Thursday, September 22, 2011

Aimpoint as Poor Science

Aimpoint as Poor Science

I was asked recently to critique Aimpoint from the point of view of science. Aimpoint purports to chart exact aim locations for breaks for all golfers, with the exactitude matching the calculation of how far a car drives along a straight road at 50 mph in one hour. Golfers are fools for numbers, and believe anything wearing a lab coat and pocket protector must be a demigod sent from Heaven's own Science Department to explain to us poor dumb golfers "how things really are". The first thing the demigod intones stentoriously is: "To measure is to know!" So here come the numbers! Playing golf by numbers is like painting a Picasso by number -- it'll work, sort of, but that's not why the Good Lord created Pablo or you to begin with. So there's a basic problem in golf culture with how golfers regard science and the technologies of science.

Aimpoint is a great example of the pretense to reality and the claim to scientific truth versus the reality that such science is largely guess work and often way off base from reality and what golfers need to know about the world of the golf course. A leisurely examination of the sources of Aimpoint reveals its many flaws in applying physics to the skills of putting.

INQUIRY

Hi Geoff,

Can I get your thoughts on Aimpoint? I am considering attending a two-hour session and wondered whether you thought it was worth it.

Kind regards,

Golf Coach

REPLY

Dear GC, 

This webpage on the PuttingZone addresses these issues and more. Here in detail are EIGHT main problems with the "science" of Aimpoint's calculated breaks

I. ALL AIMPOINT CALCULATIONS ARE FLAWED DUE TO A POOR CHOICE FOR TOUCH IN THE MODELING OF THE PHYSICS THAT SKEWS ALL AIMS TOO HIGH FOR 99.9% OF REAL GOLFERS.

Aimpoint is a bit odd because the whole physics is based upon a level of touch that its creator Mark Sweeney cut-and-pasted from a physics article written by a physics teacher not especially knowledgeable about the reality of putting and certainly not a teacher (Tony Penner at Malaspina University, BC Canada in the Canadian Journal of Physics for 2002), and he in fact cut-and-pasted this level of touch (6-12" past the hole) from another physics teacher who calculated the numbers rather than learned about touch (Brian Holmes, in California in the 1980s, in the Physics Teacher Journal in 1986). (This is all obvious from Sweeney's Patent Application in 2004.) The level in fact is not at all what is usual in golf, and is essentially how Ben Crenshaw would LIKE to have touch if he were really good one day, but is certainly not normal for the vast majority of golfers. This means two things: 

1. the aimpoint calculations are not suitable for the vast majority of golfers; 
2. golfers cannot use the aimpoint calculations without first learning an unusually superb level of touch on a consistent basis. 

II. THE AIMPOINT "PHYSICS" IS ACTUALLY A "MODEL" BUILT UPON REALITY-IGNORING SIMPLIFICATIONS AND ILL-CONCEIVED ASSUMPTIONS THAT SPOIL THE WHOLE SYSTEM. 

The second problem is that the physics paper relied upon (Sweeney has little or no physics personally; it all comes from Malaspina University, BC) is a "model" and not physics calculations of reality. The difference is that a "model" is an assemblage and a modification of a set of standard general formulae from textbooks shaped and shaved until the formulae generate what looks like a reasonable approximation of reality when the theoretical calculations of the model more or less look like the numbers measured from reality in some manner. This is called "the model has a 'good fit' with the empirical data." The paper is AJ Penner, The physics of putting, Canadian J. of Physics, 80, 1-14 (2002). The "shaped and shaved" business requires making "assumptions" that simplify and vary away from the full complexity of reality. Here are ELEVEN poor choices made by Penner in constructing a "model" that Sweeney inappropriately applies to real putting: 

1. All greens are perfectly planar and flat: 

Penner (all quotations are from the 2002 article in the Canadian Journal of Physics): "Holmes [3] presented a detailed model of the capture of a golf ball by a hole on a flat [i.e., "level"] green. This model will be discussed briefly along with a correction that will be required to account for sloped greens [flat but tilted surfaces, actually meaning "a surface on a green that has one slope, one tilt, and is otherwise uniformly flat or planar]." 

Aimpoint charts are limited for use ONLY when the green surface between ball and hole is "flat" -- that is, the same planar surface without changes in slope, with the same tilt in space, and all fall lines arranged parallel to one another and all contour equal-elevation lines parallel to one another and also perpendicular everywhere to all fall lines. 

While it is true that greens are not usually "level" in gravity, the surface is "flat" only in discrete areas and then only to a reasonable level of resolution ("sort of flat" or "flat enough" for purposes of the read), and then the real "flat" areas are not very large. 

Below is a contour map of a fairly typical green (top of the two maps), with a "slope" area map of the same green (the lower map of the two). A "flat" area is a region where the contour lines next to each other remain parallel, and really this means that 3-4 contours lines stay parallel. Once these lines start to become NOT STRAIGHT anymore, the area is no longer "flat". So flat areas are areas where 3-4 adjacent contour lines are parallel LINE SEGMENTS without curving. And then there is another consideration: whether the slope percentage stays the same over the "flat" area. If the slope changes, that is the same as curling a sheet of paper: it's flat left-right, but rolling up concave or away convex in the up-down or near-far direction. This aspect is mapped in the bottom of the two maps below. 

So truly "planar" areas are 1. parallel contour lines, and 2. same slope percentage. BOTH maps below have to be consulted -- upper map for parallel, lower map for same slope.

EQUAL-ELEVATION CONTOUR MAP:


EQUAL-SLOPE AREAS MAP:





Below, the areas that are "flat enough" to consider "planar" for purposes of reading putts with hole locations on those areas are few and far between. If the blocks of the top map are numbered vertically and horizontally top to bottom and left to right as in real road maps, there is one reasonably large "flat area" at 2-2 in the top third's middle section, a tiny area at 2-3 at the top far right edge of the green, a very small "flat" area at 3-3 in the top lobe, a flatish TIER at 5-1 to 5-2 in the middle that is too steep to serve as a pinnable hole location and so is irrelevant in aimpoint charts, and another sizeable "flat" area at 7-2 in the front lower left of the green, and a small flat area at 7-3 in the front right of the green. 

The grids are 5 yards x 5 yards, so the CIRCLED AREAS in total have these sizes: 2-2 is about 15' x 15'; 2-3 is 6' x 6', 3-3 is 6' x 6', 5-2 may be 7' x 7', 7-2 is about 10' x 10', and 7-3 is 7' x 7'. 

Checking BOTH maps for these areas shows that what at first appears flat from the contours is actually changing slope, so that the really flat area is further restricted to only one slope color inside the circled area. Consulting the bottom map for CIRCLED ONE-COLOR AREAS: 

For 2-2, the lighter orange is about 10' x 10'. 
For 2-3, the one-color area is 6' x 6'. 
For 3-3, it's 6' x 6'. 
The 5-2 area is just too steep but in any event its flat one-color area is not very large. 
The 7-2 area is curved into convexity except for a central area about 5' x 5'. 
The 7-3 is about 7' x 7'. 

That's a total of one area 5' x 5', two 6' x 6', one 7' x 7', and one 10' x 10'. As circles, these are areas of diameter 2.5', 3', 3.5', and 5' -- not very large, and none remaining "flat" for more than two steps away from the hole.

Even with that, speaking as a greenskeeper who set pins at four courses, the chances that the pin location will be centered within one of these four flat areas is exceedingly slim. What is REAL is that the top lobe in the left map is a large half-bowl shape draining off to the right at 4 o'clock off the front-to-back line of the green and the bottom lobe is another half-bowl draining off to the bottom right at about 5 o'clock. While it's a fairly simple green, it's not really one that offers many flat areas or flat areas that extend out very far before the surface contour and slope changes from that at the hole. 

USGA pin location guidelines want pins to be located basically where there is at least a 4' x 4' flat area if not a 6' x 6' area, so 2-3' out from the hole in any direction does not change slope or flatness. Greens always have plenty of these areas, but they are about the minimal size for flat areas. 

The pins on this green are highly likely to be located on areas with very minimal flatness at the hole on a general "inside of bowl" contour, with the bottom of the bowl being tipped to "pour" the water off the green a specific direction. Yes, the bowl is very shallow, but it's still a bowl. Aimpoint charts don't work to give targets on the inside of a bowl. 

This means that aimpoint charts based upon the assumption that greens are "planar" or else the aimpoints aren't valid are not really useful much past about 5-8' out from a hole, and almost never are valid for 10' to 20' out. If I had to guess the percentage of real hole locations for which the aimpoint charts are actually correct for 10' putts, I would guess the percentage of real 10-foot putts and real pin locations are not "flat" or "planar" for purposes of the charts except in perhaps 20% of the putts, and that for 80% of real 10-footers, the charts are incorrect. (Aimpoint has obviously found this fact out, but claim they can handle it by telling you something extra other than what the charts say, in an advanced session for more money. Uh, okay boys.) 

2. The friction in the grass can be estimated reliably without direct measurement by calculating how much friction is at work stopping the ball at Stimpmeter distance X given the ball's off-ramp initial velocity off the bottom of the Stimpmeter [and Penner borrows a calculation about the Stimpmeter ball speed that is in error, so his calculations of green speed are skewed]: 

Penner: "The speed of a green will be directly related to the deceleration of the golf ball and will, therefore, be a measure of the value of g. The speed of a green is typically measured by a device called a stimpmeter, which is basically an inclined plane with a V-groove running down its centre. Holmes [9] has shown that the initial speed of a golf ball when it leaves the end of a stimpmeter is 1.83 m/s. For what would be considered a very fast green the ball rolls, after leaving the end of the stimpmeter, a distance of approximately 12 ft (3.66 m). For what would be considered a very slow green the ball rolls a distance of only approximately 4 ft (1.22 m). Using the speed of the golf ball as it leaves the stimpmeter (as determined by Holmes), the above extreme roll distances, and the acceleration of the golf ball as given by (5), the range of values for g with golf greens can be found. The result is that for golf balls rolling on golf greens 0.065 less than g less than 0.196 (6) with an average value of 0.131." 

