by Stan Utley
all. I’ve had stretches of a few weeks where I thought I was stroking it well and they just would not
go in. I can remember a few times when I needed to hole a four-footer to make the cut, and it just felt
like there was no way the ball was going in. Sometimes, it’s as simple as going back over your
fundamentals and discovering a flaw. For me, it’s usually tempo related. Life creeps into my stroke—
when life is moving fast, and you’ve got lots of things to think about, it’s easy to get quick with the
putter. When I’m going really good, everything slows down and the ball is just squeezing off the
putter. For those tougher times, when I can’t seem to find the problem in my fundamentals, the way I
break that spell is to literally quit trying to make putts. I completely exaggerate the process of
disconnecting from the outcome and make a stroke. Let me give you a more specific example.
I was caddying for my friend Lee Janzen at the Players Championship in 2002 and he was going
through a tough time getting putts to fall. After a round that left him in the middle of the pack on
Thursday, he came to the turn on Friday really needing something to happen to make the cut. I could
see how frustrated he was by all the near-misses and lip-outs, and I’m sure he was thinking that none
of them were going in the rest of the day. On his ninth green, the eighteenth hole, I took a risk and told
him to intentionally aim off to the corner of the hole and try to just miss past the edge of the cup. It
seemed to relieve the “I have to make the next one” anxiety he was feeling, and darn it if he didn’t hit
it right into the heart. He putted great the rest of the day, made the cut and had a good week.
The things that happen to you in streaks just reinforce the overall idea that you should take care
of your own business—what you’re thinking and how you stroke it—and let the putt take care of itself
after you hit it. Go to a PGA Tour event and watch Brad Faxon on the practice green. He won’t even
go to a hole or set up to any other target. He’s out there hitting putts to nothing because he’s not trying
to make them. He’s trying to make sure he’s hitting it solid. He knows that if he does, they’ll go in. I
really like another variation of that kind of practice, something I saw Jeff Brehaut do on the putting
green. He sets up to hit a fifteen-footer to no specific target on the practice green, then hits five or six
to see where the break actually is. Then he’ll use a tee to mark where he hit the putt from, drop a coin
where the high point of the putt is, and put a plastic disc down where his first five or six putts ended
up. Then he’ll practice that putt—to the high point and the coins and down to the plastic disc—making
the same smooth stroke. He lets the green determine the break, then practices replicating his
mechanics.
CHAPTER 6
ADVANCED TECHNIQUES
Your stance and setup have improved, and you’ve got your grip running up the lifelines instead of
down in the fingers. Your stroke is looking great, and the ball is rolling nicely. So what happens now?
How do you take that from the practice green out to the course?
It starts with the stroke you’re making. I really believe that whether you know it or not, you’ve
got enough natural talent that a putting factor like speed control will take care of itself if you can learn
to hit your putts solid. Yes, there are other factors—like break, grain and green conditions—that go
into making a good stroke, and those are the things we’ll be talking about in this chapter. But the first
thing you have to remember is that making a good stroke and hitting a solid putt are the most important
things you can do. Do that and it’s funny how many times the ball seems to run into the hole for you.
Let’s talk about reading greens. Ideally, you want to use that great putting stroke you’ve been
working on to send the ball in the right direction. Jack Nicklaus picks a spot in front of his ball and
aims for that spot, on both his full shots and putts. I use more of a path technique—I pick out two or
three or four objects that my ball may roll over along the way. The most important part is to be able to
see the break, and see the line you want the ball to start on. I’m teaching people a stroke that they can
hopefully repeat no matter what kind of putt they have. So the goal is to figure out what the ball is
going to do after it leaves the putter, so that we can make the ball leave on the right line to curve into
the hole. I call it the high point of the break. You’re trying to hit your putts so that they start on a line
that will get the ball to roll solidly to the high point of the break. The ground takes care of the rest of
it.
As a tour player, my green-reading preparation starts days—and sometimes years—before the
actual tournament round I’ll be playing in. I have a yardage book for every tournament I play in, and
the book comes with straightforward measurements like the distances from certain landmarks to the
center of the green, and topographical information about each green.
For example, I can look at this chart of the fifteenth hole at Fox Den, where I played the
Knoxville event on the Nationwide Tour, and tell you exactly what I’m supposed to do. The notation
on the bottom says that the ball really runs on this fairway, so driver is too much. There’s no reason to
risk hitting it through the dogleg into the trees on the left. The “OK” designations short right of the
green tell me where I can miss the green and have the best chance of getting up and down—usually the
place where there’s flat terrain and short grass, or maybe a big bunker without much of a lip.
