Severiano Ballesteros Sota and "Ritmos"
Bobby Jones in the 1930s wrote that "Timing is the most important skill in golf, and yet no one teaches it." Seve Ballesteros was a great putter, one of the best, and he simply used "ritmos" as his "technique", but he wasn't the greatest explainer of how that might be an accurate and consistent way to putt.
No one in golf history has ever taught how "touch" works. It's timing. Here's how it works:
THE BRAIN, THE WORLD, THE BODY
The human brain "times" the body motion to comport with the objective requirements of the world. In order to do that consistently and accurately, the brain uses "tempo" and "rhythm".
"Tempo" is the conductor waving his arms in the air to indicate the quickness or slowness with which the orchestra should play the sheet music. A metronome is set to one particular tempo by adjusting the length of the rod and bob. One length, one tempo.
"Rhythm" on the other hand is what the drummer does when he plays all quarter notes on the sheet so that all notes of the same sort are "equal duration", whatever the "tempo". Four quarter notes are always played "bang bang bang bang" or "pop pop pop pop", whether the playing is short and quick or slow and leisurely.
But the brain does not use just "any old" tempo and rhythm. There is a "wheelhouse" tempo in each body and also a "wheelhouse" rhythm, and neither of these has anything to do with the personality and preference of the golfer. The world uses the golfer's body to INSTALL the tempo and the rhythmic pattern in the brain, and the brain is designed in evolution expressly for the purpose of accepting and recording what the world does TO the body, over what the body does to the world.
And these timing aspects are very similar from golfer to golfer, insofar as each adult body is pretty much similar in size and proportionality and mass distribution. Ask any clothing manufacturer what are the most numerous sizes sold for shirts and pants. Certain sizes are FAR more numerous than other "outlier" sizes -- it's just the demographics and anthropometrics of our species.
THE WORLD TRAINS THE BRAIN, THE BRAIN LEARNS THE WORLD FOR SAFETY AND SUCCESS
The LENGTH or SIZE that swings with only one second tempo is a meter stick, 100 cm or 39.37 inches in length. The adult human arm is not far off this length. Consequently, when the EARTH BALL moves the arms, adults typically experience a tempo that is close to a 1-second tempo in the natural swinging of the arms. The adult human leg is also not far off this meter-stick length. And not surprisingly, adults typically experience a gait tempo of nearly one second per stride when walking in a casual manner.
Studies show that the speed of walking depends upon the stride length (which depends generally on stature or height), BUT that given a specific height and stride length and speed, the step FREQUENCY tends to be about the same for adults, regardless of preferred speed or stature. The expression "Speed / Squareroot(Gravity acceleration x Height)" is pretty constant for a wide variety of adult sizes and speeds. (R. Alexander, Stride length and speed for adults, children, and fossil hominids, Am. J. Phys. Anthrop. 63(1) (Jan. 1984): 23-27.) The usual step frequency correlates with the pendular action of the limbs and centers on 2 steps per second, for a gait frequency of 1 Hz. (J. Bertram, Constrained optimization in human walking: cost minimization and gait plasticity, J. Exper. Biol. 208 (2005): 979-991.) The rule for pedestrian crosswalks is that people walk at about 3.5 feet/second and the crosswalk lights are set to a "slow" walker at 3.0 feet/second (e.g., 10 seconds to cross a 30-foot wide crosswalk). (J. LaPlante and T. Kaeser, A history of pedestrian signal walking speed assumptions, 3rd Urban Street Symposium, Seattle WA (June 24-27, 2007).) When height is factored out ("normalized"), the usual walking pace for adults centers on 1 Hz.
Male sleeve lengths range (age 40, US population) from 34" (5th percentile) to 38.5" (95th percentile), with the actual "reach" from shoulder to wrist ranging from about 27" to 32". Therefore, since the EARTH BALL swings a 39.37" meter stick in precisely 1 second, the same EARTH BALL "naturally" swings the adult male arm is a little less than 1 second. (NASA, Man-Systems Integration Standards, vol. 1 sec. 3, Anthropometry and Biomechanics, Fig. 3.3.1.3-1 (12 of 12) Anthropomteric Dimensional Data for American Male (dimensions 67 and 772).) This natural "tempo" is served up to the recording brain hundreds of times each waking day by the casual swinging of the arm, regardless of the size of the arm swing.
Both the legs and the arms in daily experience get TIMED by the EARTH BALL physics and trained relentlessly to something very close to 1 Hz timing by casual reactions. In the neuroscience of the European Space Agency, Alain Berthoz in 1999 demonstrated that the human brain has deeply embedded inside it this "gravity" timing for falling objects. The rate of falling is effectively "hardwired" in the brain by the brain's recording the physics of the EARTH BALL. (A. Berthoz, The Brain's Sense of Movement (Harvard Univ. Press, 2000).) The same sort of recording process occurs for pendular motion with the legs and arms. The brain in effect is "hardwired" to know the tempo of the arms and legs in a "wheelhouse" tempo that was installed by the repeating experience of the world.
Why fight it? It's the tempo that never changes and doesn't require learning or practicing.
So how does this work in putting for so-called "touch"?
PERCEPTION LIMITS ACTION, ACTION SHAPES PERCEPTION
Basically, the awareness of the safe and acceptable limits of the space for motion use the tempo to "size" the backstroke, which in itself sets the power or force level of the stroke.
If you're careful not to blow the putt long past the hole, the brain instinctively and effortlessly sets the backstroke size without any need to run the problem thru the thinking mind, and also without troubling the mind for permission to use a specific backstroke. Indeed, the MIND doesn't know much about it, compared to the mute body and brain, which have been "hardwired" to get the motion just right merely from paying attention to the space for the careful motion that does not go too long.
Careful? Yes, "touch" is a direct result of being attentive and careful. That's because the brain cannot afford to allow spastic over-shooting of the limbs in space, as this is very dangerous and may cause injury and pain to the body (and brain) by colliding violently with objects in space. The brain always moves carefully "to" and not usually "thru" objects in space. The spastic person swats the water glass off the table when reaching for it, or reaches for a door knob and fails because he broke his thumb against the door knob. Failure WITH pain and injury is always much more important to avoid than success is important to attain, or failure short is important to avoid. Safety first, or there will be NO motion. A brain that evolved according to any other rule would not survive in evolution.
Carefulness "sizes" the backstroke? Yes, a tempo is the same regardless of the size of the swing of the particular stick. Short swings and long swings of the same stick, according to the EARTH BALL tempo and physics, all take exactly the one same time, every time. The adult arm, for example, held away from the side and then dropped to strike the thigh, takes about 1/2 second regardless of how many inches away from the thigh the arm and hand are suspended before dropping down at the thigh. So why would the backstroke gain a size limit?
What changes when the arm and hand are held closer or farther from the thigh before dropping is the velocity of the hand at impact against the thigh. A short backstroke strikes the thigh with low velocity, and always the same velocity if started from the same distance. A long backstroke strikes the thigh faster (and harder), and always with the same velocity (and force) so long as started into the drop from the same distance off the thigh. Hence, backstroke SIZE combines with tempo to cause one and only one velocity of impact and force or impact. Size = Force. This size = This force (only and always), provided the tempo is stable. The EARTH BALL tempo is extremely stable.
To wrap it up, "touch" then uses everyday "wheelhouse" tempo and attention and carefulness about not going long in the space with the motion to size the backstroke and hence limit the force for safety and for success. Both.
SEVE AND RITMOS: BOTH LINE AND DISTANCE FROM TIMING
Now, we come to Seve and "ritmos" or rhythm. The golfer is the drummer and pays heed to the EARTH BALL conductor's tempo. That means that the backstroke is ONE-HALF of the rhythm, and a rhythm is a proportionality between the back and the thru.
Because the timing of the stroke is just a single pattern, the first half of the tempo's total time is the backstroke. The backstroke is half of the rhythmic swing. This means that the brain "sets" the backstroke size using half the tempo and half the rhythm. Once set, the golfer has to "complete the deal" by sticking to the timing in the thru-stroke. The backstroke loads the correct force, but the timing of the thru-stroke spends or uses the force. Unless the thru-stroke timing matches "whatever timing the backstroke used according to one half of the tempo", the putt runs short (a slower thru-stroke than the backstroke) or long (a quicker thru-stroke than the backstroke).