Balls come off ramp differently depending upon whether the ramp presents "sliding" friction or "rolling" friction. A V-shaped ramp like the Stimpmeter alters the "rolling" friction from that of a ball down a flat ramp rolling on only ONE bottom point to that of a ball rolling down perched on two angled edges with TWO friction points. The physics teacher that Penner borrowed from for the Stimpmeter off-ramp speed is Brian Holmes, who mis-calculted the off-ramp speed by about 10% due to his error using only the one-point rolling friction. Holmes predicted about 6.0 feet per second ball velocity off the ramp (72 inches per second), but measured speeds are closer to 5.4 feet per second (64.8 inches per second), a difference of 11.1% (1/9th too fast). This results in OVERESTIMATING the ability of the green friction to slow and stop[ the ball at X feet away. Penner uses Holmes to calculate the co-efficient of grass friction of a Stimp 8' green as 0.131, and this is the basis for all aimpoint calculations. So that is too large by 11.1%, and the calculated coefficient of grass friction should be 0.116 instead of 0.131, even assuming that is the way to guess the friction coefficient. In engineering, engineers say the coefficient can only really be determined by direct empirical measurement. Neither Holmes, Penner, nor Sweeney has ever measured green friction, so not only is it error in the aimpoint calculation; it's a crap-shoot even if calculated correctly. 

3. Green speed does not vary anywhere on the level surface: 

Penner: "Experimental measurements of a golf ball rolling on a green by Hubbard and Alaways [8] have indicated that there is a dependence of the deceleration of a golf ball on its speed, with the retarding force increasing at lower speeds. However, the dependence was found to be small, i.e., a 10% variation over a 14 ft (4.3 m) putt (1 ft = 0.3048 m), and for the purposes of this paper the golf balls deceleration, and therefore the value of g, will be taken to be constant." 

A 10% variation in real green speeds from the beginning of the putt to the hole is not negligible. This is especially the case when the green has grain and also varies depending upon whether the surface is exposed to and faces directly into the midday sun (southern slope) or away from the sun (northern slope) and whether the green has any invasive grasses or weeds or disease areas (pretty common really). On some Bermuda greens, the different green speed up-grain versus down-grain played with the same putt force results in one 20-foot putt stopping as much as 6 feet short and the other putt racing 6 feet past the hole. And green speed also varies with time of day, growing strongest shortly after midday, and changes with mid-day watering. This is all in addition to the fact that one green differs from another because one green is high and exposed to sun and wind and the other is low and shaded in a boggy area hidden from the wind and sun. 

4. Green speed does not differ when the ball travels uphill or downhill so that green speed is always assumed to be the speed of a level green surface: 

Penner: "For the more general case of a rolling golf ball on a sloped green, the value of g will be taken to be the same as is found with level greens, and the equivalent contact point on the golf ball will be taken to be along the direction of travel. These approximations will greatly simplify the analysis and would be expected to have only a secondary effect on the determined paths." 

In actuality, the friction is the interface between the grass and the bottom shape of the ball compared to the center of gravity of the ball. When the ball heads uphill, the center of gravity presses MORE of the area of the bottom of the ball against the uphill grass slope, the way the prow of a boat plows into the opposing water. Downhill has less friction because the center of gravity presses the rear half of the bottom of the ball down at the downhill slope and this rear half does not have a "prow of boat" effect like the uphill putt. Indeed, the friction of a cross-hill or side-hill putt is also less than the friction across level green or uphill green. 

5. No putts have balls that skid and all balls start true rolling immediately off the face of the putter: 

Penner: "Both Cochran and Stobbs and Daish indicate that a putted golf ball will be in a state of pure rolling after traveling approximately 20% of the total length of the putt. However, this would, in general, depend on both the loft of the putter and on the nature of the impact as a golf ball can initially be given top spin or bottom spin depending on the relative position of the putter at impact. For the purposes of this paper the ball will be taken to be in a state of pure rolling immediately after it leaves the face of the putter. This will greatly simplify the analysis and this approximation would be expected to have only a secondary effect on the actual path of the putt." 

This means the touch calculations are off up to 20% depending upon what the specific golfer's stroke produces for skid-roll pattern. Any skid-roll means the aimpoint is not correct for that golfer, and ALL golfers generate some skid. The usual range is between worst-case 45 degrees backspin to 45 degrees forward spin, and NO ONE generates 360 degrees of true roll off the face of the putter without any skid. Skidding resulting from putter design alone can alter distance (and delivery speed and capture speed) between a loss of 20% of the energy up to a loss of 35% of the energy, so this is not a negligible issue. Assuming the balls start with perfect rolling means the aimpoint calculations are all off, as the distance of roll and final entry speeds of the calculations don't match reality by up to 15% (one-seventh). 

"A badly designed putter can give so much backspin that the ball loses 35% or more of its initial energy through skidding before it gets rolling. (High topspin putters can reduce this to 20% or less.)"

http://www.lindsayputters.com/topspin.htm
 

6. Any ball launching into the air doesn't alter the distance or the line:

Penner: "For the more general case of a rolling golf ball on a sloped green, the value of g will be taken to be the same as is found with level greens, and the equivalent contact point on the golf ball will be taken to be along the direction of travel. These approximations will greatly simplify the analysis and would be expected to have only a secondary effect on the determined paths."

"Figure 2 shows the overhead view for a golf ball launched at a speed of v and a launch angle of towards a hole that lies on the y-axis."

The Penner "model" ignores launching the ball into the air when calculating "launch speed". The basic physics starts with acceptable range of capture speed and works backwards to "launch speed" off the face of the putter along some "launch angle" on the surface plane. Penner is using the term "launch" as a special term of art in physics to indicate the "launch parameters" of the ball at impact, and this specialized jargon meaning obscures the fact that the launch equations in the "model" do not include a term for vertical motion in the z-axis or up-down off the surface plane, which lies in the x- (near-far) and y-axis (left-right).

The launching and bouncing of balls off the face of the putter vertically off the surface is the MAIN source of divergence of putts off line and less than the intended distance and break expected and used in the read, not the skid-roll issue. Typical putts with modern putter designs and usual stroke motions launch balls at least 3" and out to 8" or more sometimes. The greater the distance and force, the greater the launch. No break occurs while the ball is in the air; no grass friction slows the ball while the ball is in the air; and a ball that lands and bounces tends to bounce off line due to hitting grass stems or roots, ball marks, and dimple edges. The bottom line is that launching balls into the air "swiss cheeses" the break used to aim the putt and the bouncing typically drains the energy of the putt so these putts end up high for read and short for distance, aside from the bouncing knocking the ball off line too. In other words, failing to account for this factor renders the aimpoint charts inaccurate. 

7. Golf balls do not have dimples: 

Penner: "The above model ignores the fact that the surface of a golf ball is dimpled, however, as the dimpled surface would be expected to have only a minor effect on the path it seems a reasonable approximation to treat its surface as smooth." 

Of course they do, and dimples affect friction with the grass, interaction with the putter face for line and distance, and interaction with the hole rim. While it's not reasonable for Penner to have to factor the effect of dimples into the equations he builds up for the "model", it is instructive to see that all of the "assumptions" are really simplifications that IGNORE admittedly relevant factors in the HOPE that so ignoring the factor will not seriously undermine the "model"'s capacity for faithfully APPROXIMATING empirical experience to some reasonably satisfactory degree. 

8. The capture speed of a ball depends upon the length of its path across the circular column of the hole and upon the interacting geometry of ball and rim or back wall of the hole, and calculations borrowed from another physics paper (Brian Holmes) reliably approximate reality, and only approximate adjustments are made with respect to tilted rims located on uphill or downhill slopes: 

Penner: "In the case where the probability of a player making a putt is small, the scatter in the launch speed and launch angles in the putts of the given player will be much larger than the range in the launch conditions required to make the putt. The probability of the player making a putt will in these cases then be approximately proportional to the areas of the required launch conditions as given in the launch-speed launch-angle space. Pelz [10] found that professional golfers make approximately 50% of putts from a distance of 6 ft. Using this value to scale the areas of required launch conditions, as given in launch-speed launch-angle space, allows for the probability of making putts for other distances and other conditions to be determined. The result for a level green is shown in Fig. 11 with the probability of making a putt shown for hole distances ranging from 6 to 30 ft. Also shown is the range of success of professional golfers, as given by Pelz, in making putts at these same distances. As is seen, the general dependence of the probability of making a putt on hole distance, as predicted by the putting model, agrees well with the results of professional golfers." 

That's okay as an approximation IN GENERAL, but real golf holes are 1) not cut straight into the earth all the time (off perhaps 20% of the holes), 2) and damaged during play by golfers' rough handling in retrieving balls and removing and replacing the flagstick. While the tilt of the hole's rim doesn't have a very large effect on ball delivery or capture speed, the downhill slope past the hole resulting in unacceptable rolls past the hole matters quite a bit in changing the golfer's motion towards the hole for stroke timing, size, tempo, rhythm and the like. Downhill slope plus steepness and downhill slope plus slick or fast green speed REALLY alters what capture speed will work out in total for getting the ball ONLY as far as the hole and not too far past the hole. 

Oddly, Penner calculates hills as 5 DEGREES, which exceeds the slope for any pinnable position even when the green speed is exceptionally SLOW. Even as slow as Stimp 7', the maximum slope golfers will face for a hole location is between 3.5 and 4 DEGREES of slope, which corresponds to about 6-7 PERCENT GRADE. His modeling of uphill-downhill putts on 5 DEGREE contour/slope is then pretty far out on the fringe of relevance. 

9. All captures speeds are assumed to be equally good, except that the maximum number of sinks occur when the touch delivery / capture speed is near the lowest end of the capture speed range: 

Penner: "As is indicated in both these figures, the greatest range in acceptable launch angles corresponds to approximately the minimum value of acceptable launch speeds. In the case of putts on average speed greens, such as is given in Fig 14b, this also corresponds to putts near the maximum allowed launch angle." 