I spend a lot of my time carefully drawing arrows on the green to show the fall lines—the ridges
built into the surface of the green that have the most influence on how putts will break. Here, you can
see a long, gentle ridge in the front-right quadrant of the green, a sharper hump in the back-left section
and another hump in the back right. The dots show the different places where pins have been set on
the hole. For example, if the pin is set front right, I know I can miss a little to the left of the pin and the
ball will funnel toward the hole. And to get to that back-left pin, I know I’ve got to carry it up onto the
tier, or else the ball will kick off the ridge and leave me with a tough putt.
The yardage book is the first piece of the greens-reading puzzle. Next, I play practice rounds and
carefully note what my shots do when they hit each green. Do they feed left or right? Do they tend to
check up, or run toward the back of the green? I also pay close attention to the topography of the area
around the green as I walk up to it after hitting my approach. Is the area flat, or is there a mountain or
valley to one side of the green or the other?
I draw the green contours in the yardage guides I use for each tournament I play in. If I know the general characteristics of the green, it helps me when I’m reading particular putts on that green.
Walking up, I can usually get a general idea of what the green’s tendencies are. That way, if I’m
torn between two reads later on, I can use that piece of general information about the green to break
the tie in my mind. Then I’ll hit some practice putts from different spots around the green, taking note
not so much of the specific amount of break, but of the general tendencies. What do putts from the
front-l
eft corner to the middle tend to do? Are they fast or slow? Does a putt up into the back left
break more than I expect, or does it break less than it looks? All of these notes go into the yardage
book, which I bring with me year after year. I also draw onto the pages what the tournament-round
putts I’ve faced have done. After three or four years, I’ve got a pretty good scouting report on just
about any pin location they can throw at me.
You might be thinking to yourself, that’s fine for a tour player, but how does that help me? If you
play at a club, you’re in a great position to get detailed information about every green at your course.
In fact, if you go out and play without it, it’s like leaving a club out of your bag. It’s as easy as going
out with a little notebook for a couple of practice rounds and recording the general tendencies of the
greens. It’s amazing what this one step, actually going out and taking notes on your greens, adds to
your body of knowledge. You might have a general idea that the green on number four is fast and
breaks hard right, but do you really know what a putt from four or five different spots on that green to
a front-right pin really does? Go practice them, and you’ll never be shocked by what your putt does
during a round that really counts.
That kind of information is great to have, but what happens when you’re playing a course for the
first time? You obviously want to walk toward each green after your approach shot with your head up
and your eyes open. You’re looking for the overall tilt of the green, which influences the way most
putts will break. Once you’re actually looking over your putt, there’s a straightforward, quick method
to deciphering the break. I start by looking at my putt from behind the ball, and then I walk behind the
hole and look at it from the opposite direction. When I’m returning to my ball, I make sure to walk to
the low side of the hole—the opposite side from where the ball will break—and look at the putt from
halfway between the ball and the hole. For example, if I’m looking at a twenty-footer with a foot of
break from left to right, I want to look at the break from the right side of the ball, halfway between the
ball and the hole. From that position, you get the best perspective on the amount of break the putt will
have. This is something I do when I play, and most tour players do it out of instinct. I’m emphasizing
it very purposefully because Dave Stockton, one of the best putters of all time, told me it’s one of the
most important things he teaches in his clinics.
Your first read on a putt comes as you’re approaching your ball for the first time. You’re trying to get an overall sense of the topography of the green.
Next, I move behind the hole, on a line with my ball, and look at the putt from that direction. You often can get a better sense of the break from that side.
On the way back to my ball, I read the putt from halfway between my ball and the hole, on the low side of the break—the opposite side from where the ball will break. This gives me a feel for just how much break to play.
Once you look at your putt from that angle, you’ll probably wonder if you’re really seeing as
much break as you think you are. You are. Most amateur players dramatically underestimate the
amount of break in the average putt. Add in the fact that many players fixate on the hole and not the
high point—where they need to aim the face to account for the amount of break in the putt—and it’s
easy to see why most putts miss on the low side.
