Putting Leave Distances

[nickjdavis]

Inspired ( ) by the discussion around "never up never in" in the Golf Myths thread, I thought I'd start tracking my putting over the course of the year and trying to chart my "dispersion patterns" from various distances. Played 18 today and made a note of my putting distances and the "leaves" and where they finished in relation to the hole.

This was done without delaying play simply by counting steps taken from my ball to the hole after I'd played, working on the fact that my normal walking pace length is approximately 2ft. Once at the hole I just estimated where the ball lay in relation to the hole in terms of a 360 degree circle around the hole....90/270 degrees represents immediately right/left of the hole, 0 degrees directly beyond the hole, 180 degrees directly short of the hole....I estimated angles in roughly 15 degree increments. So...were not talking Trackman style accuracy here but good enough to get a decent representation of dispersion. The graphs show where the ball finished in terms of feet from the hole....the X and Y axes intersect at the hole....so any mark at 0,0 is a putt holed.

I must say I putted pretty well....didn't hole anything of note, but distance control was largely excellent....took 35 putts in total, didn't miss from 6ft and in, didn't 3 putt any hole. I did not bother logging results for any putt under 3ft.....nor for the temporary green on the 18th where we are having a new pond being built short of the proper green!!

So...the three charts below show short putts (3-10ft), medium length putts (10-25ft), long putts (over 25ft)

There are 6 short putts - distances were 3,3,3,4,6 and 7ft. The 7 footer was missed a foot long, everything else was holed (hence there only being 2 data points on the chart!!!).

7 medium length putts...15,15,17,18,20,22 and 24ft (only 6 points on the middle chart as 2 putts finished the same distance/direction away). The 3ft short putt was from 22ft on a green where the slope runs away from you after the hole...its dead easy to chase a ball 8 or 9ft past if you are a bit lively with the flat stick.

7 long putts...26,27,27,27,36,36 and 39ft....the putt that was left 4ft short was on the trickiest green, putting across a right to left slope from 26ft



Will be interesting (?) to see how these patterns build up as more data is added over the coming weeks/months.

 

[Neilds]

Someone needs to get out more - and by out, I mean away from the golf course and mix with some real people

 

[SatchFan]

Someone needs to get out more - and by out, I mean away from the golf course and mix with some real people

I think this applies to a few on this forum.

 

[Hobbit]

Ok, you’ve got me intrigued. I’m a data/information sort of guy that always needs to look at what the fault is and why it exists. Way back when I was competitive I used to track all my stats, and then focus my practice where it was most needed. Fairly early on I realised that my missed GIR’s weren’t poor approach play but down to missed fairways off the tee. Data is your friend.

3 putts happen, especially if it’s from 45 feet+. Good distance control is key. But, and it’s a big but in my eyes, there are other factors in play. Has the green been cut that day? Is it wet? Or am I having a bad day on good greens? Sometimes it just happens.

However, although I didn’t collect the putting data as you propose I did make note of whether it was uphill, downhill across the slope. My findings were that I was poor at long uphill putts, often coming up too short, and especially bad on two tier, uphill greens.

If I were to suggest any additional data points for you to consider, it would be slope. Good luck.

 

[Springveldt]

Ok, you’ve got me intrigued. I’m a data/information sort of guy that always needs to look at what the fault is and why it exists. Way back when I was competitive I used to track all my stats, and then focus my practice where it was most needed. Fairly early on I realised that my missed GIR’s weren’t poor approach play but down to missed fairways off the tee. Data is your friend.

3 putts happen, especially if it’s from 45 feet+. Good distance control is key. But, and it’s a big but in my eyes, there are other factors in play. Has the green been cut that day? Is it wet? Or am I having a bad day on good greens? Sometimes it just happens.

However, although I didn’t collect the putting data as you propose I did make note of whether it was uphill, downhill across the slope. My findings were that I was poor at long uphill putts, often coming up too short, and especially bad on two tier, uphill greens.

If I were to suggest any additional data points for you to consider, it would be slope. Good luck.

The Stack system has a putting practice game in the app and it does kind of the same thing. It will tell you putts to hit like 8 foot, downhill, left to right and you tell it if you made the putt or missed high/low. After a while it figures out what you need to work on and starts giving you more of those putts to practice.