This ignores the real problem of avoiding three-putts by going too far past the hole, which is what sets the upper limit on delivery speed in actual golf. The vast majority of golfers need help setting the upper limit of their delivery speed -- not setting the delivery speed nearest the low end of the physics possibilities. So aimpoint chooses the fundamental parameter that underlies all calculations of all aim targets in a backwards manner at war with real golf. 

The reality is that delivery / capture speeds that race past the hole more than 2-3 feet are beyond the maximum acceptable velocity, and keeping the delivery speed within this maximum takes priority over achieving a delivery speed nearest the low end of the total acceptable range. Penner does not discuss a maximum range that does not send the ball too far past the hole, but in fact this speed is the upper limit and the golfer is perfectly happy with anything between the least acceptable speed and this. In other words, the acceptable delivery speed is not singular or even tightly constrained, but is a nice comfortable zone of speeds that result in the ball that misses stopping just past the front lip of the hole or stopping 2-3 feet past the back of the hole, where a comeback putt presents little threat of turning into a miss and a three-jack. 

In neuroscience, if the golfer guards against the too-far speed while perceiving the spatial situation and in forming his intentionality about the outcome, he is basically rendered SAFE in terms of the too-far speed. Anything less than that down to a speed that still gets to the front lip is sort of gravy. The main deal is to sort out NOT going too far past the hole. The brain is designed by DNA trained by evolution to protect the human and itself against harm, pain, injury and death during movement. The rule of movement in the brain is safety first, then maybe success second. With this brain, ruling out too far past is the key to getting success, defined as at least as far as the front edge of the hole and safely within the safety zone but never too far past and beyond the safety zone.

The brain regards "safe success" as any putt for which the ball ends up "not any short" and "not too far past the hole as to create a problem in the comeback putt". This means that any ball ending up in this "safe house" is regarded by the brain as "children safe in the home loved equally". There is no sense for the brain discriminating in favor of one child who arrived safe inside only 1" past the hole and against another child who arrived safe inside but who stopped 21" past the hole, when a 21" comeback is never a problem. So the brain does not try to have a touch skill that delivers all balls within a nice, tight go-by distance other than "inside the home safely", as this sort of nit-picking perfectionism doesn't make any putt "safer" or really increase the rate of "success" significantly or avoid "unsafe" in putts going too far past the hole and incurring extra strokes significantly less likely. Why bother?

Aimpoint approaches the issue backwards, regarding the situation solely in terms of sinks. The brain balances sinking one putts with avoiding three putts. In a typical round of golf at the Tour level, a player reaches 12 greens in regulation and takes 29 putts. Of those 12 first putts for birdie, the golfer typically sinks no more than 3 putts inside 10 feet and the 9 rest are two putts from outside 10 feet. All 9 second putts are from inside 10 feet, without a serious danger of three-putting. Of the 6 missed GIRs, the pro chips and 1-putts from inside 8 feet 4 times and two putts for bogey usually from 10 feet and out 2 times. Total 21 putts on GIRs and 8 putts on missed GIRs. Only 7 putts are one putts and all are inside 10 feet; there are 11 putts from outside 10 feet and all are two putts.

The accuracy demanded and available for line control inside 10 feet is no more than +/- 1 degree off line left or right and the putt still will probably sink if the speed is mild. But by the same token, not may putts inside 5 feet actually have break outside the hole, and line accuracy demand is not over +/- 2 degrees left or right. That's a double benefit greenlighting putts in this range without a big risk of changing one putt into three: greater allowable error in line plus using the hole's backstop. In contrast, putts out to 20 feet have +/- 0.5 degree as the maximum error in line and the distance control is more of a threat of being seriously off. This all means that the putts that require care are much more numerous at the long range than putts in the short range requiring similar accuracy for line and distance. In the typical case, about 11 putts are pretty dicey from outside 10 feet whereas putts in the 5-10 foot range number usually only 3 to 5 of the total. STOPPING long putts skillfully no longer past the hole than 2-3 feet is more important by a factor of 3 or 4 times than delivering putts ONLY 6-12" past the hole in order to match some read. 

In so many words, the objective in putting is not one putting the first attempt nearly as often as the objective is to try to sink a longish putt without running long past the hole and making a safe two-putt turn into a dreaded three-putt. Clean up putts are more about smooth rhythm and hitting the intended line than they are about perfecting one specific delivery speed. 

10. All putts feature square, solidly centered, and moving online impacts of the putter head thru the ball: 

Penner: "For the more general case of a rolling golf ball on a sloped green, the value of g will be taken to be the same as is found with level greens, and the equivalent contact point on the golf ball will be taken to be along the direction of travel. These approximations will greatly simplify the analysis and would be expected to have only a secondary effect on the determined paths." 

"In the case where the probability of a player making a putt is small, the scatter in the launch speed and launch angles in the putts of the given player will be much larger than the range in the launch conditions required to make the putt. The probability of the player making a putt will in these cases then be approximately proportional to the areas of the required launch conditions as given in the launch-speed launch-angle space. Pelz [10] found that professional golfers make approximately 50% of putts from a distance of 6 ft. Using this value to scale the areas of required launch conditions, as given in launch-speed launch-angle space, allows for the probability of making putts for other distances and other conditions to be determined. The result for a level green is shown in Fig. 11 with the probability of making a putt shown for hole distances ranging from 6 to 30 ft. Also shown is the range of success of professional golfers, as given by Pelz, in making putts at these same distances. As is seen, the general dependence of the probability of making a putt on hole distance, as predicted by the putting model, agrees well with the results of professional golfers." 

The above two passages indicate that Penner assumes golfers do not always execute putts according to the optimal or even acceptable launch parameters for speed and line. However, once the delivery speed and accepatble entry lines are set, the success or failure of the putt assumes the golfer will execute the correct line and distance (that is, a putt that enters the hole centercut with optimal delivery pace). The calculations of the model ASSUME all putts are started solidly on line. Given the aimpoint, the golfer actually will have some room to perform sloppily and still have the ball captured by the hole, but the aimpoint system has such fine-grained precision that it suggests otherwise. 

Obviously golfers don't really hit all putts on the exact sweetspot with perfectly square faces moving thru the center of the ball directly down the intended line. Pros have an impact profile on the sweetspot that is about 0.5" wide left-right and half that up-down. Amateurs have an impact profile about twice that large. Any one putt falls somewhere within this profile 95% of the time, but even that does not tell how often the face of the putter makes impact while SQUARE to the intended start line or whether the sweetspot trajectory thru impact travel straight down the intended line. Not all that often, I would say, having observed amateurs and pros hitting putts with cut-stroke and arcing paths and with open faces slicing putts off to the outside. 

What difference does this make? The unwarranted assumption would appear to help make the aimpoint system less subject to criticism, but in fact the implied precision required to do what the aimpoint approach commands is ill-advised. Golfers are far more successful in putting generally by NOT being overly precise on the aim and line. Ben Crenshaw, for example, does not use any line when he visualizes the read and the putt path: instead, he sees a ribbon along the green that is about as wide as his putter head from heel to toe, or as wide as the hole itself. Brad Faxon sees the swipe of a paint brush across the surface. Geoff Ogilvy reported in Golf Digest that he never uses targets or lines when reading putts. And in general the phenomenon of getting "line bound" at the expense of touch is well known among golfers. 

11. Calculations of the full range of possible ball trajectories passing the hole will include only a given percentage of successful capture trajectories depending upon the golfer's skill and the difficulty of the putt, so that comparing this capture probability figure to existing putting statistics will serve as a good judge of whether the "model" has a "good fit" with reality. 

Penner: "In the case where the probability of a player making a putt is small, the scatter in the launch speed and launch angles in the putts of the given player will be much larger than the range in the launch conditions required to make the putt. The probability of the player making a putt will in these cases then be approximately proportional to the areas of the required launch conditions as given in the launch-speed launch-angle space. Pelz [10] found that professional golfers make approximately 50% of putts from a distance of 6 ft. Using this value to scale the areas of required launch conditions, as given in launch-speed launch-angle space, allows for the probability of making putts for other distances and other conditions to be determined. The result for a level green is shown in Fig. 11 with the probability of making a putt shown for hole distances ranging from 6 to 30 ft. Also shown is the range of success of professional golfers, as given by Pelz, in making putts at these same distances. As is seen, the general dependence of the probability of making a putt on hole distance, as predicted by the putting model, agrees well with the results of professional golfers." 

As noted, this coefficient of friction is not calculated accurately, but even so, the comparison of the "model" predicitions / calculated results and the pro empirical data is comparing apples and oranges. Pro stats reflect putting on Stimp 11' greens, not Stimp 8' (0.131 friction) greens. A Stimp 11' green in Penner's erroneous calculations is about HALF 0.131, so that is a VERY BIG DIFFERENCE. If pro stats generated on Stimp 8' greens are compared to the Penner "model" predicitions, the pros would be VERY MUCH MORE SUCCESSFUL than the "model", so the "fit" between "model" and real data is not really as "good" as it is claimed to be by Penner, and is likely not a good fit at all.

CUMULATIVE EFFECT UNDERCUTTING THE AIMPOINT MODEL

Summarizing the above "assumptions", Penner uniformly notes that each factor has a real role in reflecting reality but the "model" cannot handle the complication, so the factors are all ASSUMED to be safe to IGNORE. That's just the nature of the whole enterprise of building a "model" -- there's an "art" to it in the choices, and there's also a degree of veracity that is set as the standard for when ignoring a factor is NOT allowed and more serious effort has to be expended in the structuring of the "model". The trouble comes in two main forms: the CUMULATIVE effect of multiple simplifications is likely to be more undermining of the "model"'s efficacy than supposed without deliberate analysis to this issue, and here there is none; and the persistent ignoring of admittedly pertinent factors tends to create an insurmountable BIAS that the end product has not suffered grievously from the slashing and cutting off of whole body parts in pursuit of a stub of a "model" that can handle calculations without great effort. That's basically what we have here.