The rhythm is always right when you pay attention and are careful not to blow past the target. If the rhythm were not safe and successful, your brain is unsuitable for survival. And yet, here you are, so what other proof do you require to believe that the brian's got your back and keeps you safe against over-shoot when you "trust" the usual tempo and rhythm?
With careful intentionality in space and the usual tempo, the rhythm is NEVER short or long, and the backstroke will NEVER be allowed to get too powerful a size. The limit on the backstroke size guards against getting 105% force at impact, but the stopping of the backstroke by the instinctive brain (not the mind) does not happen earlier than very close to 100%. Otherwise, the golfer would be dead from being short all the time when he tries to place food in his mouth. Short is never good, but too long is downright dangerous!
So much for "ritmos", right? Wrong. In addition to force and distance control for "touch", the rhythm of the careful golfer with the usual tempo is ALSO what CAUSES straight strokes. Rhythm is a "what-is-where-when" deal. Te essential key to striking the ball exactly where the putter face aims at address is to KNOW when the putter face re-occupies the address location in the forward swing. That is like wanting to KNOW WHEN will the pendulum re-occupy the position in the swing when the rod is perpendicular to the floor and the pendulum bob is closest to the floor at the bottom of the swing. That's easy: each half second once the pendulum at the top of its stroke starts down. Every time.
In putting, the golfer rolling balls straight where aimed with good touch needs to do nothing if he has good rhythm except start the stroke back into the usual tempo with a confident full-bodied swing. The brain and body limit how far back the putter will swing the same way a ceiling limits how far a ball gets tossed to "touch" the ceiling. The space and the intentionality to go "to" and not "thru" the space is what limits the backstroke size and force. A diffident backstroke won't work, as that won't fully load the force at the 100% level. And any mistake in the rhythm so that the forward stroke timing doesn't mirror the backstroke loading timing will cause long or short results. Load and go.
TEACHING HOW THE NATURAL BODY ALREADY HAS GREAT TOUCH
So how do you teach "touch"? First, the golfer witnesses a demonstration of the setting of the limit to the backstroke size and force, by being careful not to go too long past the target. Then the golfer tests this personally -- jumps up and down on that plank to see if he can crack it, or not. Once the limiting of the backstroke is accepted as a literal, physical, daily, non-conscious property of the body and brain as hardwired by experience of the planet, the MIND begins to relent in its desire to control the force of the putt and relinquishes control to the music of the golfer moving with the tempo of the world. The golfer is the drummer with rhythm, and only needs to follow the conductor's tempo. The world itself and the body jointly comprise the "wheelhouse" conductor with the always-the-same tempo.
About 25 years ago, a friend of mine (Steve Rey) was practicing putting on the European PGA Tour with various training aids scattered about and Seve Ballesteros walked up and commented: "Steve, you don't need any of that stuff for excellent putting. You only need ritmos." Instant improvement in results, from that day to this.
ANYONE who has a modicum of experience on golf greens already has embedded in their brains and body a deep and detailed physics knowledge of great touch. All that is required is attentiveness to the space and reliance upon the usual tempo and rhythm of the world. Intend a good result for distance, pay attention, and join the music of the world -- a backstroke results from the body's know-how, and if the rhythm is right, the distance is right. It's normal, not special at all.
Thanks, Seve.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction, combining the best of golf lore with modern physics, anatomy, and the neuroscience of perception and movement processes on the green for optimal and instinctive performance of the four skills of putting: reading, aiming, stroking, and controlling distance and pace.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Friday, December 03, 2010
PuttingZone Video Released
PuttingZone Video with Steve Elkington Released
The PuttingZone's premiere video is now OUT! Entitled "The Reality of Putting -- Geoff Mangum with Steve Elkington", is an hour-long presentation of the main teachings developed over the past 20 years in the PuttingZone for brain-based instinctive putting skills of reading, aiming, stroking, and controlling distance and speed. Combining the best of golf lore from a comprehensive 100-year survey with modern physics, anatomy, biomechanics, motor learning science, measurement and training technologies, PLUS the NEW neuroscience of brain-body processes for perception and movement in the relevant tasks of putting skills, the PuttingZone program is far and away the ONLY complete and integrated system for putting skills ever developed.
Filmed at the historic Champions Golf Club owned and operated by Masters legend Jackie Burke Jr., the video is offered as an immediate download from the independent website TheRealityofPutting.com. The purchase price of $35 (payable online) gives access to the video in either a 668 MB Quick-Time .mp4 file or a larger 1.3 GB Windows Media Player .wmv file, along with an introductory PDF that gives a 10-page rundown of the skills content and reproduces the video figures and photos.
Don't miss out on the most advanced and effective putting instruction available. Recent successes by players trained in the PuttingZone techniques include the British Amateur, the US Amateur (and 3 of the 4 semifinalists), a sweep of all top three positions in the World Amateur Ranking, both number-1 ranked Division I male and female players, the Western Open, Porters Cup, North and South, and others. This is different.
Download your copy of the best putting instruction in the history of golf and take your game to the next level. Visit TheRealityofPutting.com for details and ordering.
And it makes a great gift for the holidays if you know a friend who could use the help!
Cheers!
The PuttingZone Team and Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
Friday, November 19, 2010
PuttingZone Live Webinar
PuttingZone Live Webinar -- Your Invitation
Hi Friends,
I'm launching an online educational training curriculum for putting instruction that is in the beta testing phase, so if you're interested in attending a live online seminar of PuttingZone teachings at no charge / free, just send me email at geoff@puttingzone.com with "PZBLOG" in the subject line. The first seminar will be tomorrow, Saturday, 20 November 2010 and another on Sunday (exact times to be announced in the invitation).
These webinars are part of a complete curriculum for training all four putting skills and more -- planned as a series of nine independent courses:
• Putting -- The Untaught Skills
• The Science and Technique of Putting Touch
• The Science and Technique of the Putting Stroke
• The Science and Lore of Reading Putts
• The Science and Lore of Aiming in Putting
• The Science of Putter Design, Selection and Fitting
• Putting Psychology and Mental Management
• Teaching and Learning Science for Putting
• Putting Technology for Training and Teaching
The free beta session is Putting -- The Untaught Skills.
The curriculum is designed based upon the most advanced educational curriculum approaches available today, Bloom's "taxonomy of educational objectives" implemented with "Understanding by Design" (UbD) protocols for transforming "coverage" knowledge into deep comprehension / understanding of how the knowledge of skills ("know-how") applies in myriad on-course situations with intelligent flexibility. This is supplemented with top educational-psychology learning theory such as "experiential" learning and "information / cognitive load theory" in the defining of the learning objective, the structuring of teaching protocols, and the assessment of learner progress.
The current webinar technology takes advantage of the GoToWebinar.com platform supplemented with live streaming video and standard digital authoring programs (Adobe Creative Suite 5, Microsoft Office, Mac iWorks, QuickTime video, etc.). This platform offers email registration, reminders, and follow-up, live audio, realtime Q&A from the audience, pre-session handouts, polling and testing, desktop sharing, PowerPoint and Keynote presentations, session recording and archiving, and more.
And of course the "meat" of the courses is the best in the history of golf, informed by the most extensive and intense study of putting ever undertaken, covering everything written in books, articles, chapters, and even websites on putting lore and instruction since the 1880s, as well as the complete host of videos and DVD and ebooks available, as further informed by a direct long-term study of putting by amateurs and professional players throughout history and more.
Conventional golf instruction for putting since the 1800s has been hopelessly stuck on the stroke, plus a bit of where to stand when reading a putt and nothing worthwhile about aiming or touch at all. The PuttingZone is the ONLY instruction in the history of the game that systematically addresses and INTEGRATES all four skills for putting. And the PuttingZone is the ONLY golf instruction that applies modern neuroscience to the perceptual and movement processes of the brain and body in putting skills on the green.
