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Reading A Green (myview) - Putting

Pay attention to the process and the speed at which you will be able to read a green as I guide you through the steps from a first person camera.

Playlists: Putting

Tags: Putt, Beginner

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So we're going to go through the first person view of how to read a green.

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So this is step number one. I'm about eight ten feet behind the ball.

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And I'm crashed down a little bit so that I have a little better angle to look.

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And from behind the ball, I'm looking for left to right break.

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So it's a little hard to see, but there's a little mound over to the right side of the green.

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That is a little bit higher than the depression to the left or in the middle of the green.

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So I have an idea that this put is going to break right to left.

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So now I'm going to stand up out of my little view there and walk to the low side.

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So I know it's going right to left now. I'm walking halfway between the ball and the hole.

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So from this point of view, I'm going to scan the ground to look to see if the ball is higher than the hole or the hole is higher than the ball.

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I can see if there's little crowns in between the ball from here.

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So this gives me uphill downhill essentially.

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And I can see that it's slightly uphill. It's a little hard to tell again.

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But the highest point of this whole golf course is way to the left and the lowest point is to the right on the screen.

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So the whole general green is set up so that it runs from the screens left to right.

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And now we're walking to the third key, banish point.

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And this is where I'm going to study right around the hole.

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Now I already know that the ball is going to come from the right side and it's going to be losing speed pretty quickly because it's coming uphill.

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So that means that it may break a little bit more than if it were downhill.

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So it's going to as it loses speed, it's going to break a little bit more.

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I'm studying around the hole.

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And once I have a good idea of the spot where I think is the fall line and where it would cross,

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I'm going to kind of almost trace backward. Imagine the ball rolls out of the hole and then up the fall line and then back to the ball.

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Essentially, when I hit the put, I'm going to give it speed and the ball is just going to react to how gravity is pulling it downhill.

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I'm going to get this image in my mind of how that path would look.

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So I'm scanning the last four feet or so, kind of feeling with my feet.

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And now I'm going to pause. You can see right here.

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I paused right next to the hole and now I'm going to pace the put.

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So you can kind of see that I'm taking more deliberate steps.

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If I remember right, it was about eight pace put but you can't see my feet, so it's kind of hard to tell.

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So now I'm in the final position. I'm back in that kind of classic tour pro position where I'm crouch down behind the ball.

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And now I've got a lot of information from the other couple of reads that I'm processing in.

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So I'm retracing that line from behind the hole to see if it matches what it looks like from here.

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And there's a couple ways to do it because frequently it's not going to match up.

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And then I'm going to either split the difference or what I tend to do is I tend to trust more the put that is reading into the slope.

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So this is an uphill put which means from behind the ball.

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I'm looking into the slope and I'm going to have much more sensitivity to subtle changes than if I was looking down a slope or down the face of the slope.

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So I'm retracing that put and I'm identifying a spot somewhere around eight inches, 12 inches in front of the golf ball on the line.

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That I want it to start on. And so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to line up the golf ball at the little depressions.

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So you can see I'm looking at my spot wall I'm lining up the ball. Unfortunately, you can't see the little fine tuning.

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I'm doing for the line. And then I come back to the zoro position. Now the camera is not in front of my right eye.

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It's right in the center of my head. So the putter looks like it's a little off.

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I've got my left eye closed at this point because I'm right eye dominant.

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And what I'm looking at is I'm using the last ten inches of the putter shaft, which is dead straight, to line up with just next to the line.

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So that I can see really where the ball has me lined up.

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And this particular case, I didn't do the best job of changing my line or adjusting my line.

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So I'm going to do one more go at it. Step back, line it up again.

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And this time it looks like where I wanted to start it.

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So you could see that I was aimed a little bit out to the right.

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And it's going to be a little bit uphill. So I've got to add a little bit to my eight-paste putt.

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Maybe I'm going to hit a nine-paste putt.

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So now I'm going through my pre-shot routine, which I do from on the target line because I have a hard time doing it next to the ball.

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But you can do it wherever you want.

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I do it on the target line further back from the hole.

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And I just take a few practice strips that kind of gauge my number.

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So the last thing in my head is I'm going to hit a nine-paste putt.

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The lineman is already taking care of because I use the line on the ball.

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So I no longer have to worry about break.

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It's now like I'm in the middle of the fairway.

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And I know I've got 150 yards.

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Give me my eight-iron or my nine-iron depending on the situation.

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So right here I've got my nine-paste putt.

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I'm going to take one last look, confirm everything looks good.

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Pull the trigger.

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And we left it like three inches short.

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So it was a nine-paste putt.

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Maybe it was a nine-nin and a third-paste putt.

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But all in all the process works really well.

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I got a good read.

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Just didn't quite put it in the hole.

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So I hope you enjoyed this version of looking at it and going through green reading from a first-time

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or first person's perspective.

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Like I said, at first it's going to be a little tricky going through the steps.

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So just either have them written down or kind of have a checklist.

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But as you get better at it, this whole process only takes about 15-20 seconds.

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And if you're in a rush, what I always say,

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you know because there's times when you're going to be playing slow or there's times when you're going to have that,

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you know, fast-grip behind just a little group in front of you,

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always check behind, always check behind the ball,

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and then walk to the halfway on the low point and get the rest of the information from there.

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Because then you can walk back and you can get half the distance past

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and then you just double it.

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That gives you the number.

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And you'll get a pretty good guess as far as, you know, you'll have the right to left, left to right, and up hill downhill.

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So that's the quick version.

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The one that you got to watch was the full version and I hope you enjoyed it.

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And go check out the next GoPro video.

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