III. LACK OF TEACHING ABOUT PERCEPTIONS OF SLOPE, GREEN SPEED, DISTANCE, AND BALL SPEED RENDERS CALCULATIONS PROBLEMATIC IN APPLICATION. 

Aimpoint lacks know-how about how touch works in the human brain-body or on real greens with real golfers, and hence cannot and does not teach touch. Instead, the sessions attempt to get golfers temporarily successful stopping balls within about 10" of the hole with two strings separated that far apart and golfers standing off at various ranges away trying to stop balls inside the two strings. That's NOT teaching "know-how" that travels from putt to putt, course to course, or hole to hole over the weeks and years. Neither can aimpoint teach how to perceive the basic factors reqired to turn to the correct page in the chart book and look up the correct row and column of numbers to find the correct aimpoint. This requires teaching golfers to perceive green speed as a Stimp measurement number (not really possible or normal); to perceive Slope as a percentage or degree (nothing taught except use an instrument of some kind to map the greens and get used to what the instrument reveals); to perceive fall line orientation straight uphill and downhill thru the hole (aimpoint teaches one technique that I taught David Orr, who then taught it to Mark Sweeney, and apart from that, aimpoint cannot teach perceiving the fall line orientation) -- so what use is the chart booklet if golfers can't look up the appropriate calculation (which, by the way, is incorrect)? 

Studies by the USGA have proved that even pro players with years of experience cannot discriminate a slow green from a fast green unless the difference between the two green speeds is at least 1/2 a foot on the Stimp. That is, pros cannot tell which of two greens is the fast one and which the slow one when one green is Stimp 9.5' and the other green is Stimp 9.75'. Interestingly, the USGA made no attempt to determine whether pros can accurately rate the Stimp measurement of any one green with any degree of precision. Probably, pros are not better than guessing green speed within 1' of the actual value. Personal experience over the years and observation of others convinces me that the vast majority of pros aren't all that astute at calling out the number of a green's speed based solely upon visual examination and perhaps a bit of walking on the green. Getting that skill takes more attention and practice than offered merely by long familiarity / experience alone. 

IV. GOLFERS DON'T AIM ACCURATELY, SO WHY GIVE THEM A TARGET THEY DON'T AIM AT? 

Over 90% of all golfers including pros do not aim inside the hole from 10 feet away, and even at 6 feet away, probably 60-70% aim outside the hole, are not aware of this, and lack skill to aim correctly and accurately. Aimpoint gives these golfers a target, and perhaps during the session the aiming gets finessed okay, but once the golfer leaves, he has no ability to aim the putter and the body and the stroke motion in a manner that succeeds in using the aimpoint calculation at all. So why bother without also teaching how to aim accurately? Aimpoint does not know how to teach this, and at best suggests that a different putter made by David Edel might somehow reduce the misaiming to a tolerable level at least for a while. Sad, really. 

V. GOLFERS DON'T STROKE THE BALL WHERE THE PUTTER FACE AIMS, SO WHY AIM THEIR PUTTER AT A TARGET IF THEY DON'T START THE PUTT OFF STRAIGHT? 

Because golfers don't ever aim correctly, they are at the mercy of a variable stroke to figure out some way to get the ball to end up where they hope it should end up. Typically, golfers mis-aim to the outside and this teaches them at a non-conscious level that only a pull stroke can possibly work. The pull varies with the distance, so even the pull is not a steady action. But golfers typically do not know they mis-aim and also do not know their strokes don't go where the putter face aims -- 90% of them are in this boat. Hence, what sense does it make to give a golfer a target to aim at, since even if he gets aimed at the target accurately, he won't stroke the ball at the target unless he overcomes his usual pull stroke? Lacking experience as putting teachers with real knowledge, aimpoint folks don't seem to know this is a problem, so you get a situation where the blind are leading the blind in the session and later, after the session, the aimpoint isn't useful to the pull-stroke golfer. (This is the same reason that aiming a line on the ball correctly "looks left" to golfers with a pull stroke as their habitual pattern. A line on the ball "looks" right ONLY to a golfer who putts the ball the same direction the putter face aims at address, which comprises perhaps 3-5% of all golfers on the planet at most. This is just another instance of NON-instructors, unfamiliar with real skills and real golfers putting, assuming that they have a good bead on things with a few math and physics calculations. 

VI. PLAYING GOLF BY CHARTS AND NUMBERS IS NOT REALLY GOLF, AS GOLF IS THE HUMAN CHALLENGED BY THE ENVIRONMENT TO PERCEIVE AND MOVE EFFECTIVELY. 

The USGA equipment czar approved aimpoint charts as not in violation of the Rules in March 2008, but in November 2008 the USGA and R&A main bodies entered into a Joint Statement on Electronic Artificial Devices such as iPod apps and laser range finders that unequivocally reaffirmed the general rule that ONLY DISTANCE is allowable information that can be included in booklets and in range finders, and that ELEVATION and CONTOUR information ("slope", "gradient" etc.) cannot be used to assist golfers in planning or executing a stroke, as that undercuts skills and tradition. Aimpoint thinks they are legal because the equipment czar issued a ruling that was not correct according to the Rules he applied, and is definitely not correct in light of the Joint Statement, and has simply not been officially withdrawn or corrected. Golfers who bet that use of aimpoint charts will be approved for use in competition such as the US Open or the British Open or any other stipulated round when the governing bodies convene to refine and clarify the Rules of Golf in their 2012 session are, in my view, a little over-optimistic that their skill-debasing ways will be overlooked and allowed to continue. The basic desire to use a chart like these is very anti-golf for skill and tradition, regardless of what the current occupants of Golf House might opine. I vote for golf, not folks unhappy that they lack skill and want merely a lower score by cheating. 

VII. AIMPOINT'S CHARTING HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE AND BETTER BY TEMPLETON IN VECTOR PUTTING, AND AIMPOINT AND PENNER WERE IGNORANT OF TEMPLETON. 

Colonel H.A. Templeton actually road-tested his charts and used a more realistic delivery speed for the main touch in his calculations (in his 1984 book, Vector Putting: The Art and Science of Reading Greens and Computing Break, long out-of-print and almost entirely unread by golfers). His charts have less break than aimpoint breaks. Templeton's 9.5' Stimp 2% slope from 10 feet sidehill has 7" break. Aimpoint's 10' Stimp 2% slope 10-foot sidehill putt has 9" break. This pattern is replicated throughout all the charts for all the slopes and green speeds and distances. 

VIII. THERE IS A BETTER, MORE NATURAL WAY, TO USE THE BRAIN TO PERCEIVE THE READ WITHOUT CHARTS THAT IS MORE ACCURATE AND RELIABLE THAN AIMPOINT. 

The REAL way the brain uses perceptions and movements based upon perceptions is NOT by using numbers generated by abstract general formulae out of physics texts. The brain uses FACTS without converting the facts into or out of numbers and measurements and calculations. The brain is a Picasso perceiving the world and then responding, and Picasso does not paint by numbers.

One better way is to imagine a straight line from ball to hole and then predict what exactly would happen if the golfer putted straight along this line with his personal good delivery speed, accepting whatever the slope and green speed and contour shape that is present, and then "seeing accurately" exactly how far below the hole such a putt would pass the hole with nice stopping speed, and then aim exactly that same distance to the high side of the hole and repeat the same touch in a straight stroke at this high-side target. Another way is to generate SPECIFIC knowledge by learning how to perceive green speed and slope and then find a typical slope (say 3%) that one is likely to encounter many times in a round on the specific course and then step off sidehill to 10 feet and putt dead straight at the hole with good delivery pace and observe and mark exactly how low this PARADIGM 10-footer breaks. In fact, putts on this slope and green speed form anywhere on a 10-foot circle around the hole use this one same aimpoint with only very minor adjustments for uphill putts and downhill putts. On the course, all the same putts with the same slope and green speed will break the same from sidehill and 10 feet, and then the golfer can adjust for fine-tuned complications. The adjustments are: steeper slope breaks more, so that one-third more slope breaks about one-third more; faster green speed breaks more, and as a rule of thumb each 1' increase in Stimp speed requires about 20% more break; and greater distance breaks more, and as a rule of thumb each 2.5' (one military step) increase in distance adds about 25% more break. 

Here is another "ballpark" system for estimating the break / aimpoint above the hole on the fall line in inches, after which the golfer has to pay attention to the complex reality and fine tune the read. For any given slope grade, the golfer counts the number of steps the ball sits out from the hole and applies the following formulae to get a good "ballpark" sense of the real break or aim in inches above the center of the cup along the fall line:

1% slope: Steps - 1 (e.g., 4 steps away, aim 4-1 = 3" up fall line) 

2% slope: (Steps x 2) - 1 (e.g., 4 steps away, aim 4x2 - 1 = 7" up fall line) 

3% slope: (Steps x 2.5) (e.g., 4 steps away, aim 4x2.5 = 10" up fall line) 

These approximations apply pretty well on Stimp 9.5' green speed between 7.5' to 20' out. For each additional slope increase, the break grows by about one third (about 33%) (e.g., break of 10" at 3% becomes 13" on 4% slope; and then on 5% slope this becomes 17").


To perceive the slope percentage, orient to the fall line straight uphill-downhill thru the cup, walk three paces plus 10 more inches straight downhill, or walk three 35" putter lengths downhill, and compare the spot 100" below the cup to the elevation at the cup. An elevation difference onto the toe of the shoe located at the downhill spot is 2" and a 2% slope. A difference onto the tops of the laces of the shoes is 3" and a 3% slope. A difference onto the ankle bone is 4" and a 4% slope.