If you'd like to experience this program during beta testing, please email me at geoff@puttingzone.com today to receive the "invitation" with directions and password for joining the session. The first beta session will be tomorrow, Saturday, 20 November 2010.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Instructor
Hi Friends,
I'm launching an online educational training curriculum for putting instruction that is in the beta testing phase, so if you're interested in attending a live online seminar of PuttingZone teachings at no charge / free, just send me email at geoff@puttingzone.com with "PZBLOG" in the subject line. The first seminar will be tomorrow, Saturday, 20 November 2010 and another on Sunday (exact times to be announced in the invitation).
These webinars are part of a complete curriculum for training all four putting skills and more -- planned as a series of nine independent courses:
• Putting -- The Untaught Skills
• The Science and Technique of Putting Touch
• The Science and Technique of the Putting Stroke
• The Science and Lore of Reading Putts
• The Science and Lore of Aiming in Putting
• The Science of Putter Design, Selection and Fitting
• Putting Psychology and Mental Management
• Teaching and Learning Science for Putting
• Putting Technology for Training and Teaching
The free beta session is Putting -- The Untaught Skills.
The curriculum is designed based upon the most advanced educational curriculum approaches available today, Bloom's "taxonomy of educational objectives" implemented with "Understanding by Design" (UbD) protocols for transforming "coverage" knowledge into deep comprehension / understanding of how the knowledge of skills ("know-how") applies in myriad on-course situations with intelligent flexibility. This is supplemented with top educational-psychology learning theory such as "experiential" learning and "information / cognitive load theory" in the defining of the learning objective, the structuring of teaching protocols, and the assessment of learner progress.
The current webinar technology takes advantage of the GoToWebinar.com platform supplemented with live streaming video and standard digital authoring programs (Adobe Creative Suite 5, Microsoft Office, Mac iWorks, QuickTime video, etc.). This platform offers email registration, reminders, and follow-up, live audio, realtime Q&A from the audience, pre-session handouts, polling and testing, desktop sharing, PowerPoint and Keynote presentations, session recording and archiving, and more.
And of course the "meat" of the courses is the best in the history of golf, informed by the most extensive and intense study of putting ever undertaken, covering everything written in books, articles, chapters, and even websites on putting lore and instruction since the 1880s, as well as the complete host of videos and DVD and ebooks available, as further informed by a direct long-term study of putting by amateurs and professional players throughout history and more.
Conventional golf instruction for putting since the 1800s has been hopelessly stuck on the stroke, plus a bit of where to stand when reading a putt and nothing worthwhile about aiming or touch at all. The PuttingZone is the ONLY instruction in the history of the game that systematically addresses and INTEGRATES all four skills for putting. And the PuttingZone is the ONLY golf instruction that applies modern neuroscience to the perceptual and movement processes of the brain and body in putting skills on the green.
If you'd like to experience this program during beta testing, please email me at geoff@puttingzone.com today to receive the "invitation" with directions and password for joining the session. The first beta session will be tomorrow, Saturday, 20 November 2010.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Instructor
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Geoff Mangum Explains the Stroke
Here is a 45-minute interview by GothamGolfBlog.com's Ralph Perez with Geoff Mangum, discussing "the stroke" in putting and explaining why stroke technique is not that important for great putting.
Geoff Mangum on "The Stroke" from Ralph Perez on Vimeo.
Cheers!
The PuttingZone.com -- golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
Geoff Mangum on "The Stroke" from Ralph Perez on Vimeo.
Cheers!
The PuttingZone.com -- golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Golf Digest on Putting
I was recently asked to evaluate the content of the October 2010 issue of Golf Digest's "ultimate guide" to putting in a 30-page section. Ok, no sweat.
The October 2010 issue of Golf Digest (volume 62, issue 10) has the cover article "Why You Can't Putt: 30 Pages: The Ultimate Guide to Make You Great on the Greens." The specific pages are 64-95. There are FOUR skills for putting, and Golf Digest (GD) simply doesn't get it.
The 30 pages of GD come in separate "gobbled-together" contributions from various people, all of which make it appear that Dave Stockton Jr. is the guru behind the whole 30 pages. So let's just look for real substance and offer an assessment of value to anyone wanting to learn something about HOW TO PUTT WELL.
Page 64 - picture
Page 65 - Steve Rushin, "Your putter goes ice cold, or -- the horror! -- it could be you." A pointless rumination from a bad golfer, lamenting that he can't read, aim or control the distance of his putts. ZERO SUBSTANCE.
Page 66 - Peter Morrice "The Answers Start Here: With our blockbuster package, get ready to make some putts." An introduction to the substance. ZERO SUBSTANCE.
Page 67 - picture
Page 68 - Mike Stachura, "Why Your Putter Hates You: If you haven't been fit right, you're asking for trouble." SUBSTANCE: 80% of golfers are using putters that are not fit for them. Getting a better fit for the putter will improve distance and line control. The balance of the article offers 1-2 sentence on aspects of fitting:
LENGTH: 35" is too long for most golfers and results in "too much space between your body and elbows at address and your arms won't hang naturally." DUH. BETTER NOT SAY THIS TOO LOUDLY, AS IT IMPLIES THE MAJOR ADVERTISERS OF GD MAKE CRAPPY PUTTERS.
ALIGNMENT FEATURES: Use laser and trial-and-error until some alignment mark pattern helps you the most of those tried. The ever-present "black box" approach to a mystery -- at least David Edel is trying to put some numbers to sorts of golfers and match up patterns, and HEY GOLF DIGEST, it's way more than just the alignment marks -- it's also putter head overall shape, colors, hosels, loft visibility and other physical features of the putter. More broadly, golfers don't even aim their putters -- they aim their stroke action. And in any event, if you want to know something about the visual processes of looking at alignment marks on a putter, you should probably start with visual neuroscience, not optometry, as optometrists are universally unfamiliar with the way the brain USES visual input for movement and are restricted in knowledge (and the laws of 50 states) to the refractive properties of the eyeball for purposes of prescribing lens specifications. In visual neuroscience, there are TWO separate visual pathways inside the brain, one for IDENTIFICATION of objects and shapes (which is the system optometrists relate to) and the one for ACTION or MOVEMENT IN SPACE (which has very little to do with visual acuity and a lot to do with the person's patterns of movement). NOTHING OF VALUE HERE.
LOFT: "You need more loft on your putter -- at least 4 degrees -- if you play on slower greens or start your stroke with a forward press, which immediately delofts the putterface. You can get away with less loft on faster greens or if you contact the ball on the upstroke." Confusing and illogical. The first question is HOW DOES A PUTTERFACE ROLL A BALL? The second question is WHAT'S THE BEST STROKE DYNAMIC (ball position and stroke movement) TO ROLL A BALL? The third question is WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THE GREEN SURFACE DICTATE FOR LOFT? GD doesn't know what the questions are, so that's a pretty poor indicator that the reader should trust their recommendations. WORSE THAN SIMPLY NOT HELPFUL -- LEAVES GOLFERS MORE CONFUSED THAN BEFORE READING IT.
HEAD SHAPE: If you make off-center putts, a bigger head with heel-toe weighting might help. If not, you might like a blade putter. Pretty stupid. Head shape is also about aiming, but the unnoticed aspect is how the SOLE of the putter relates the golfer's body to the surface. WAKE UP GD AND GET SERIOUS, please.
LIE ANGLE: If the putter sole is not level, you will not hit the sweetspot and leave putts short and a toe-up posture misses left. BETTER NOT TELL PHIL MICKELSON. OF COURSE THE PUTTER SOLE SHOULD SIT FLAT -- THE ISSUE IS: WHAT LIE ANGLE OF THE FLATLY SOLED PUTTER WORKS BEST WITH GOLFER JOE? GD is WAY OFF, and SAYS NOTHING ABOUT LIE.