The read itself is one part of the equation, but the type of putt itself is another important thing to
consider. When you take into account the topography of the green, keep in mind that a tilt in the green
early in the putt is going to have less impact on the roll of your ball than a tilt toward the end, near the
hole. In other words, as your ball slows down near the hole, it will take more break than it did when
it was coming right off the putterhead. In practical terms, you’re doing a general read on the overall
tilt of the green for the first ten or fifteen feet of a twenty-footer, then a more detailed, specific read
for the last five feet. The same principles hold true when you have a downhill putt. You have to make
a smaller, slower stroke to account for the downhill slope, and when your ball is rolling more slowly,
it will tend to take even the most subtle break. You can read less break into an uphill putt, because
you’re making an aggressive stroke to account for the slope. That’s why players at every level, from
the PGA Tour to the B-flight at the club championship, hate sidehill-downhill putts. They have a lot of
side-to-side break, and they have to be hit gently to account for the downhill slope. Get too tentative
with them and you leave yourself another downhiller to finish up. Get too bold and you’re ten or
fifteen feet past the hole.
It’s really a golf cliché by now, but you are better off leaving yourself below the hole—where
you have an uphill putt left—on an approach shot, pitch or chip. You’ll be less tentative with your
stroke, because you’re less worried about knocking it by the hole and leaving yourself a tester coming
back. Because the ball comes off the putter faster in the beginning of an uphill putt, it will break less
overall, which lets you play the putt straighter. The idea of leaving yourself below the hole is a good
one for lag putting as well. On a long putt, say one of fifty or sixty feet, your goal is to leave yourself
within five feet of the hole for the next putt. It’s obviously better to favor the side of the hole that
leaves you something relatively straight and uphill, if possible. That’s something I think about
automatically when I go through my read and pre-shot routine for a long putt. It’s like playing pool.
You want to know where your best leave is—the best spot to hit the next shot.
Another small but significant factor in green reading is grain—and that’s not just for those of you
who play on Bermuda greens. It’s been my experience that almost every grass grows in a certain
direction. Sure, Bermuda greens have a more pronounced grain that will make your ball move more
than closely mown bent grass. But when you’re playing on bent and you can see the shine on the
greens, that means you’re putting with the grain, while a shaded color means you’re playing into it. If
the greens are already quick, that difference in the direction of the grain is going to make a difference
in how hard you have to hit the putt. That’s great information to know, and your brain needs to process
it at least on a subconscious level.
One other thing to keep in mind when you make your reads is the moisture on the greens. After a
night of rain, the greens are obviously going to run a little bit slower. If the sun is out, you can expect
those same wet greens to dry out over the course of the day—and dry out even quicker if the wind is
blowing. That can make a significant difference in green speed from the time you play the first hole to
the time you make the turn. Unless you’re in the desert, there’s also morning dew to consider. Until
that dew burns off, the greens will run slower. If you’re in a period of wet weather, the grass at the
course will tend to grow more quickly—and the maintenance people won’t have as much chance to
get out and cut the grass. Longer grass on the green usually translates into slower speeds. The
opposite is true as w
ell. In a dry summer (or a standard summer here in Scottsdale, where I live),
greens tend to play firm and fast. Those kinds of greens actually make a different kind of sound when
your approach shot lands on them—a hollow clunk instead of a wetter thwack.
If you’re feeling good about your stroke and you start to make some good reads using the
strategies I’ve been talking about, it’s amazing how your speed starts to take care of itself. Your brain
can sense factors like uphill and downhill, and when you start reading enough break into your putts,
your brain won’t be subconsciously trying to yank the putter onto the path that will get the ball started
on the right line. That confidence just starts to grow and grow. One of the questions I get over and
over again is, “How do I know how hard to hit it?” My answer is that you already know how hard.
You just have to put yourself in position to use that information.
So you feel good about the read. Now what? I have a regular physical and mental routine that I
follow every time I hit a putt, and it helps me consistently translate my read into where I actually hit
the putt. It starts with eye dominance. Everyone has one eye that is dominant over the other, and the
dominant eye leads in terms of focusing on a target. You can figure out which of your eyes is dominant
by looking up at a target that’s pretty far away, like a light or a street sign, and pointing at it without
thinking too much about what you’re doing. Without moving your finger, try closing your left eye. If
your finger is pointing directly at the target, you’re right-eye dominant. If your finger is pointing off to
the side of the target, you’re left-eye dominant.
Why is eye dominance important to know? Because, as you can see from that simple eye test I
just described, if you rely on your non-dominant eye to line you up with your target, you could be a
few inches—or even a foot—off as to where the face of your putter is actually aimed. That means
you’ll have to do something in your stroke, either consciously or unconsciously, to get the ball back
on line. I know I’m right-eye dominant, so I set the putter down with my right hand first, and let my