Become a better putter by learning to read the green

If you are an avid golfer and spend every moment of your life thinking about how to improve your game and every moment of your sleep dreaming of putting up like a pro, then you already know that the difference between a high score and a low score, winning and losing, being a hero or a goat revolves around a good game of putting. Obviously, hours of practice will significantly improve your golf game, but to truly score like the pros, you must develop the ability and ability to learn to read the green.

A mediocre golfer will simply walk up to his golf ball and putt without really thinking about what he is doing. A good golfer will take his time and direct his golf ball concentrating all the time to line up his putt. A master golfer will do all of the above along with various other actions to sink his putt, but the biggest difference is his ability to predict the trajectory and speed of your golf ball based on his reading of the green. Seasoned golfers know that the art of accurately aiming and controlling a golf ball won’t help you if you can’t accurately predict where your golf ball will go once you hit it with your putter.

The best way to accurately read the green is to avoid doing what professional golfers do when reading their greens. Remember, these guys are pros and have been doing this for quite some time, so they have considerable experience when it comes to easily reading golf greens. For the novice or beginning golfer, don’t be afraid to get down on your knees and carefully study the terrain between your golf ball and the cup. It is also highly recommended that you place one of his clubs on the ground and look carefully at the ground that runs along the axis of your golf club.

When scanning the golf green, you need to keep an eye out for potholes, no matter how small, curvy, or small hills. Try to make a rough estimate of what the downhill to uphill terrain ratio is between your ball and the cup. Consider how dry or wet the grass is because a golf ball has the ability to travel an additional 9 to 13 inches on wet grass compared to a dry putting green.

Believe it or not, even the way the grass is mowed can have an effect on the distance your golf ball travels after being hit by your putter. A condition known as double mowing where the grass is cut in one direction and then cut again in a perpendicular direction can change the distance the golf ball travels by 5 to 10 inches. The height of the grass can also affect your putting. The lower the grass is mowed, the further the ball can travel.

As you can see, there are many different factors and variables that need to be taken into account in order to read a green correctly. Read the green correctly and you could drastically improve your golf game score by cutting a few shots off your golf score. If you read the green incorrectly, you will most likely need to spend more time on the practice green to learn how to putt correctly.