WEIGHT: "Generally, a lighter putter -- under 340 grams -- works better on slower greens (because you need to swing the putter head more), and a heavier putter provides stability on the shorter strokes and on faster greens." CONFUSED. Heavier provides better stability on ALL GREENS, right? Right. So GD's comment is just confused and confusing. As to slower greens, why would a golfer really want a larger and more violent stroke? The problem here is GD has NO IDEA HOW DISTANCE CONTROL WORKS with either a heavy putter or a light putter. The SIZE of the stroke gets bigger and impact velocity faster with a lighter putter mass, but the SEND gets greater with a heavier mass. Matching the putter mass to the green ends up being a question of what SIZE stroke does your tempo produce given the putter mass and the green speed for any distance. Going lighter while keeping the tempo the same makes the SIZE bigger and the STABILITY less. Going heavier makes the SIZE more compact and the STABILITY greater. Going TOO HEAVY adds jerkiness in the motion. The overall approach is, first, what green speeds does the golfer usually play, and second, what's a comfortable SIZE range for the most commonly faced putts in the 5-20' range. This ALWAYS trends away from lightness in the direction of heaviness without getting too near "TOO HEAVY" a putter or "TOO COMPACT" a stroke. CONFUSING AND VALUELESS SPIN ON THIS ASPECT OF PUTTER DESIGN.
Page 69 -- advertisement
Page 70 -- Guy Yocum, "How to Train Your Brain: New Research: Good thinking might beat out a good stroke." The article presents a description of the research of Debbie Crews with her EEG mapping of brains when putting. (The article confuses MRI and EEG, so that's a pretty bad start, as the two brain imaging processes are as unalike as using a Cray Supercomputer and counting on the fingers). Using brain images from the 12 scalp electrodes of an EEG cap, sampling 267 scalp voltage measurements in 3 seconds each putt and then using six software packages to process the voltage measurements and generate a composite image of colors on the scalp supposedly representing levels of brain activation down inside the brain itself, Crews tries to "balance" the hemispheres and colors. "Each [scalp] location represents a different facet of thought, emotion or physical activity, with the left side of the brain controlling logical, analytical thinking, and the right side in charge of the more creative, intuitive components. ... The idea, Crews says, is to synchronize the measures so the colors in the images are predominately of one type and flow together smoothly. This allows golfers to putt with a blend of confidence and concentration." Neuroscience's dean of split-brain studies Michael Gazzaniga writes frequently and plainly about the sad stupidity of this New-Age misinterpretation of his work that divides the brain up into two sides and says this aspect (e.g., logic) is over here, and this aspect (e.g., space awareness, intuition) is over on the OTHER side, but I guess what he says about it is irrelevant for golf.
Page 71 -- picture
Page 72 -- A confusing jumble of notions of feel, emotion, mechanics, thinking, arousal, intentionality, focus, fear, and the typical clap-trap of people not dealing with the science crowds the discussion. With red being highly elevated activation and dark blue being low levels of activation, brain [scalp] images are presented and the commentary that goes with the images makes no sense and is very inconsistent. Crews says golfers should be either highly aroused and emotional / nervous / anxious [red] or calmly meditative [blue], not in between; that their color pattern should be symmetrical and smooth and "balanced" left and right. But the image of "Thinking mechanics" is the most red and uniformly balanced left-right of the four images but this is said to be very bad and all left brain. The picture / image and the explanations aren't on the same wave length at all. The second image shows the next-most red mostly imbalanced to the left, and this is interpreted as "Thinking missed putt", with anxiety. The third image is very unbalanced with visual area red, left parietal / feel area blue, and right frontal / thinking area blue. This is supposed to be the pro pattern "Focused on the target". The fourth image shows uniform blue everywhere except some red in the visual area, less than the third image. This image is not identified as a pro, but as a golfer "consumed by feel". So which is it? Balanced? That's "Thinking mechanics" or "Focused on feel". Aroused and nervous? That's "Thinking mechanics" or "Thinking missed putt". Calm and meditative? That "Focused on target" or "Focused on feel". Notice the subtle hint in the labeling: Two are labelled "thinking" and two are labelled "focused". But that's not what the explanation of the data says. "If some of the areas show red, we like to see the high arousal in all areas." ALL four of the images show red -- the two "meditative" or "focus" images show red in the visual cortex area. Is she actually trying to say that the red she means is red somewhere outside the visual area? According to Crews, nervousness is better than calm because a calm mind is unnatural. "Crews points out that a quiet, meditative state can be as beneficial as nervousness, but calm is more difficult to attain because it's not a natural reaction to stress."
Well, aroused is red, but red is "bad" in the images / data.
"The player who involves the mechanical side of the brain too much is in trouble. You should pay a great deal of attention to aim, alignment and factors like that at the beginning, and then shut down the mechanical side of your brain. At that point, you want to be target-oriented and allow your imagery, feel and emotion to take over." This seems to suggest that WHILE AIMING AND SETTING UP the golfer's brain should look RED "Thinking mechanics", but then once ready to execute the stroke the golfer's brain should turn this off and replace it with the "Focused on target" blue brain. Right! Good advice, Debbie. "I'd say it's not what you think that matters, but how you think." Meaning what?
The problem here is that Crews does not study or read what neuroscience says about HOW these scalp colors get generated. She is flipping and flopping all over the lot trying to figure it out herself by trial and error experimentation INSTEAD OF READING THE SCIENCE. That's colossally uninspired! That's similar to a crazy person on the steps of the Computer Science building at MIT stopping people on the way inside telling them she is on the verge of figuring out computer architecture and logic, so the ability of humans to calculate putting motions and program putting computers is "just around the corner". "Read a book" on the subject is probably a better approach to the brain than purporting to use a bathing-cap of wires on the scalp to sort it all out from the beginning with "original empirical research". No wonder her advice is confusing and not coherently connected to her research.
SUBSTANCE: New-Age style neuroscience about left hemisphere versus right hemisphere on the one hand but then about "balancing" the hemispheres despite this but also about preferring being nervous over being calm but ultimately do both just not at the same time. VALUE: Not much better than Bob Rotella telling you that you should think like a pro or Dave Pelz telling you you should putt like a robot. Crews says worry the aim, then focus on target. Ok, how, exactly?
Page 73 -- advertisement
Pages 74-77 -- Dave Stockton, "4 Things You Should Do, But Don't." Those are: 1. Lead [guide the stroke] with your left [hand]; 2. Think roll, not hit [for distance control]; 3. Use your fingers [not your palms] to "feel" the stroke; and 4. Spot the putt. BIG PICTURE ASSESSMENT: Nothing here at all about reading, or aiming, and the tidbit about TOUCH is only "roll the ball instead of hitting the ball". Good grief! Why bother decomposing these four little pieces of STROKE stuff? The ONLY interesting contribution here is the use of the left hand to guide the stroke STRAIGHT DOWN THE LINE, as taught to Dave Stockton [Jr.] by his father Dave Stockton Sr. decades ago in the 1960s and 1970s, as recounted in Dave's book from the late 1980s Putt To Win, with Al Barkow. That's not half bad, but it's not well explained either in terms of what's good about it and why it's better than the inside-square-inside arc stroke or what it has to do if anything with a stroke path that goes straight-back / straight-thru. What else ya got?
SUBSTANCE: OK, a tidbit for stroke. VALUE: worth a paragraph or two, not 4 full pages.
Page 78 -- picture
Page 79 -- Tom Chiarella, "I'm Cursed: Among many cop-outs, here's one jinx I can't shake." Complete nonsense headed nowhere, getting there late. SUBSTANCE: NONE. VALUE: WASTE.
Page 80 -- picture
Pages 81-82 -- David Owen, "The New Way to Read Greens: The day I learned to find the Zero Line". A humorist describes a session some time ago with Brian Mogg and Mark Sweeney on how to read greens. Owen basically says he learned from Sweeney that no one knows how they read break and instead should learn to read the green surface. Owen learned a bit about some topographical features of green surfaces and then was explained about the Zero Line and "a system to identify what [Sweeney] calls the Zero Line, a (usually curving) series of connected points from which putts should be aimed at the hole." Got that -- aim the putter face along a curved series of line segments each of which aims a different direction, with only the last segment actually aiming into the hole. QUESTION: What's the system and how does a golfer do it? ANSWER IN THE ARTICLE: NOTHING SAID ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, AS IF IT WEREN'T IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO MENTION, EVEN THOUGH IT'S THE MAIN THING WE NEED TO READ ABOUT. Good grief. (And besides, it's nothing NEW about this -- HA Templeton wrote a 200-page book on this very subject with lots of charts in the 1980s and Mark Sweeney had never heard of this before I gave him a copy. Templeton doesn't agree with Sweeney's calculations' by the way.)
