Tomorrow night I am taking a case of beer to ship's house and "forcing" him to drink each and every one. However after completing each beer he is required to post in this thread. Should be fun.

BO

So he'll pick Box B then, because there are twice as many ways to get that red marble.

Got it.

This made me laugh.

It's just so hard to question yourself when you are the better golfer. It clouds your judgment and makes you think you have the slightest clue as to what you are talking about.

If LeBron James told Ship he prefers 100 foot shots to lay-ups because he doesn't trust the glass or something completely stupid, I guess Ship would have to accept that 100 foot shots are easier than lay-ups. Because LeBron is better at basketball than Ship.

From Dave Stockton, former PGA Tour player and now tour putting guru:


3. Stay away from dead straight

When Tiger Woods faced that 12-foot putt on the 72nd hole at Torrey Pines to send the U.S. Open into a playoff, he called in his caddie, Steve Williams, to help with the read. I'll bet Tiger saw the putt as breaking to the left but was bothered by a hunch that it might be dead straight. If there's one thing a good putter hates, it's an absolutely straight putt. The reason is, if you start the putt straight, you have a margin for error of only half a cup on either side. Tiger needed Steve to confirm that the putt would break left, because the entire cup would be exposed if Tiger started the ball to the right. The putt indeed broke a couple inches to the left, and Tiger snuck it in on the right edge of the hole.

If the putt for all the marbles looks straight, look again. Study the area near the hole. Remember, the ball will be rolling so slowly when it gets within two feet that even the tiniest slope will cause it to break. Try to at least favor one side.

Jesus Christ.

Whether a putt breaks or doesn't break.... it still has a margin of error of half a cup on either side.

So why do pros always work their driver one way or another? They never aim down the middle and hit a straight ball, they always aim down the edge of the fairway and work the ball towards the middle.

See, this way they have the entire fairway to work with. So why wouldn't the same principle hold true for a breaking putt?

BO

Are you telling me on a dead straight putt the pro would prefer to put sidespin on it and curve it into the hole?

I believe they like to work it 1 way off the tee because:

A) Big misses with the driver wreck your score moreso than relative "big" misses with the putter.
B) They want to know where their miss will be if they do miss. This doesn't really matter with putting because their 2nd putt is typically within 3 feet in any direction and they can slam that home almost all the time.

When I miss dead straight putts, I miss right. I make a lot more R to L, than straight or L to R putts. My misses on R to L putts are on the pro side of the hole and since I kinda suck and sometimes hit it too soft, they fall in. Makes sense to me

what if it has a backstop behind it? What if it is straight dead on, but if you putt it out to the right, there is break that will bring it back in? I think there are hypotheticals where that isn't true. So, that opens up the discussion.

Ultimately, what are people arguing about? Are some puts easier than others? Personally, if I was putting a 15 footer, I'd want it to be slightly up hill, with a right to left break.

How are they 4-6 times better? Can you quantify it somehow!

Holy ****. Of course if there is any slope at all it will affect your margin of error. You are a genius.

Let me now explain to you how this uphill scenario you have created still maintains the same amount of combinations of line + speed as a perfectly flat putt.

You're hilarious .2% grade.... Ok it now pushes out some putts that would have fallen in on the edges. But it also works in our favor on some putts! The putts that now burn the edges are replaced by putts that previously would have lipped out at various different places. You see the uphill grade slowed down some of our putts and now they don't lip out.

The putts we lost to the edges were replaced by putts that now go in but would have previously lipped out if not for the uphill.

Get it? We still maintain the exact same amount of combinations of line + speed.

BUT HERE IS THE REAL MORTAL COMBAT FINISHING MOVE TO THIS ARGUMENT

With the above, you are basically conceding that a perfectly flat putt(no uphill, no side slope) is easier than a non flat putt! You see you are implying that your .2% grade would turn more of my makes into misses than my misses into makes. Sadly for your argument that is not the case and would appear to be a fatal blow.

Of course, it's likely not a fatal blow bc you seem completely incapable of grasping this concept. I have hope tho.

Cool

gibberish

no, you are the one not thinking


And please understand how the ball doesn't give 2 ****s how much break it had before arriving at the hole. Based on it's angle of approach it has a set combination of line+speed combos it can have to find the bottom. They are the same for every putt.

Physics. Geometry. Logic. Learn all of them and maybe you will understand how they appear in the golf world.

You can believe what you want, but there are two reasons pros work the ball off the tee. You got one of them right, they want to know where their miss will be. But the second reason is what I stated previously, they want to have the entire fairway to work with. This logic has been around for a long time and is unimpeachable as far as the tee shot goes.

