Backsticks
Assistant Pro
Benefit of the distbin lid mentality is that the purpose is to have an easy second putt, a sure thing. So it focuses the mind on distance - distance is more important than line, and the element that needs the athletic skill, spacial awareness, and visualisation of distance from a target you arent looking at as you hit the ball.Precisely, this is why the old 'dustbin lid' rhetoric is nonsense as well. Bigger target area, bigger margin of error. Keep the target small - i.e. the hole itself.
The small target has more of an emphasis on line. So hit the target like a dart board....or nothing. But putting isnt an or nothing challenge. There is a second chance, and not missing that is more key to good putting than the exponentially disappearing chances of holing putts longer than 20ft. And...you might still hole that 20+ footer. For 8ft or less, line is the thing - we arent going to leave it 7ft short like we might with a 40footer. In that case the dustbin lid concept is useless. But beyond 20ft, I think the its the better approach than the small target of the hole -