So now what? Use a chart, stupid. Great. The chart is supposed to give objective measurement of where to aim, as in the example: Stimp 9 green sloped 2% from the 2 o'clock position in relation to a 6-12 straight uphill-downhill line thru the cup from 15 feet away = aim at a spot 14 inches up the straight uphill-downhill line above the cup. Ok, now what? Putt with what pace? How? Back up a bit, also -- How do you perceive the green speed? How do you perceive the slope percentage? What happened to all the little line segments fro ball to hole? How do you perceive the 6-12 line? What are the assumptions about the surface and the delivery speed of the ball that go along with the "objective" numbers in the chart? Owen sums it up: "I'm not sure I'll ever take the time to master Sweeney's system. In fact I'm sure I won't. But I've already found his core ideas to be extremely helpful, especially in determining the overall direction of the break. (It's gravity, stupid!)" Geesh, fellas, ya think?
SUBSTANCE: Promise the moon and deliver merely a Keebler Cookie about "gravity" without explaining what the golfer should do or how. VALUE: Eh, still leaves the golfer at the starting block wondering what to do and how to do it.
Page 83 -- advertisement
Pages 84-85 -- Mike Shannon, "How to Roll Every Putt on Line." Says 65% of golfers "literally can't see in straight lines" and so cannot use the reading procedure of "aiming straight at the high point of the break". In addition, these 65% of golfers "have no system for handling breaking putts." WOW, where do you start? Here are 3 silly questions: 1. Why "can't" the 65% of golfers do what 35% of the golfers CAN do? 2. How DO the 35% of golfers accurately see how to aim at a spot? 3. If this were known, could you TEACH the 65% to do likewise? Mike Shannon answers these simple common-sense questions as follows: 1. Don't know, haven't wondered. 2. Don't know, haven't wondered. 3. Don't know, haven't wondered. Goodness gracious sakes alive -- is this what passes for golf instruction? Sadly, yes, GD certainly thinks so.
OK, so what about "rolling the putt on line" as promised by the title of the article? There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE ARTICLE ABOUT THAT. Nothing. Nothing at all. Anywhere. Good grief! What the article is about is what Shannon recommends that the sad 65% who can't see a straight line and who have no method for reading putts ought to try: See how the ball will CURVE into the hole and then "react to the target" to "find the line". "Curved-line players need to trust that they can find the line by reacting to the target, without the distraction of drawing lines or spots." Say again, please, and this time with real feeling: REACT TO THE TARGET, you dunderbutt. OK, got that. Don't "track the eyes along the arc of the putt." That's not helpful, he says.
Basically nothing here about the surface, the slope, physics, aim points, delivery speed, or anything usually considered important to planning or executing breaking putts except seeing the angle the ball will be entering the hole and then "react" to that to find the start line then "trust it and let it go" even if your eyes say otherwise.
SUBSTANCE: NOTHING ABOUT ROLLING ON LINE, and instead SOMETHING WEIRD AND WEAK about SOMETHING SPECIAL TO TRY IF YOU CAN'T DO WHAT OTHERS CAN. VALUE: Misleading and confusing and blocks golfers from learning real skill or even attempting to understand HOW they do what works and offers nothing to the other 35% than "keep doing what you're doing, whatever that is, but in any event don't do what I recommend for the other 65% -- that's just for them."
Page 86 -- "Player Poll: The Best on Tour Today -- and Ever." PGA Tour: Tiger Woods: 2 keys: light grip pressure and same PACE back and thru. He used to have grip pressure of 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, according to him. The PACE is the rhythm that I teach. LPGA: Cristie Kerr: likes to practice. Champions Tour: Loren Roberts: good eyesight and a self-crafted method. College Men: special putter from Japan. College Women: practice realistic situations, pick a line, aim at a spot, roll ball over spot without second-guessing. Not different from what I teach.
SUBSTANCE: two tidbits, one from Tiger never really covered or discussed except by me, and one from Jennifer Song (College Women). VALUE: The best of the whole 30 pages in 2 sentences without much attention or explanation by GD.
Page 87 -- picture
Pages 88-89 -- picture
Pages 90-93 Matthew Rudy, "Why Women Putt Worse than Men: Experts debate the stats, the empirical evidence, and the future." Says women lack the skills of men on the green mostly because they don't practice enough or start early enough. Many of the interviewed "experts" said that unless the player starts spending lots of time putting before age 8-10, they aren't ever going to rank along with top pros at ages 20-30. Period. No exceptions.
SUBSTANCE: Next to none for how to putt, male or female, except practice a lot and start early. VALUE: WASTE OF TIME.
Page 94 -- picture
Page 95 -- Dan Jenkins, "How to Get Your Ball to Listen: Bully it, threaten it, demand mediocrity." Humorist Jenkins runs on. SUBSTANCE: ZIP. VALUE: WASTE.
CONCLUSION
To summarize the GD ULTIMATE GUIDE to putting for its substance and value on the four skills of putting:
READING GREENS / PUTTS: a confused article about the fall line and aiming at a target that doesn't tell anyone how to do anything to find either; a completely inconsistent second article that says 65% of golfers can't aim at a target and shouldn't try.
AIMING PUTTERS: a "mention" that putter fitting might help.
STROKE: an article by Dave Stockton telling us what he said in his book a quarter century ago, which is do the drill his dad taught him for leading the left hand straight down the line, and a few odd bits about keeping it low but slightly rising thru impact while delofting the putter and NOT hitting up on the ball -- got that? Also an article that say be nervous about reading and aiming, and then "turn the mechanical side of the brain off" and make a confident stroke with emotion.
TOUCH: a tiny tidbit from Stockton to the effect that "rolling" the ball instead of "hitting" it gives better distance. Oddly, the data-geek that tested this idea at TaylorMade responded to Dave Stockton's statement in a YouTube to the effect that his stroke technique "really made the ball roll out" for distance as follows: "Not really." But in a broader sense, Stockton has NOTHING for how golfers should control distance and pace, and there is NOTHING AT ALL elsewhere in the 30-page GD "Ultimate Guide" to putting. But, heck, distance control is the most important skill of the four, so why waste time on something like that?
You're kidding, right?
Cheers!
book
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
The best putting instruction in golf history is now available for purchaseas an ebook download: Optimal Putting: Brain Science, Instincts, and the Four Skills of Putting (2008, 282-pages)
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The October 2010 issue of Golf Digest (volume 62, issue 10) has the cover article "Why You Can't Putt: 30 Pages: The Ultimate Guide to Make You Great on the Greens." The specific pages are 64-95. There are FOUR skills for putting, and Golf Digest (GD) simply doesn't get it.
The 30 pages of GD come in separate "gobbled-together" contributions from various people, all of which make it appear that Dave Stockton Jr. is the guru behind the whole 30 pages. So let's just look for real substance and offer an assessment of value to anyone wanting to learn something about HOW TO PUTT WELL.
Page 64 - picture
Page 65 - Steve Rushin, "Your putter goes ice cold, or -- the horror! -- it could be you." A pointless rumination from a bad golfer, lamenting that he can't read, aim or control the distance of his putts. ZERO SUBSTANCE.
Page 66 - Peter Morrice "The Answers Start Here: With our blockbuster package, get ready to make some putts." An introduction to the substance. ZERO SUBSTANCE.
Page 67 - picture
Page 68 - Mike Stachura, "Why Your Putter Hates You: If you haven't been fit right, you're asking for trouble." SUBSTANCE: 80% of golfers are using putters that are not fit for them. Getting a better fit for the putter will improve distance and line control. The balance of the article offers 1-2 sentence on aspects of fitting:
LENGTH: 35" is too long for most golfers and results in "too much space between your body and elbows at address and your arms won't hang naturally." DUH. BETTER NOT SAY THIS TOO LOUDLY, AS IT IMPLIES THE MAJOR ADVERTISERS OF GD MAKE CRAPPY PUTTERS.
