more than natural due to the sidespin that I'd be putting on the ball. I also hit my putts all slightly on the toe side of centre - I never knew, or could pick this with the naked eye.

                              The major changes we made were moving my ball position back closer to centre and shortening my stoke.

                              All up, there were about 35-40 different measurables that were provided - obviously a lot of them you really didn't need to address.

                              With the putting stroke being so fickle and the target being so small, a quarter inch one way or a few degrees another can make all the difference in the world, compared to a full shot where you and have a 40 yard wide fairway to land it in.

                              The end result for me was huge. I'd never made it to scratch before and was playing off 2.8 when I had the lesson. I decided to make scratch a goal and got to +0.2 less than two months later. Two months on from that I reached my peak at +2.3.

                              I had never shot sub-70 in a competition previously and in a one month span had competition rounds of 67,67 & 66 (which tied the course record -something I never thought I'd be able to say in a million years).

                              The only change that I made to my game was the putting lesson. What it did impact, which also played a huge role, was my confidence. I'd make an early bogey and laugh it off because I knew I was going to make birdies.


                              It's been 13 months since I've had the lesson and I've settled nicely into being a scratch golfer. For about the past 6 months I've played about 4 rounds off +1 and 2 off 1, with everything else being at 0. I still haven't done anything outside of the putting lesson.

                              Would I have another lesson?

                              In a heartbeat. The first lesson I had was a 2.5 hour experience - it cost me $150 and was worth every penny. I'd originally contacted the instructor to get him to add a degree of loft to my putter as I thought I was hitting the ball into the ground, which was causing it to jump on longer putts. I tried working this out myself by filming my stroke from ground level in slo-mo. In the end, changing my stroke fixed this issue - my self diagnosis may or may not have been correct.

                              This time, I'll only book in for the $70 hourly "tune-up" as I have a good base to work with from the last lesson. The only thing stopping me it that my kids have sports on too many nights and it's tough for me to get there.

                              If you already have a solid stroke, but really want to fine tune things, in my opinion, you need the technological assistance of something like a Sam Putt Lab. I think you'd struggle to walk away from a session with a good instructor without something to improve your stroke and/or understanding of your stroke. I think it's also easier to implement than full swing instruction, due to the movements being smaller and less complex.

                              I do believe that too many neglect the small parts of the game and want to bash balls and improve their swings.



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