Do the aimpoint charts work despite all these flaws? Not really. There is no quantification of the actual touch, aim, and stroke straightness or the arrival speed of balls to CHECK whether the results in a training session or by one golfer attempting to apply the charts in perceiving slope and green speed and distance and delivery speed actually involves using the charts correctly or getting the expected results or simply getting a happy result in a sloppy way. Golfers who think the charts are giving good results and teaching good green reading skills are simply reacting to getting something to drink after crawling in from the desert wasteland after years baking in the sun of skill-lessness. Well, perhaps the drink is not really wholesome.

How about the television computerized line? First, that line cannot be generated by a human or even by a computer unless 1. the green surface is surveyed with precise laserometry in tens of thousands of small data points, and then 2. fed into a computer until its memory banks are ready to burst wide open, and 3. then the high-powered computer number crunches all the surface data points and the physics formulae to generate a point-to-point fine-scaled curve from ball to hole across the contour that represents the computer's read, not the golfer's. This limits the tv usage to about three greens maximum per course, since the computer will not hold more data; the greens must be lasered days in advance; the computer calculations have to be short-cutted to reduce the time the calculations and plotting takes to fit within the time from "ball lands on green" to "golfer strokes putt", since without this short-cutting there is not enough time to use the tv system at all. At the end of the day, the curve drawn on the green for tv is not the golfer's read, but the computer's read. The golfer's putt may not match the tv curve, but this does not indicate that the golfer misread the putt or failed to execute the putt he read. And in any event, this system is completely useless to real golfers -- hence the chart limited to "planar" surfaces and 20 feet out. 

Here's how Penner ends his "model" building -- claiming comparison of Stimp 8' calculations with Stimp 11' pro stats works out fine but then doubting any of this matters to real golfers: 

Penner: "The model of the path of rolling golf balls on sloped greens that has been presented has provided reasonable results. However, it must be made clear that the model can only approximate the actual behavior of a real putt. This is not only due to the approximations made in the treatment of the contact force and the initial motion of the golf ball but also because the grass surface will have small but numerous imperfections that will result in deviations in the golf ball’s path."


"The dynamics and the resulting paths of the golf balls that have been presented provide a reasonable model for the motion of a golf ball on sloped greens. To further improve the model would require an investigation on the position of the contact area for a rolling ball on a sloped surface and the resulting contact forces and moments. The resulting required launch conditions that were determined from this model, along with Holmes model, allowed for the determination of the dependence of the probability of making putts on the putt distance. The result agreed well with the actual performance of professional golfers."

"The model presented in this paper could be applied, in general, to the topology of any green and it would be interesting to consider the variety of possibilities.
Whether the results presented here would help a golfer improve their putting is debatable and, unfortunately, this author has not noticed any improvement in his game.

As it happens, Mark Sweeney has said that Penner's physics accurately represents what happens in real putts as if the calculations of the aimpoints are "calculated facts," unassailable in the same way that 153 yards is not arguable and is simply the measured FACT. He sold the charts on this basis to the equipment czar at the USGA, who also thinks the calculations are no different from saying the measurement of the distance is 174.5 feet. But obviously, the "model" calculations are way off being mere measurements or infallible, unassailable statements of FACTS. Sweeney does not appear to recognize the difference between a "model" of cobbled-together formulae simplified for convenience and physics that accurately and veridically portrays reality with quantitative and numerical preciseness. 

In essence, aimpoint is a "suggested read" -- or even merely an "opinion" -- and not a very helpful one at that. Aimpoint is similar to your caddy reading putts for you without first watching to see how you putt. And in this case, the caddy has no great track record as a reader of putts and has a few issues in his vision, his basic familiarity with greens and the skills in play, and his capacity to make sense of what he's looking at. Since it's science, with numbers and physics and formulae and a professor and all that, it must be right, huh? Golfers, though, should not be misled about this. 

To summarize the MAIN points, the unreal touch skews all the targets too high, the calculations are based on a very dubious "model" with lots of simplifications that move the model away from reality, the whole is worthless without perception skills required to look up the numbers in the charts, the whole is cheating and not real golf, the comparison with pros is apples and oranges, it has all been done better by Templeton, the brain doesn't work that way, and there are easier ways to do the same thing better.

Other than that, aimpoint is the greatest thing since bounce on a sand wedge.


Instead of getting entangled in all these issues and trying to salvage something of value from the mess, golfers would be better advised to learn how to perceive slope, fall lines, green speed, ball delivery speed, elevation differences, and typical putting paradigms and patterns, and then knowing how to put all this together on real greens facing specific putts by paying attention to the space with the golfer's personal sense of delivery speed. Read with YOUR speed to see YOUR break for THIS putt, and then build the aim for start line and execute the putt with the touch that brought you to the dance. 

Applying science appropriately to a sport skill like putting requires quite a bit more than mere familiarity shuffling formulae about. In general, if someone claims that a certain science has applied answers for golf, the first question has to be, "What makes you think you know about golf?" In the case of putting in particular, it would be unusual in the extreme for someone to understand what is involved in putting skills without years of focused attention, observation and study. It's not something amenable to "cut-and-paste" expertise.

Cheers! 

Geoff Mangum 
Putting Coach and Theorist 
PuttingZone.com


17 comments:

  1. Great post! Blogging is actually a work and I like very much your blogging work... crf6adv.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Geoff

    I have been a good player since a very young age, for the past 8 years i have a been a professional competing in numourous events. My putting has never been my strong point notching up only one professional victory out of all the tournaments that i played.......I have to say I was amazed at how much Aimpoint has help me understand how to read greens with a structure to what i was doing. I feel that this article has not potrayed aimpoint in the light it deserves, I witnessed some very very very great stuff on my course with the results to prove the theory. I am sure that although science can prove most things wrong at times on this occassion i think i am goign to have to disregard the comments and contiune with practicing Aimpoint as it has help my putting no end since attending the course.

    From everyone who attended the course i dont think one person could say that it has not benifited there putting/green reading and it is that FACT that i tend to feel that this article is unjust and slightly small minded in its writing

    Kind regards

    Tom

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Tom,

    If you want to take issue with something I said, by all means do so. You don't, though. You simply say I should not say anything negative. Well, that would be a great way to carry on science, wouldn't it?

    There are plenty of negative things to say about aimpoint and you don't take issue with any of the ones I've pointed out. Perhaps a rank amateur doesn't care whether aimpoint is wrong or poor science, and you obviously don't really care whether what I say is true or false. But a teacher should not accept that sort of "whatever" standard. That's exactly why golf is mostly full of junk science and false claims of expertise when there is none.

    I don't recall saying that an amateur without much or any reading skill (perhaps you) would not benefit from something like aimpoint. I said you and others need to hear that there is much better. As to your claim that you have witnessed this and that, one would suppose from your beginners status in the skill of reading putts that you are not especially qualified to comment about that.

    There is a vast difference between "I'm a beginner without reading skill and aimpoint impressed me" to "aimpoint must be wonderful science and it is unlikely there is anything better". That would be an unintelligent deduction. My job is to make you face this, since your failure to be rational in the face of clear flaws in aimpoint is typical of why golf in general is stuck as a recreational activity instead of a serious sport of skill development.

    The skill for reading putts doesn't come from a chart. It comes from the ability to perceive the surface and to control pace of rolling speed of the ball and other perceptions and from the movement skills. Aimpoint might splash you in the face with some of these issues, but doesn't really teach you HOW TO PLAY GOLF with skill.

    So you want to disregard my comments? Go right ahead. It's no skin off my back. You only harm yourself by sucking on a bottle of gin instead of developing real perception and movement skills. Just saying, my friend, so perhaps my other friends in golf won't make your illogical mistake in an amateurish approach to golf skills.

    If you'd like to reply, can I ask that you either take issue with something specific I point out, or please don't bother emoting. I fully get that humans like to defend what they like, instead of making sense and discriminating good from not-as-good or better. Feeling good about what you think, without really having to think about what you believe, is the usual path of people not overly concerned about these matters. perhaps if you had to teach golf, you would be more concerned to think about these issues and face the flaws directly and make a decision about good and not-so-hot and better.

    Check one of the boxes below:

    1. I don't really want to think about the criticisms of aimpoint, as it seems okay as it is.

    2. I can't argue against your descriptions of the flaws in aimpoint because I don't have the education and background to take issue with what you say.

    3. I like aimpoint and I don't like what you say about it.

    4. your criticisms of aimpoint might be perfectly true, but I don't care, since I don't have any responsibility to others on this issue and personally I'm just an amateur golfer happy with something that seems to help.

    5. if you're right about all this,, then there is probably something better than aimpoint for reading putts, but I don't care.

    6. I don't like you and think you are "small minded" and unjust.

    Cheers!

    Geoff mangum
    Putting Coach and Theorist
    Not a friend of amateurish enthusiasm for bad teaching that misleads golfers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1:44 PM

    what are your thoughts on the Grober Paper on green reading?

    regards,

    Bill

    ReplyDelete
  5. ‪Dear Bill,‬

    Robert Grober is a nice enough fellow with a degree or two in physics, but he is not a putting instructor, and that's a problem when he purports to apply his formulae from an text book to putting skills. he knows nothing worth mentioning about "touch" or how it operates in the human body or what is real in golf and what is merely physics. And he is basically writing "play papers" that don't really matter to his career or his colleagues, so it's kind of what you usually get from a dilettante, with the added complication that he wants his university status to add credentials to his statements about putting.

    I'm sorry, that doesn't mean much to me. I've seen many, many academics in my life and live among them. So what's actually WRONG about Robert Grober's physics? This is:

    1. He says Templeton's off-ramp speed of the Stimpmeter is probably incorrect and too high, and that Brian Hodge (physics teacher whose calculations are used by physics teacher A.J. Penner whose calculations are used by Mark Sweeney in Aimpoint) are probably correct and lower. "Probably"? What the heck is that? Doesn't Robert know how to do his own calculations? And what is the meaning of the off-ramp speed anyway -- how it is used and what does it matter?