ALIGNMENT FEATURES: Use laser and trial-and-error until some alignment mark pattern helps you the most of those tried. The ever-present "black box" approach to a mystery -- at least David Edel is trying to put some numbers to sorts of golfers and match up patterns, and HEY GOLF DIGEST, it's way more than just the alignment marks -- it's also putter head overall shape, colors, hosels, loft visibility and other physical features of the putter. More broadly, golfers don't even aim their putters -- they aim their stroke action. And in any event, if you want to know something about the visual processes of looking at alignment marks on a putter, you should probably start with visual neuroscience, not optometry, as optometrists are universally unfamiliar with the way the brain USES visual input for movement and are restricted in knowledge (and the laws of 50 states) to the refractive properties of the eyeball for purposes of prescribing lens specifications. In visual neuroscience, there are TWO separate visual pathways inside the brain, one for IDENTIFICATION of objects and shapes (which is the system optometrists relate to) and the one for ACTION or MOVEMENT IN SPACE (which has very little to do with visual acuity and a lot to do with the person's patterns of movement). NOTHING OF VALUE HERE.
LOFT: "You need more loft on your putter -- at least 4 degrees -- if you play on slower greens or start your stroke with a forward press, which immediately delofts the putterface. You can get away with less loft on faster greens or if you contact the ball on the upstroke." Confusing and illogical. The first question is HOW DOES A PUTTERFACE ROLL A BALL? The second question is WHAT'S THE BEST STROKE DYNAMIC (ball position and stroke movement) TO ROLL A BALL? The third question is WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THE GREEN SURFACE DICTATE FOR LOFT? GD doesn't know what the questions are, so that's a pretty poor indicator that the reader should trust their recommendations. WORSE THAN SIMPLY NOT HELPFUL -- LEAVES GOLFERS MORE CONFUSED THAN BEFORE READING IT.
HEAD SHAPE: If you make off-center putts, a bigger head with heel-toe weighting might help. If not, you might like a blade putter. Pretty stupid. Head shape is also about aiming, but the unnoticed aspect is how the SOLE of the putter relates the golfer's body to the surface. WAKE UP GD AND GET SERIOUS, please.
LIE ANGLE: If the putter sole is not level, you will not hit the sweetspot and leave putts short and a toe-up posture misses left. BETTER NOT TELL PHIL MICKELSON. OF COURSE THE PUTTER SOLE SHOULD SIT FLAT -- THE ISSUE IS: WHAT LIE ANGLE OF THE FLATLY SOLED PUTTER WORKS BEST WITH GOLFER JOE? GD is WAY OFF, and SAYS NOTHING ABOUT LIE.
WEIGHT: "Generally, a lighter putter -- under 340 grams -- works better on slower greens (because you need to swing the putter head more), and a heavier putter provides stability on the shorter strokes and on faster greens." CONFUSED. Heavier provides better stability on ALL GREENS, right? Right. So GD's comment is just confused and confusing. As to slower greens, why would a golfer really want a larger and more violent stroke? The problem here is GD has NO IDEA HOW DISTANCE CONTROL WORKS with either a heavy putter or a light putter. The SIZE of the stroke gets bigger and impact velocity faster with a lighter putter mass, but the SEND gets greater with a heavier mass. Matching the putter mass to the green ends up being a question of what SIZE stroke does your tempo produce given the putter mass and the green speed for any distance. Going lighter while keeping the tempo the same makes the SIZE bigger and the STABILITY less. Going heavier makes the SIZE more compact and the STABILITY greater. Going TOO HEAVY adds jerkiness in the motion. The overall approach is, first, what green speeds does the golfer usually play, and second, what's a comfortable SIZE range for the most commonly faced putts in the 5-20' range. This ALWAYS trends away from lightness in the direction of heaviness without getting too near "TOO HEAVY" a putter or "TOO COMPACT" a stroke. CONFUSING AND VALUELESS SPIN ON THIS ASPECT OF PUTTER DESIGN.
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Page 70 -- Guy Yocum, "How to Train Your Brain: New Research: Good thinking might beat out a good stroke." The article presents a description of the research of Debbie Crews with her EEG mapping of brains when putting. (The article confuses MRI and EEG, so that's a pretty bad start, as the two brain imaging processes are as unalike as using a Cray Supercomputer and counting on the fingers). Using brain images from the 12 scalp electrodes of an EEG cap, sampling 267 scalp voltage measurements in 3 seconds each putt and then using six software packages to process the voltage measurements and generate a composite image of colors on the scalp supposedly representing levels of brain activation down inside the brain itself, Crews tries to "balance" the hemispheres and colors. "Each [scalp] location represents a different facet of thought, emotion or physical activity, with the left side of the brain controlling logical, analytical thinking, and the right side in charge of the more creative, intuitive components. ... The idea, Crews says, is to synchronize the measures so the colors in the images are predominately of one type and flow together smoothly. This allows golfers to putt with a blend of confidence and concentration." Neuroscience's dean of split-brain studies Michael Gazzaniga writes frequently and plainly about the sad stupidity of this New-Age misinterpretation of his work that divides the brain up into two sides and says this aspect (e.g., logic) is over here, and this aspect (e.g., space awareness, intuition) is over on the OTHER side, but I guess what he says about it is irrelevant for golf.
Page 71 -- picture
Page 72 -- A confusing jumble of notions of feel, emotion, mechanics, thinking, arousal, intentionality, focus, fear, and the typical clap-trap of people not dealing with the science crowds the discussion. With red being highly elevated activation and dark blue being low levels of activation, brain [scalp] images are presented and the commentary that goes with the images makes no sense and is very inconsistent. Crews says golfers should be either highly aroused and emotional / nervous / anxious [red] or calmly meditative [blue], not in between; that their color pattern should be symmetrical and smooth and "balanced" left and right. But the image of "Thinking mechanics" is the most red and uniformly balanced left-right of the four images but this is said to be very bad and all left brain. The picture / image and the explanations aren't on the same wave length at all. The second image shows the next-most red mostly imbalanced to the left, and this is interpreted as "Thinking missed putt", with anxiety. The third image is very unbalanced with visual area red, left parietal / feel area blue, and right frontal / thinking area blue. This is supposed to be the pro pattern "Focused on the target". The fourth image shows uniform blue everywhere except some red in the visual area, less than the third image. This image is not identified as a pro, but as a golfer "consumed by feel". So which is it? Balanced? That's "Thinking mechanics" or "Focused on feel". Aroused and nervous? That's "Thinking mechanics" or "Thinking missed putt". Calm and meditative? That "Focused on target" or "Focused on feel". Notice the subtle hint in the labeling: Two are labelled "thinking" and two are labelled "focused". But that's not what the explanation of the data says. "If some of the areas show red, we like to see the high arousal in all areas." ALL four of the images show red -- the two "meditative" or "focus" images show red in the visual cortex area. Is she actually trying to say that the red she means is red somewhere outside the visual area? According to Crews, nervousness is better than calm because a calm mind is unnatural. "Crews points out that a quiet, meditative state can be as beneficial as nervousness, but calm is more difficult to attain because it's not a natural reaction to stress."
Well, aroused is red, but red is "bad" in the images / data.
"The player who involves the mechanical side of the brain too much is in trouble. You should pay a great deal of attention to aim, alignment and factors like that at the beginning, and then shut down the mechanical side of your brain. At that point, you want to be target-oriented and allow your imagery, feel and emotion to take over." This seems to suggest that WHILE AIMING AND SETTING UP the golfer's brain should look RED "Thinking mechanics", but then once ready to execute the stroke the golfer's brain should turn this off and replace it with the "Focused on target" blue brain. Right! Good advice, Debbie. "I'd say it's not what you think that matters, but how you think." Meaning what?
The problem here is that Crews does not study or read what neuroscience says about HOW these scalp colors get generated. She is flipping and flopping all over the lot trying to figure it out herself by trial and error experimentation INSTEAD OF READING THE SCIENCE. That's colossally uninspired! That's similar to a crazy person on the steps of the Computer Science building at MIT stopping people on the way inside telling them she is on the verge of figuring out computer architecture and logic, so the ability of humans to calculate putting motions and program putting computers is "just around the corner". "Read a book" on the subject is probably a better approach to the brain than purporting to use a bathing-cap of wires on the scalp to sort it all out from the beginning with "original empirical research". No wonder her advice is confusing and not coherently connected to her research.