Sounds good but they want £59 a year for it and you would need a putting green that has some undulations on it to get the most benefit I think. I wouldn't mind paying a one off fee for that kind of app as long as it was reasonable but all these golf apps with their ongoing subscriptions can do one.

And before anyone butts in that you could do it on your own, I'm aware of that but I'd rather take the easy option of having something else track it for me.

 

[nickjdavis]

Ok, you’ve got me intrigued. I’m a data/information sort of guy that always needs to look at what the fault is and why it exists. Way back when I was competitive I used to track all my stats, and then focus my practice where it was most needed. Fairly early on I realised that my missed GIR’s weren’t poor approach play but down to missed fairways off the tee. Data is your friend.

3 putts happen, especially if it’s from 45 feet+. Good distance control is key. But, and it’s a big but in my eyes, there are other factors in play. Has the green been cut that day? Is it wet? Or am I having a bad day on good greens? Sometimes it just happens.

However, although I didn’t collect the putting data as you propose I did make note of whether it was uphill, downhill across the slope. My findings were that I was poor at long uphill putts, often coming up too short, and especially bad on two tier, uphill greens.

If I were to suggest any additional data points for you to consider, it would be slope. Good luck.

I could do this but many of our greens (and I play 95% of my golf at my home course) have very subtle slopes and undulations, I can only think of the 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th and 12th and maybe the right hand third of the 15th, that have any sort of meaningful slope. The rest...well....they're not flat but they are difficult to read because of the subtleties in the contours.

 

[jim8flog]

Someone needs to get out more - and by out, I mean away from the golf course and mix with some real people

getting away from the course - very easily done in the past couple of months

 

[Orikoru]

Alright, I'll play, just because half the naysayers in that other thread thought I left putts short on purpose like some sort of madman.

(Distances all estimated and could be wildly wrong because I'm terrible at estimating distances. And this from memory from Saturday morning.)

1st: Uphill 9-footer, was only about 6 inches long but 18 inches left as I mis-read it. Holed the resulting one.
2nd: 4 or 5 footer, slightly uphill right-to-left, holed it.
3rd: One of our most difficult greens, I had a 30-foot putt that is so left-to-right that it starts off uphill then ends up downhill as you get to the hole. Alas, I didn't quite reach that downhill section so left this one four feet short, then rammed the next one two foot past going down the hill. We good-gooded for a half as people had let us through.
4th: 5-footer, pretty flat, holed.
5th: 8-foot downhiller, left it literally 3 inches past on the right.
6th: About a 7-footer slightly uphill slightly left-to-right, holed for birdie.
7th: I made a hash of this hole so was out of it before we even got to the green, so I didn't have much of an attempt at putting really.
8th: 25-footer from the fringe, right-to-left and slightly uphill, holed it.
9th: This was awful. I had a 10-footer for birdie, had a flash of "never up never in" before my eyes, then rammed it three feet past. Right-to-left breaker coming back and missed it by an inch on the low side.
10th: 25-footer, fairly straight but slightly downhill, holed it for birdie.
11th: Around 12 feet very downhill from the fringe, left it about 18 inches past and holed that.
12th: Back of the green in regulation, had about 20 feet, downhill left-to-right. Left it about two feet short. Holed that one.
13th: Three feet down the hill, it broke a lot left-to-right so I missed, ended up about a foot past (picked up as hole was lost).
14th: Another one where I didn't putt properly because hole was already in the bin.
15th: Around 15 feet for birdie, uphill, left-to-right, thought I hit it perfectly but it rattled the flagstick which kept it out of the hole, leaving me a literal tap-in. So presumably I hit that one too hard, unless the flag was leaning towards me, not sure.
16th: About 20 feet, right-to-lefter, put it two feet past. Holed the one back.
17th: About 9 feet, downhill and left-to-right. Missed on the low side, so maybe about 6 inches short.
18th: Hole was dead, I did have a 10-footer or something that I missed by inches.

So only left two of them properly short and they were both 20+ footers that were downhill by the hole so I was obviously worried about them running away on me. And one a tad short that was also a downhill breaker. That does add up, I think I'm more likely to leave it short when I'm concerned about the downhiller taking off and flying five feet past. Three putts left 'uncomfortably' long let's say (2 feet or more), but the rest were good speed. Two three-putts, one of them was a long putt on a very difficult green, but the other one was just rubbish from me.