Therefore I ask again, why does the same not apply to putting? (this is what ship has been saying, just thought I'd use the tee ball example to make it easier to relate)

Damn I hope stads has finished his finals and chimes in here soon.

BO

A putt is made easy or hard based on 2 things:

Getting the speed right (sensitive physical act)
Assessing the break

Well, you can say other things like wind and rain and stuff but let's ignore that for now.

This is why the easiest putt is the tap in. For the speed you pick for it (tap), there is a relatively HUGE window of error. Tapping it too light or hammering it (relatively speaking) it will probably still go in. And the line is simple to read.

Anyone saying they'd rather putt a long breaking putt because there are all kinds of combos that put it in the hole is basically becoming "guy who swears he's better at chipping from the fringe than he is putting from the fringe". He's probably really, really, wrong - no matter what his handicap is. Probably arrogant, to boot.

I can only imagine if this forum was around when TrackMan first debuted its data about how the PGA ball flight laws were wrong.

TrackMan stating that the face angle is where the ball starts and the path relative to that angle is how it curves.

BO would quote 1986 Golf Digest article where Jack Nicklaus is talking about how if you want to "work" the ball you aim your club where you want the ball to finish and swing the club along the path you want the ball to start on.

Would be pure gold.

You still "have the whole fairway to work with" if you aim down the center and try to hit it straight. It's just that you prefer to have more of an idea of your ball settling on the left half of the fairway or the right half. For obvious reasons - because you have an approach shot upcoming and getting a good angle to the green is HUGE.

While putting, you don't give a flying **** if the putt lips in on the left or right. Because it has no direct affect on your next shot.

Also, as I asked... would you prefer to put spin on a straight putt if you could? Or just hit it straight?

This means nothing. A former tour player and now putting guru is stating that tour players don't like straight putts. Plain and simple. He's not talking math, he's not talking physics, he's talking about top players not liking straight putts.

So apparently you're going to say that tour pros are silly for not liking straights putts?

BO

Just curious, why didn't the golf industry learn from Iron Byron what it did from Trackman?

Really? C'mon BO, you're smarter than this.

It's about the shot cone and setting the upper bound on the miss on one side. If you draw it every time, just to varying degrees, you can start it at the furthest right safe point. In a 30 yard fw, a good shot in the scenario curves between 0 and 30 yards.

For someone who hits it straight and has misses both ways, they start it down the middle and have 15 yards of miss either direction.

But it's the same 30 yard total margin.

The same thing applies to putting. It you always either hit your putts straight or pulled them, you would aim everything at the rightmost point of the line.

The tee ball is example is another terrible one. If you aim down the center of the fairway let's just say you have 5% right and 5% left before you get into the rough. So you have a 10% window to get the club face into.

Ok but you are Jack Nicklaus and you love to aim down the left side of the fairway and hit the butter cut. You now have 1% margin for error to the left, but 9% of room to the right. You again have a 10% window to get the club face in to hit the fairway.

Explain how these 2 scenarios are different? Wahoo you get 4% extra error on your fanned shots to the right, but you lose an equal amount to pulls and double crosses. You end up at the exact same margin for error, it's just distributed differently.

I think having a putt that breaks R to L when your miss is right is a huge advantage for the times you get the speed wrong you still have a chance. If I have a straight putt and don't hit it perfect I've cut the hole in half since the overwhelming majority of my misses are right. Very few people miss 50/50 L or R.

BO, you have an incredibly shameful lack of ability to think for yourself.

I've always wondered this too.

I highly, HIGHLY doubt tour players do not like straight putts. And if they do it might not be for a logical reason. It might be because they fail to remember all their misses on breakers, and don't credit themselves enough for sinking a straight putt "of course I should have made that - it was dead straight!" They also likely beat themselves up too much for missing a dead straight putt.

Doesn't make them right. It's like a kicker saying he prefers a 58 yard field goal over a 36 yard field goal. He's wrong. But it's likely a defense mechanism. Human nature can be very illogical. He may mean they don't like them relatively speaking. But to say you don't like straight putts implies that you like breakers. That is mega dumb.

No no no no no.

Assume a 40 yard fairway, if you aim straight and miss left you've only got 20 yards. If you aim straight and miss right you've only got 20 yards. But if you always hit a cut and aim down the left edge you've got 40 yards to play with.

BO

QFpuregold

20 + 20 = 40

Lulz.

Nobody would argue that if you have a consistent pattern that moved the ball one way that what you're saying is the effective way to play it. They doesn't matter to the argument though, DUCY?