SUBSTANCE: New-Age style neuroscience about left hemisphere versus right hemisphere on the one hand but then about "balancing" the hemispheres despite this but also about preferring being nervous over being calm but ultimately do both just not at the same time. VALUE: Not much better than Bob Rotella telling you that you should think like a pro or Dave Pelz telling you you should putt like a robot. Crews says worry the aim, then focus on target. Ok, how, exactly?
Page 73 -- advertisement
Pages 74-77 -- Dave Stockton, "4 Things You Should Do, But Don't." Those are: 1. Lead [guide the stroke] with your left [hand]; 2. Think roll, not hit [for distance control]; 3. Use your fingers [not your palms] to "feel" the stroke; and 4. Spot the putt. BIG PICTURE ASSESSMENT: Nothing here at all about reading, or aiming, and the tidbit about TOUCH is only "roll the ball instead of hitting the ball". Good grief! Why bother decomposing these four little pieces of STROKE stuff? The ONLY interesting contribution here is the use of the left hand to guide the stroke STRAIGHT DOWN THE LINE, as taught to Dave Stockton [Jr.] by his father Dave Stockton Sr. decades ago in the 1960s and 1970s, as recounted in Dave's book from the late 1980s Putt To Win, with Al Barkow. That's not half bad, but it's not well explained either in terms of what's good about it and why it's better than the inside-square-inside arc stroke or what it has to do if anything with a stroke path that goes straight-back / straight-thru. What else ya got?
SUBSTANCE: OK, a tidbit for stroke. VALUE: worth a paragraph or two, not 4 full pages.
Page 78 -- picture
Page 79 -- Tom Chiarella, "I'm Cursed: Among many cop-outs, here's one jinx I can't shake." Complete nonsense headed nowhere, getting there late. SUBSTANCE: NONE. VALUE: WASTE.
Page 80 -- picture
Pages 81-82 -- David Owen, "The New Way to Read Greens: The day I learned to find the Zero Line". A humorist describes a session some time ago with Brian Mogg and Mark Sweeney on how to read greens. Owen basically says he learned from Sweeney that no one knows how they read break and instead should learn to read the green surface. Owen learned a bit about some topographical features of green surfaces and then was explained about the Zero Line and "a system to identify what [Sweeney] calls the Zero Line, a (usually curving) series of connected points from which putts should be aimed at the hole." Got that -- aim the putter face along a curved series of line segments each of which aims a different direction, with only the last segment actually aiming into the hole. QUESTION: What's the system and how does a golfer do it? ANSWER IN THE ARTICLE: NOTHING SAID ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, AS IF IT WEREN'T IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO MENTION, EVEN THOUGH IT'S THE MAIN THING WE NEED TO READ ABOUT. Good grief. (And besides, it's nothing NEW about this -- HA Templeton wrote a 200-page book on this very subject with lots of charts in the 1980s and Mark Sweeney had never heard of this before I gave him a copy. Templeton doesn't agree with Sweeney's calculations' by the way.)
So now what? Use a chart, stupid. Great. The chart is supposed to give objective measurement of where to aim, as in the example: Stimp 9 green sloped 2% from the 2 o'clock position in relation to a 6-12 straight uphill-downhill line thru the cup from 15 feet away = aim at a spot 14 inches up the straight uphill-downhill line above the cup. Ok, now what? Putt with what pace? How? Back up a bit, also -- How do you perceive the green speed? How do you perceive the slope percentage? What happened to all the little line segments fro ball to hole? How do you perceive the 6-12 line? What are the assumptions about the surface and the delivery speed of the ball that go along with the "objective" numbers in the chart? Owen sums it up: "I'm not sure I'll ever take the time to master Sweeney's system. In fact I'm sure I won't. But I've already found his core ideas to be extremely helpful, especially in determining the overall direction of the break. (It's gravity, stupid!)" Geesh, fellas, ya think?
SUBSTANCE: Promise the moon and deliver merely a Keebler Cookie about "gravity" without explaining what the golfer should do or how. VALUE: Eh, still leaves the golfer at the starting block wondering what to do and how to do it.
Page 83 -- advertisement
Pages 84-85 -- Mike Shannon, "How to Roll Every Putt on Line." Says 65% of golfers "literally can't see in straight lines" and so cannot use the reading procedure of "aiming straight at the high point of the break". In addition, these 65% of golfers "have no system for handling breaking putts." WOW, where do you start? Here are 3 silly questions: 1. Why "can't" the 65% of golfers do what 35% of the golfers CAN do? 2. How DO the 35% of golfers accurately see how to aim at a spot? 3. If this were known, could you TEACH the 65% to do likewise? Mike Shannon answers these simple common-sense questions as follows: 1. Don't know, haven't wondered. 2. Don't know, haven't wondered. 3. Don't know, haven't wondered. Goodness gracious sakes alive -- is this what passes for golf instruction? Sadly, yes, GD certainly thinks so.
OK, so what about "rolling the putt on line" as promised by the title of the article? There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE ARTICLE ABOUT THAT. Nothing. Nothing at all. Anywhere. Good grief! What the article is about is what Shannon recommends that the sad 65% who can't see a straight line and who have no method for reading putts ought to try: See how the ball will CURVE into the hole and then "react to the target" to "find the line". "Curved-line players need to trust that they can find the line by reacting to the target, without the distraction of drawing lines or spots." Say again, please, and this time with real feeling: REACT TO THE TARGET, you dunderbutt. OK, got that. Don't "track the eyes along the arc of the putt." That's not helpful, he says.
Basically nothing here about the surface, the slope, physics, aim points, delivery speed, or anything usually considered important to planning or executing breaking putts except seeing the angle the ball will be entering the hole and then "react" to that to find the start line then "trust it and let it go" even if your eyes say otherwise.
SUBSTANCE: NOTHING ABOUT ROLLING ON LINE, and instead SOMETHING WEIRD AND WEAK about SOMETHING SPECIAL TO TRY IF YOU CAN'T DO WHAT OTHERS CAN. VALUE: Misleading and confusing and blocks golfers from learning real skill or even attempting to understand HOW they do what works and offers nothing to the other 35% than "keep doing what you're doing, whatever that is, but in any event don't do what I recommend for the other 65% -- that's just for them."
Page 86 -- "Player Poll: The Best on Tour Today -- and Ever." PGA Tour: Tiger Woods: 2 keys: light grip pressure and same PACE back and thru. He used to have grip pressure of 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, according to him. The PACE is the rhythm that I teach. LPGA: Cristie Kerr: likes to practice. Champions Tour: Loren Roberts: good eyesight and a self-crafted method. College Men: special putter from Japan. College Women: practice realistic situations, pick a line, aim at a spot, roll ball over spot without second-guessing. Not different from what I teach.
SUBSTANCE: two tidbits, one from Tiger never really covered or discussed except by me, and one from Jennifer Song (College Women). VALUE: The best of the whole 30 pages in 2 sentences without much attention or explanation by GD.
Page 87 -- picture
Pages 88-89 -- picture
Pages 90-93 Matthew Rudy, "Why Women Putt Worse than Men: Experts debate the stats, the empirical evidence, and the future." Says women lack the skills of men on the green mostly because they don't practice enough or start early enough. Many of the interviewed "experts" said that unless the player starts spending lots of time putting before age 8-10, they aren't ever going to rank along with top pros at ages 20-30. Period. No exceptions.
SUBSTANCE: Next to none for how to putt, male or female, except practice a lot and start early. VALUE: WASTE OF TIME.
Page 94 -- picture
Page 95 -- Dan Jenkins, "How to Get Your Ball to Listen: Bully it, threaten it, demand mediocrity." Humorist Jenkins runs on. SUBSTANCE: ZIP. VALUE: WASTE.
CONCLUSION
To summarize the GD ULTIMATE GUIDE to putting for its substance and value on the four skills of putting:
READING GREENS / PUTTS: a confused article about the fall line and aiming at a target that doesn't tell anyone how to do anything to find either; a completely inconsistent second article that says 65% of golfers can't aim at a target and shouldn't try.