    The off-ramp speed of the ball at the bottom of the Stimpmeter is one of two ways to get a sense of the grass friction, so you can include that in calculating break and aim points. If you know the speed of the ball off the bottom of the ramp, you can make an educated guess in physics about the friction in the grass of, say, a Stimp 10' green. If the Stimp speed off the bottom of the ramp has a ball rolling at 6 feet/second, and that ball ends up stopping 10 feet away, then the friction can be calculated and guessed at and you get a "number" called the coefficient of friction to plug into the next formula for how far and how fast a ball will roll across a Stimp 10" green on a 17 footer etc. and how fast it will be rolling when it finally arrives at the front of the cup or misses and goes past. So why doesn't Robert calculate this number if he's serious about it, instead of saying that the lower calculation by another physics teacher is "probably" correct?

    Frankly, that's a bit of a laziness and a bit of the dilettante in Robert.

    Here's the REAL DEAL in physics, all you folks at Yale:

    The high school physics teacher got the calculation wrong, Templeton got it a little wrong, the USGA gets it a LOT wrong, and Robert Grober doesn't even try to calculate it.

    More ... see next post.

    ReplyDelete
  6. (Continued from preceding post.)

    Here's the key passage: in the Grober paper:

    "All putt trajectories are predicated on knowing the drag force on the golf ball as it rolls across the putting green. This drag force F(d), and its resulting acceleration a(d), is calculated from knowledge of the initial speed v(s) with which the ball is launched from the Stimp meter [3] and from the resulting Stimp distance d(s). Assuming the drag force is constant throughout the entire trajectory, conservation of energy yields the relation 1/2(mv(s)*mv(s)) = F(d)d(s), where m is the mass of the ball. The resulting acceleration is a(d) = F(d)/m = v(s)*v(s)/2d(s). Thus the putt trajectory depends on the square of the assumed value of v(s). In analyzing the Stimp meter Templeton calculates v(s)= 6.5 ft/s, which is based on the calculation of a ball rolling down a simple inclined plane [7]. In fact, the Stimp meter is slightly more complicated than Templeton’s assumptions. Holmes’ more complete analysis of the Stimp meter [8] suggests 6.0 ft/s is more accurate, though this is also a calculation unsubstantiated by measurement. One can not really claim to accurately know until it is directly measured, and this author is unaware of any such published measurement. It is likely the true value of v(s) is slightly smaller than 6.0 ft/s, as Holmes’."

    Got that? Grober says, best to MEASURE off-ramp speed but if not then CALCULATE it better than Templeton did. Grober does NEITHER of these, and simply uses Holmes' calculation.

    Holmes basically corrects for two oddities of a Stimpmeter that Templeton ignored by using a flat ramp as his model of the Stimpmeter. First, Holmes corrected for the fact that a ball rolling down a Stimpmeter is not rolling down a flat ramp but is "cradled" in a slight V-shape of 145 degrees so that two points of the bottom of the ball roll down the ramp and hence experience two points of friction, not one as on a flat ramp, and hence the down-roll and off-roll speed is a little slower. Second, Holmes corrected for what happens when the angled ramp meets the horizontal surface at the bottom, and the ball rolling down a 20 degree incline meets the surface: it loses a little horizontal speed due to stopping the vertical component of the inclined dropping. Okay,

    Holmes says a flat ramp without friction results in off-ramp speed of 2.26 m/s (89 in/s, 7.4 ft/s), that the flat-plane rolling friction reduces this to 1.91 m/s (75.2 in/s, 6.3 ft/s) speed at the bottom, and that a V-shape Stimpmeter with 2 points of friction reduces this to 1.88 m/s (74.0 in/s, 6.2 ft/s) and then the off-ramp direction change reduces this to 1.83 m/s (72.0 in/s, 6.0 ft/s).

    Grober assumes Holmes' calculation is better than Templeton's and then writes: "Templeton’s value =6.5 ft/s is at least 10% too large. Because the equations of motion depend on the square of this speed, all of the target points in his Appendix A are too small [low] by approximately 20%." Well, 0.5 is not exactly 10% of 6.0 is it? It's8.3%. But that's quibbling about the exact numbers, huh?

    Note that the BIG change comes from the off-bounce when the ball engages the grass in a horizontal plane from the 20-degree incline.

    You think physicists all get it right? Here's Arthur Weber's calculation of the of-ramp sped of a ball on a Stimpmeter posted on the USGA website: "V1 = \/(19.1) (2) (32.2) (12) = 95.5 in./sec." The official USGA calculation is that the ball leaves the ramp at 95.5 in/s, 8.0 ft/s, 2.4 m/s). Now THAT'S a difference of 33.3%, 4 times bigger difference than Templeton compared to Holmes. So which physics prof is on his game?

    More ... see next post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. (Continued from preceding post.)

    The USGA calculation is just silly wrong, because Weber totally goofed it up and determined the height of the drop wrong. Aside from friction, the only thing that matters to ball speed at the bottom of an inclined ramp is the vertical drop, not the length of the ramp unless the rolling friction is counted in. For a Stimpmeter, the ball drops from 30" up the 36-inch long ramp angled at a 20 degree (Weber says 20.5 degree angle, but whose quibbling?). But then he does the trig and uses THIS formula to calculate the release height and drop of the ball: "H = Lsin(release angle) = (36)(sin 20.5) = (36)(0.350) = 12.6 in". Weber uses all 36" of the ramp, not 30". If you use 30", the height of the drop is 10.5". Correcting Weber but using his formulae, the of-ramp speed comes out "corrected" as 87.2 in/s, 7.3 m/s, 2.2 m/s -- still WAY OFF from Holmes and Templeton.

    Holmes says the ball drops 0.2606 meters (10.25") using 20 degrees as the release angle.

    So who is correct? What is the drop height off a Stimpmeter? Grober doesn't know or have any idea. Weber and the USGA say 12.6". The official instructions for the Stimpmeter say : "The ball-release notch is designed so that a ball will always be released and start to roll when the Stimpmeter is raised to an angle of approximately 20 degrees. "

    All you have to do, if you are serious about any of this, is hold a ruler up beside the Stimpmeter and measure this height once. It only takes a few seconds. Guess what? The ACTUAL release height of the ball varies quite a bit, based upon how the dimples sit in the notch and how rapidly and smoothly the ramp is raised at the back end to get the ball to roll out of the notch.

    The "official" position is that the center of the 1.68" diameter golf ball is 12" above the ground when the notch geometry dumps the ball out of the notch onto the V-shaped ramp.

    I own an official USGA Stimpmeter and guess what -- the ramp is indeed 36" long and the notch is 30" up from the bottom, but the notch is about 1/2" wide from top edge to bottom edge and the TOP edge is 30" from the bottom. The bottom edge is 29.3" from the bottom edge of the ramp. So the bottom of the ball once it starts its "official" V-shaped ramp ride, starts at angle X and then rolls down 29.3" of ramp. Assuming the release angle really IS 20.5 degrees, the height of drop is then 29.3" times sine of 20.5 degrees, or 10.26" (which Holmes uses). If the release angle is 20 degrees, the height is 10.0". If the center of the ball is 12" above the ground upon release, then the bottom of the ball is 12" - 0.84" (one half a ball diameter) = 11.2" drop. Okay, that's all very FUNNY. This is the difference between a dilettante calculation in an office and REAL FACTS used in APPLYING PHYSICS to real situations.

    More ... see next post.

    ReplyDelete
  8. (Continued from preceding post.)

    So all calculations are pretty suspect. Did any of these people actually MEASURE the off-ramp ball speed? No. Grober admits: "One can not really claim to accurately know until it is directly measured, and this author is unaware of any such published measurement." Well, for heaven sakes, he works at Yale in the physics department with millions of dollars of measuring devices at his disposal! Get off the big chair and measure it, Robert, if you're serious about the physics.

    I did. It's easy. Just hold the ramp at different release angles, point a high speed 1,000 frames-per-second Casio camera at the end of the ramp in good light with a measuring rod along side the roll direction, release the ball from the bottom edge of the notch, film the off-ramp roll, and then review the film and count centimeters of roll per frame for 100 frames. Repeat this a number of times each height, and then do different heights, and then go on a green and use the Stimpmeter and measure ACTUAL release heights and observe releasing action of the user. The end result of all this measuring is that the off-ramp speed is NOT what Holmes says, and NOT what Templeton says, and NOT what Grober says, but is nicely in between.

    The main variations affecting release height and off-ramp speed are ball dimples affecting out-of-notch action, user variation in how the ramp is raised to the release height and then held or changed during the down roll, and the off-ramp bounce. What you learn is that the range of release heights varies from 10" to 12.5 inches in REALITY due to ball dimples and user variation, and that the specific release height when the cnter of the ball is 12" above the ground (bottom is 11.2" off the ground) is a SLOWER off-ramp speed than a LOWER release height and angle and also SLOWER than a higher release angle and height. This "official" height and angle is sort of a dead spot for off-ramp speed, and the variations on BOTH sides of the official deal are FASTER off-ramp speeds.

    That's because the lower angle and height has a milder off-ramp bounce, and this is the BIG factor is affecting speed. The higher release angle and height appers to result in faster off-ramp speed just because higher overcomes the off-ramp angle better than the "official" angle. All I know is the data.

    Averaging ALL the data to get a REAL sense of off-ramp Stimpmeter speed, it comes out about 6.25 ft/s, halfway between Templeton and Holmes / Grober. So Grober and Aimpoint are "about 10%" too high for aims and Templeton is "about 10% too low for aims.

    Between Aimpoint / Holmes / Penner / Grober and Templeton, my man is Templeton, because the grass has MORE friction in it than Aimpoint uses in calculating the ball delivery speed. Templeton gets the better of this, since he is in the direction of "good old sloppy human variability" but Aimpoint and Grober are in the direction of anal-retentive academic Ivory Tower not-real just calculating for fun physics. Don't give the the perfect IDEAL aim. Give me the REAL aim, or at least indicate something that fits ME, not "Perfy the Perfect Robot" physics apparatus.

    It's the old Kirk versus Spock issue.