AIMING PUTTERS: a "mention" that putter fitting might help.
STROKE: an article by Dave Stockton telling us what he said in his book a quarter century ago, which is do the drill his dad taught him for leading the left hand straight down the line, and a few odd bits about keeping it low but slightly rising thru impact while delofting the putter and NOT hitting up on the ball -- got that? Also an article that say be nervous about reading and aiming, and then "turn the mechanical side of the brain off" and make a confident stroke with emotion.
TOUCH: a tiny tidbit from Stockton to the effect that "rolling" the ball instead of "hitting" it gives better distance. Oddly, the data-geek that tested this idea at TaylorMade responded to Dave Stockton's statement in a YouTube to the effect that his stroke technique "really made the ball roll out" for distance as follows: "Not really." But in a broader sense, Stockton has NOTHING for how golfers should control distance and pace, and there is NOTHING AT ALL elsewhere in the 30-page GD "Ultimate Guide" to putting. But, heck, distance control is the most important skill of the four, so why waste time on something like that?
You're kidding, right?
Cheers!
book
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
The best putting instruction in golf history is now available for purchaseas an ebook download: Optimal Putting: Brain Science, Instincts, and the Four Skills of Putting (2008, 282-pages)
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Monday, July 19, 2010
British Open Putting
British Open Putting
Putting at St Andrews is always key to performance, as the giant greens and fierce winds render the usual stats of driving accuracy and greens in regulation much less determinative of outcome than normal, leaving the slower greens of St Andrews to test long-lag distance control.
"Touch" in golf is the ability to handle the green conditions in order to control the distance of putts with accuracy and consistency. So who has good touch?
The quickest measure of player skill for touch at St Andrews is simply to count the 3-putts and 4-putts. Tiger Woods logged five 3-jacks. What does that mean? The field of 77 players who finished had an average of 4.6 3-putts (or worse), so Tiger is a little worse than average.
Players with 0-2 3-putts include:
Oosthuizen (2)
Donald (1)
Lehman (1)
Schwartzel (2)
Canizares (2)
Stricker (1)
Taniguchi (0)
Johnson Z. (2)
Players with 7 or more 3-putts include:
Karlsson (7)
Immelman (9)
McDowell (9+1)
Siem (7)
Mahan (11)
Hanson (10)
Fisher (7)
Clarke (7)
Van Pelt (9)
Villegas (7)
Coltart (8)
A more complicated ranking for putting skill orders the players first by fewest total putts, second by fewest 3- or 4-putts, third by most 0- or 1-putts, and fourth by fewest bogeys or worse:
Player | Total Putts | 3-putts or 4-putts | 1-putts or 0-putts | Bogeys or worse |
1. Canizares | 120 | 2 | 26 | 12 |
2. Barnes | 4 | 28 | 10+3 | |
3. Stricker | 121 | 1 | 24 | 8+3 |
4. Oosthuizen | 2 | 25 | 6 | |
5. Stenson | 3 | 20+3 | 6 | |
6. O'Hair | 3 | 26 | 10+2 | |
7. Donald | 122 | 1 | 23 | 10 |
8. Rock | 3 | 21+2 | 11 | |
9. Westwood | 4 | 24+1 | 6 | |
10. Schwartzel | 124 | 2 | 20+1 | 7+2 |
11. Goosen | 3 | 23 | 5+1 | |
12. Calcavecchia | 3 | 21+1 | 12+3 | |
13. Kuchar | 4 | 24 | 12 | |
14. Jimenez | 5 | 25 | 13+2 | |
15. Clarke | 7 | 25+1 | 13+1 | |
16. Taniguchi | 125 | 0 | 19 | 7+3 |
17. Lehman | 1 | 20 | 8 | |
18. Fowler | 3 | 20+1 | 7+2 | |
19. Johnson D. | 3 | 22 | 6+3 | |
20. Day | 3 | 22 | 10+3 | |
21. Miyase | 3 | 22 | 14 | |
22. Garrido | 4 | 21+1 | 7+2 | |
23. Jeong | 5 | 22+1 | 13 | |
24. Kaymer | 6 | 25 | 11 | |
25. Siem | 7 | 24+1 | 8+3 | |
26. Gallacher | 126 | 4 | 22 | 9+2 |
27. Scotland | 4 | 22 | 10+2 | |
28. Lowry | 5 | 21+1 | 8+2 | |
29. Woods | 5 | 21+1 | 10+2 | |
30. Mickelson | 5+1 | 25 | 9+3 | |
31. Johnson Z. | 127 | 2 | 19 | 15+1 |
32. Dredge | 3 | 20 | 6+3 | |
33. Moriarty | 4 | 21 | 10 | |
34. Na | 4 | 21 | 11+2 | |
35. Ishikawa | 4 | 21 | 11+1 | |
36. Andersson Hed | 4 | 19+1 | 15+3 | |
37. Watney | 5 | 20+1 | 9 | |
38. Scott | 5 | 20+1 | 14+1 | |
39. Casey | 128 | 3 | 19 | 4+2 |
40. Overton | 4 | 20 | 8 | |
41. Daly | 4 | 20 | 10+2 | |
42. Chia | 4+1 | 22 | 12+2 | |
43. Garcia | 5 | 19+1 | 12 | |
44. Kjeldsen | 5 | 17+2 | 13+1 | |
45. Holmes | 6 | 20+1 | 9+1 | |
46. Coltart | 8 | 22+1 | 16+2 | |
47. Marino | 129 | 4 | 19 | 6+3 |
48. Cink | 4 | 17+1 | 10 | |
49. Yang | 4 | 19 | 10+4 | |
50. Slocum | 4 | 17+1 | 9+2 | |
51. Kahn | 4 | 17+1 | 11 | |
52. Singh | 4 | 17+1 | 12 | |
53. Verplank | 5 | 20 | 11+2 | |
54. Glover | 5 | 20 | 17 | |
55. Aiken | 6 | 21 | 15+1 | |
56. McIlroy | 130 | 3+1 | 19 | 8+2 |
57. Johnson R. | 5+1 | 21 | 13+2 | |
58. Karlsson | 7 | 21 | 8+1 | |
59. Villegas | 7 | 19+1 | 10+1 | |
60. Tiley | 131 | 2+1 | 17 | 11+2 |
61. Allenby | 4 | 17 | 5 | |
62. Senden | 4 | 17 | 8+3 | |
63. Montgomerie | 4 | 17 | 7+4 | |
64. Pernice | 5 | 18 | 8+3 | |
65. Kim | 5 | 18 | 10+2 | |
66. Poulter | 6 | 17+1 | 10+2 | |
67. Quiros | 132 | 4 | 16 | 11 |
68. McDowell | 9+1 | 23 | 13+2 | |
69. Molinari | 133 | 6 | 17 | 10 |
70. Leishman | 6 | 17 | 12+1 | |
71. Immelman | 9 | 20 | 14 | |
72. Hanson | 10 | 21 | 14 | |
73. Dyson | 134 | 5 | 15 | 11 |
74. Van Pelt | 9 | 19 | 13 | |
75. Mahan | 11 | 21 | 11+2 | |
76. Senior | 136 | 6 | 14 | 14 |
77. Fisher | 138 | 7 | 13 | 11+1 |
Of the top-10 finishers, the following were also top-10 in putting according to the above ranking:
Oosthuizen
Stenson
O'Hair
Rock
Westwood
Rory McIroy had the worst putting of a top-10 finisher with 130 putts, 3 3-putts, and 1 4-putt. Steve Stricker had superb putting (121 total putts, 1 3-putt) but scored the poorest of the top-10 putters. Mark Calcavecchia also scored poorly with good putting (124 total putts, 3 3-putts). Hunter Mahan had the most 3-putts at 11. Six players had one 4-putt each, including Phil Mickelson.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
The best putting instruction book in golf history is now available for purchaseas an ebook download: Optimal Putting: Brain Science, Instincts, and the Four Skills of Putting (2008, 282-pages)
Geoff Mangum's
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction -- you're either in the PuttingZone, or not.
Over 3.4 million visits -- 200,000 monthly from 50+ countries -- and growing strong.
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