    So, I like MY CALCULATIONS better than the Yale fellow's and I like MY MEASUREMENTS better than .. Oh yeah, that's right, none of them actually measured anything.

    More ... see next post.

    ReplyDelete
  9. (Continued from preceding post.)

    2. The second thing that is wrong with Grober is he has none of the engineer in him. That's why he not only is lazy and doesn't do his own calculations, but he also doesn't MEASURE anything. Not only does he not know what the measurements will show for off-ramp speed and green friction (so the coefficient of friction NUMBER plugged in the calculations of the aim points is correct -- they are NOT correct); he also doesn't measure his predictions against real putting. That is basic undergraduate level physics "model building". If you're going to build a serious model, its predicitoon in theory have to be tested against real-world results and reality to make sure there is at least a "good fit" of the predicted numbers and the measured numbers. Grober knows this, since he does it when he wrote an earlier play paper modelling the timing of the stroke and testing his model against Tour timing patterns in the stroke. And Penner claims to do this also by assessing the fit of his predicted values for success against Tour putting success, which he does in a funny way that bears a whole other discussion like this one to sort out and correct. But Grober in this paper about aim points does not test his predictions.

    I have. They aren't very useful.

    As to the diamond shape "blur" wherin all putts aim not at a point but into a diamond, geesh, guys, Templeton has been teaching and demonstrating that since 1984, over a quarter century earlier than Grober ever thought about this. Grober first wrote a paper and sent it to me, and I pointed out to him that what he was acting like he was discovering has been taught by me since at least 1995 and is fully discussed in Templeton. So he re-wrote his play apper and "suggested" Templeton was incorrect.

    One thing Templeton says that Grober ignores is that the uphill putts and downhill putts have slightly different breaks and the difference gets bigger as the slope or green speed gets worse or the distance gets far. But then he also says, in reality, though, the difference can safely be ignored for putts inside 10 feet on slope of 3% and less on usual green speeds. Nice!

    That's a physicists and and engineer in Texas! They don't measure things, apparently, in offices in New Haven or even on the campus at Yale.

    As to Penner, he concludes his "play paper" as follows: "Whether the results presented here would
    help a golfer improve their putting is debatable and, unfortunately, this author has not noticed any
    improvement in his game." As to Holmes, his short bio on the article in Physics Teacher vol. 24 1986 states: "Hi putting is egregious." APPLIED PHYSICS, in reality knowing the actual skills and facts pertaining to real putting, not PLAY PHYSICS.

    A dilettante is a person half serious about a subject but purporting to be scientific about it. Don't be misled.

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I can clearly see that there was a lot of time and effort in trying to prove why AimPoint doesn't work, why it's to hard or why a player doesn't have the skills required to use AimPoint. Why was there not more time spent trying to figure out why it actually does work?

    The first place you went wrong is the stemp of the greens? AimPoint doesn't use the traditional method of finding the speed of the greens so your argument there isn't valid or apply. Second let's talk the speed part of putting you state a player doesn't have the ability or skill level to be able to hit their putts the required speed. I may agree with you partially only due to the fact that until AimPoint a player wasn't ever held to a standard of speed. If the putt missed high and went 3' past they would state that it didn't break! But why wasnt the speed element the factor that was wrong. I have taught golf a long long time and we try to hit each club a particular distance so why not our putts as well. I think that is a skill a player could easily learn with the right practice skills.

    You also say that science doesn't work in golf. I have to ask are you saying yardage books are also bad and don't work? What about range finders? I bet your answer is no and that you use both of these when you play and science clearly applies to both of these. So the question has to be asked why is it as we get closer to the hole we start discounting things we use with longer distances.

    As for AimPoint working only on planar surfaces and in the real world greens aren't all planar. Your statement is right partially. Greens typically aren't all a single planar green but more they are built of multiple planar surfaces. So sense AimPoint teaches a planar surface read and you have putts over multiple planar surfaces guess what? You just read the putt for each planar surface and add them together! Simple that easy.

    AimPoint will teach you the skills of all elements required to use AimPoint. Distance because thats the largest factor on break, then slope %, followed by direction of slope and the angle your putting across that slope. AimPoint is a skill and process to increase the confidence in a players green reading. I will go out on the limbe and say a player using AimPoint is going to get more reads right and closer to the true break amount then a player just using their eyes and guessing.

    One large reason why AimPoint works is due to speeds of the greens. When using your eyes only to read a putt the can see distance they can see slope and angle your putting across I'll give you that. But if one green is rolling 8 on the stemp and another is running 12, all the slope distance and angle will look the same yet your break amount could be more then 40" of break for a 15' putt which your eyes can't tell so your left guessing. Where as AimPoint will get you in the right area.

    I suggest everyone at least attend a class and learn the skills and understand why they are important before they take the time and effort to disprove the system. At least it is a system versus the way the every day golfer reads greens. Another large key is speed AimPoint green readers can read putts in under 20 seconds which will speed up play.

    Learn learn before you write it off!!!!

    Any question or comments I would love to hear them.

    Betterputting@gmail.com
    801-791-2149

    ReplyDelete
  11. Dear Jared,

    I assume you are not a putting instructor, but a golfer enthusing about aimpoint. You state you teach golf, but it's obvious you really only teach full swing and don;'t seriously know anything about putting teaching or even putting skills. If you were a putting instructor, you would not put forward the justifications that you do to promote half-baked teaching of gimmickry instead of skill.

    Your statement that I should spend time proving how aimpoint "works" strikes me as unusually odd. I show you that aimpoint's claim that 2+ 2 = 5 is wrong, and you complain that I don't spend time proving that accepting 5 as the correct answer is close enough to prove that aimpoint "works". I understand that you haven't spent much time learning how to be analytical and logical, but I have spent over 40 years after college on that.

    Let me deal with the main issue causing you to misunderstand what I am saying. You write: "I can clearly see that there was a lot of time and effort in trying to prove why AimPoint doesn't work, why it's to[o] hard or why a player doesn't have the skills required to use AimPoint. Why was there not more time spent trying to figure out why it actually does work?"

    I am not TRYING to prove aimpoint doesn't WORK. Those are your terms. And they miss the point.

    First, I am proving what is flawed and bad about aimpoint, the mistakes in physics and in putting in the system that a serious putting instructor would not make or tolerate -- not "TRYING" to prove, but offering actual proof. I have pointed out plainly what the problems are in terms that any physics professor or knowledgable putting instructor would agree with, and of course as usual you don't respond to any of those points but ignore them. That's not intelligent on your part.

    Second, your term "WORK" is vague and fuzzy. I don't say aimpoint doesn't WORK AT ALL -- I say it is half-baked and full of problems that a serious putting instructor would not tolerate as something to "pass off" to golfers as the best way the teacher could come up with for how to putt. When you say "aimpoint works", your use of this term implies I say it doesn't work at all, which I don't. I say it is a gimmick that will somewhat improve a lot of golfers who happen to be totally unorganized about reading putts, but it is a stupid way to teach reading putts because it doesn't teach how to read putts. You agree with this assessment, and say "At least it is a system versus the way the every day golfer reads greens." That's admitting it is a half-baked system, isn't it? Yes, of course it is. To a serious putting instructor, that's not tolerable. If you want to teach golfers something about putting, don't cherry pick one little aspect of putting without understanding that one or the other aspects that must integrate together and think the gimmick you come up with integrates all the aspects of putting together in a coherent and sound way. What you get at best is a stand-alone gimmick NOT working with the other required skills for putting, like touch and aiming and stroke.

    Continued ...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Skills for putting require perception skills. Aimpoint doesn't teach PERCEPTIONS (except the one method for perceiving the fall line that they borrowed from me about walking around the hole). Aimpoint teaches ZERO about how to perceive the slope and the green speed and the ball speed and even the distance from the hole, and what it teaches for surface shape is basically coming out of a mathematics book and not based upon deep experience with real greens. And even IF aimpoint taught perception, the CALCULATIONS of break are bad because based upon an unrealistic ball speed. And even if the ball speed is okay, aimpoint as usual has no clue about how to teach the SKILL of performing that ball speed except for a drill or exercise, so there is nothing taught the golfer about how touch actually works in the perceptions and the body movement.

    You say in your response about ball speed: "I have taught golf a long long time and we try to hit each club a particular distance so why not our putts as well. I think that is a skill a player could easily learn with the right practice skills." I invite you to notice that YOU don't understand how the body works for distance control in the full swing and merely say "we TRY to hit each club a particular distance." That is not understanding or teaching, Jared: that is drills and exercises that sort of "groove a move", which is ignorant of motor science and neuroscience even if golf guys believe steady "practice" grooves a move -- all that does it is give someone a temporary probability of performing as intended that persists for a short while and then requires more practice to keep in place. That's not "know how", Jared, and there may be a short-term ability but without "know how" there is not long-term skill. Perhaps you should read some motor sports science about that, as I find golf teachers never actually know stuff like that. Try "googling" Bjork and Druckman and read pages 45-46 of their book In the Mind's Eye: Enhancing Human Performance (National Academies Press, 1991), http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=1580&page=45. Teaching ability without teaching understanding or "know how" of what to do and why with the body and the perceptions and movements is NOT serious teaching.

    In addition to not teaching perception and movement "know how", or even encouraging golfers to pay attention to these issues, aimpoint has these others problems that a serious putting instructor would not foist off on golfers:

    First, 90% of all golfers lack the "know how" to aim accurately at a target with a putter from as short a range as 6-10 feet away, and in fact DON'T aim inside the hole from 10 feet away, and don't KNOW they are off, and don't KNOW how this corrupts their stroke, as a straight stroke would obviously miss and only a pull- or push-stroke will correct for the bad aim. This means aimpoint is "pointless" without also teaching the "know how" for accurate aiming, and of course they don't have the first clue about that, and neither do you. The only folks who ever got something working with bailing wire and chewing gum were the Tour players in the 1960s, but their gimmick was just that -- a gimmick without understanding and not fundamentally "know how". So for aimpoint, whu give golfers a target if they can't aim at it?

    Continued ...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Second, if 90% of golfers lack aiming skill, these same 90% also lack "know how" for their stroke, since they don't actually send the ball the same direction the putter face aims. Where they send the ball is a mystery to them, and also "how" they make a stroke that sends the ball in this mysterious direction OTHER THAN where the putter face aims. The experience of today's Tour pros looking at their strokes on a computer of some sort is similar to witnessing how sausage is made. One they see how their stroke is structure, it is really only that way for one putt and one green speed and distance and surface shape and ball speed. The next putt has a different structure. It's sad but true that hardly any golfer actually have "know how" for a sound stroke and instead putt all their eggs in the consistency basket. The trouble is consistency is lacking without "know how", and so almost all golfers (pros included) can gain big improvements in putting by learning what causes good and bad strokes. For aimpoint, which has no teaching about what causes good or bad strokes, the golfer is handed a target without learning how to perceive it, the target is not the correct one for that golfer because it is not the ball speed the golfer can and will use, the golfer is not taught how to use the aimpoint ball speed, the golfer cannot aim accurately at the target, AND even if the target were okay and the golfer could aim accurately at it, the golfer's stroke will not start the ball on the correct line where the putter face aims. A serious putting instructor would know all these problems and not pass off aimpoint as something that, in your vague term, "works".

    As to you correcting me about my "mistakes," let me say charitably that you don't know anything about putting but are one of those persons who pretends to know. For example, you write: "As for AimPoint working only on planar surfaces and in the real world greens aren't all planar. Your statement is right partially. Greens typically aren't all a single planar green but more they are built of multiple planar surfaces. So sense AimPoint teaches a planar surface read and you have putts over multiple planar surfaces guess what? You just read the putt for each planar surface and add them together! Simple that easy." That's ignorant, since it is not how it works. Greens are not a collection of planar surfaces and if you think they are, you probably failed fifth grade geometry. Even aimpoint is not that dumb, as they teach shapes, but never state that greens are simply different planes. And IF you wanted to "add them together", you obviously don't know how and what you suggest is simply wrong. here's how you do it (and please don't claim you already know this, you don't): what gets added is HOW LONG IN TIME the ball spends on a given plane, not HOW LONG IN LENGTH that plane is. In your ignorant way, if two planes were both 10 feet long and one was 2% slope and the other 4% slope, you would "add them" to tell a golfer the total combined slope is 3%, but that ignorant in physics and putting. The first question is HOW MUCH TIME does the ball spend on the first 2% slope in proportion to the TIME spent on the second 4% slope. The usual answer is something close to 1/3rd on the first slope and 2/3rds on the second slope. To "add" these, the formula from physics, math, and putting instruction is (0.33 x 2% + 0.67 x 4%) / 2 = (0.66 + 2.68) / 2 = 3.34/2 = 1.67%. You tell a golfer 3% and you're wrong by a factor of nearly 100%. So you don't know what you're talking about, although you make "authoritative noises" in the way you lecture me about my mistakes and your "correct" understanding.

    Continued ...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Another ignorant claim you make is the following: "One large reason why AimPoint works is due to speeds of the greens. When using your eyes only to read a putt the can see distance they can see slope and angle your putting across I'll give you that. But if one green is rolling 8 on the stemp and another is running 12, all the slope distance and angle will look the same yet your break amount could be more then 40" of break for a 15' putt which your eyes can't tell so your left guessing. Where as AimPoint will get you in the right area." You say the golfer cannot tell the break on the "stemp" 12 green, and that's frankly just dumb and uneducated. I teach golfer HOW to perceive what matters and HOW to understand what this means for break and HOW to see the curve of the ball across a Stimp 12" green surface every day and have for decades now. I fully get it that YOU don't know anything about this, since you aren't a serious putting instructor, and I also get that aimpoint doesn't teach it either but simply "hands" the golfer a target (such as it is from the poor numbers used in the calculations). You don't know the least thing about "how to use the eyes" and your tern "angle" in the above quote is ignorant, as even you don't know what you meant by that, because you then state for the Stimp 12" putt that "all the slope distance and angle will look the same". That's completely ignorant, because you are using the word "angle" without knowing what you are talking about. I see this all the time in golf teachers who refuse to admit they teach full swing only and haven't really thought much about putting.

    The MAIN POINT is that a serious putting instructor would not accept something that "sort of works in a screwy way" as a gimmick to get golfers a little better than their usual horrid lack of skill reading putts, instead of teaching something that works correctly to teach golfers real skill. The difference is that this sort of half-baked crap teaching that forestalls golfers learning real skill is okay with the likes of you. All that means is that neither you nor aimpoint are serious about teaching putting. I get that. Golf is chock-a-block full of dip-a-toe-in dilettantes who offer something for cash that is just a gimmick, and that's what I despise, as a golfer who wants serious skills teaching. There is a LOT BETTER than the half-baked wrong stuff in aimpoint.

    Do all golfes a favor Jared, and don't teach putting until you get serious about what is required for touch, and reading, and aiming, and stroking all fitting together, and then also get serious about the problems of teaching and explaining and demonstrating this to golfers so that they leave you with REAL SKILL and "know how" that travels out onto the golf course every day, without childish dependency upon some flawed calculations to "just tell you where to aim" and call that real golf. It ain't, buddy, so please stop promoting it, as you do a disservice to golfers and to golf.

    Cheers!

    Geoff Mangum
    PuttingZone.com
    Just sayin' ...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Whoa Geoff, Cool down mate. There are puttingg teachers like you who bury themselves in the subject with selfless enthusiasm; and there are guys outthere looking for a magic potion to sell the troops - somethingt he weekender can take thatwill fix their puttingg without too much effort on their part. As a pro guitar teacher I come across this in our parallel World. Just do this regime and you will become Wolrd Calss, just follow my lessons to achieve a pro career and earn a six fugureincome every year. Sound familiar?

    Its because people are looking for the lazy, no efforrt way to the top. There's always the mystical hope that there is an easier way.

    I get this sort of question all the time and I guess you do as well. Can you show me a method that will work the most effectively. That will get me the pro bookings and earnings? You kniw what, if it was that easy I wouldn't tell you; I would be doing it myself!

    In the end its about hours of practice. Now I get the thing about what practice, and I, like you, can give them the routines, the drills, the timetable..... Trouble is I usually get asked this by a student who can't seem to manage an hour's practice a week - let alone the hour or two a day they should be doing to reach their goals. How can I tell if there's a better way, when they aren't on any sort of way at all.

    Aimpoint and delta Puttng offer a sort of mathmatical methodology. Frankly it doesn't really matter if it works or not - its about belief. If you think you've found the holy grail of putting I bet you putt putt and putt some more with the method - and you know what - after all that practice, you putt better. Amd the thinking then goes - this is the method that works - doubt vanishes, commitment takes its place. And the methodology is seen to "work". We'll leave aside the 100 hours of putting you did this last month (something you have neverr ever done befo) and we'll place the success in the model.

    Same on the guitar. If I could use a method that would so enthuse a student to practice for two hours a day - I 'd be happy for them to believe the success is in the method. However if I could construct such a believeable method, I could add to my income considerably. Although ethics might get in the way. And you are only good until the next "better" method arrives round the corner. I business these "methods" sweep through the commercail community every two to three ears - and then become the old, proven wholly wrong, methodology.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Dear Chris,

    You obviously need to take a "smart pill", and perhaps if YOU do that, then I'll "cool down", mate.

    You don't seem to get the importance of pointing out the bogus science.

    First, golf culture is FILLED with bogus teaching, and that's simply unacceptable to someone who cares about the game. Every generation of new golfers goes thru the same dumb culture and gets messed up. The game could be thriving, but the culture is not welcoming and nurturing, and one of the main reasons is the sort of crap teaching that fills the air, aimpoint being just another example of a concocted gimmick that purports to teach only a single aspect of putting filled with poor methods and flawed approaches cobbled together by a guy who does not teach putting and does not understand putting skills or problems. That's typical for the sort of thing golf culture serves up and tolerates. You seem to think it is quite unobjectionable, since you have no real regard for the game.

    Second, using the allure of "science" to peddle something to golfers is a cheap shot considering the gullibility and lack of scientific sophistication of golfers, unless the science is actually sound and the intent helpful. Neither is the case with aimpoint, where the science is bogus because the physics is bad and the approach is not even based upon the human perceiving and moving according to human processes, and the business of aimpoint pretty clearly has a NON-generous side to it that is not difficult to contrast with more helpful teachers in golf.

    So, Mate, you don't have a dog in this fight. Even if you think it is okay to teach mere enthusiasm, if you could teach the enthusiasm without the crap, one would expect a mature and responsible person would do that. And if you are too stupid to figure out a system of teaching guitar that does anything more than enthuse students to practice, but the practice keeps them from practicing something that actually is crap-free, then perhaps you won't object if someone points out that your teaching is best not adhered to by students. And if you don't play guitar or understand what needs teaching, why would you concoct some weird gimmick to "teach" guitar with voodoo "science", even if it enthused a few gullible students, since those students might practice, and perhaps even get better, but you are basically diverting the students away from something better.

    So that in the final analysis is probably why you just don't get it. To you (and to probably the majority of people), golf is so full of half-assed teaching that it really doesn't matter if another half-assed "teacher" wants to jump in and cash in on golf and golfers. And so here you are defending this.

    Really, mate ...

    ReplyDelete
  17. Re-reading an earlier comment, I want to correct this sentenve I wrote in haste and error:

    "To "add" these, the formula from physics, math, and putting instruction is (0.33 x 2% + 0.67 x 4%) / 2 = (0.66 + 2.68) / 2 = 3.34/2 = 1.67%."

    The correction is:

    To "add" these, the formula from physics, math, and putting instruction is (0.33 x 2%) + (0.67 x 4%) = 0.66 + 2.68 = 3.34%.

    Not divided by half.

    ReplyDelete