I don't like the concept of mixing linear and nonlinear on different putt lengths.
THis will help more than anything, BEGIN TO READ YOUR PUTTS ON THE PUTTING GREEN. I know it is no fun, maybe boring. However, if you will dedicate one month to reading every putt you hit, especially in practice, your putting will get much better. You will also come to understand if you SEE curves or straight lines.
Don't think this is easy though. I believe I will get better at this game until I take my last breath, but I have time restraints just as you. The three days I work on my putting it is difficult for me to take the time and read ten putts instead of banging out thirty. It is like MR. KElley said, "Remember- the time to hurry is between shots." (absolutely one of the more powerful statements concerning practice I have ever heard)
The sad thing about golf instruction, especially putting instruction, is you can read ten books and come up with ten different thought processes.
THat is the great thing about TGM. There are no holes. Some might think there are holes but they haven't read enough.
NOW TO THE POINT. Most putting instrutors don't know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to alignment. Mike Shannon, Geoff Mangum, and Tony Sills all teach it very, very well. THey all have different aspects but the basics are the same. None of these guys teach it the way most instructors teach it. Alignment and using the eyes is not something that just POPS OUT OF NOWHERE. It is very similar to learning and utilizing different hinges. First you look, look, look, and then you learn the differences in feel, and finally you just think ANGLED HINGE, and it happens.
Take a piece of electrical tape 5 feet in length and stick it to the floor in your house somewhere the wife will not move it. Everyday for a month set up to the tape with your putter and walk your eyes down it (toward the hole) and back to the putter face. IT MUST TAKE AT LEAST THIRTY SECONDS. Now read all your practice putts for the next month. After thirty days you will know if you are linear or non linear.
Take a piece of electrical tape 5 feet in length and stick it to the floor in your house somewhere the wife will not move it. Everyday for a month set up to the tape with your putter and walk your eyes down it (toward the hole) and back to the putter face. IT MUST TAKE AT LEAST THIRTY SECONDS. Now read all your practice putts for the next month. After thirty days you will know if you are linear or non linear.
This is great stuff here.
As seminal material in The Lab, it may prove to be even greater.
I use a laser "Picture Frame" light (Home Depot). I set it on the floor and look at the long straight red light. Then I set up with my putter and practice some strokes with out a ball......................
The sad thing about golf instruction, especially putting instruction, is you can read ten books and come up with ten different thought processes.
THat is the great thing about TGM. There are no holes. Some might think there are holes but they haven't read enough.
NOW TO THE POINT. Most putting instrutors don't know what the hell they are talking about when it comes to alignment. Mike Shannon, Geoff Mangum, and Tony Sills all teach it very, very well. THey all have different aspects but the basics are the same. None of these guys teach it the way most instructors teach it. Alignment and using the eyes is not something that just POPS OUT OF NOWHERE. It is very similar to learning and utilizing different hinges. First you look, look, look, and then you learn the differences in feel, and finally you just think ANGLED HINGE, and it happens.
Take a piece of electrical tape 5 feet in length and stick it to the floor in your house somewhere the wife will not move it. Everyday for a month set up to the tape with your putter and walk your eyes down it (toward the hole) and back to the putter face. IT MUST TAKE AT LEAST THIRTY SECONDS. Now read all your practice putts for the next month. After thirty days you will know if you are linear or non linear.
There is a test where one lines up several golf balls. The balls may or may not look in line from certain perspectives. Are you familiar with this test?
Great information... by the way, on your previous posts!!!
p.s.--- I think one of the reasons that Sam Snead putted so well croquet style was that he had a good BINOCULAR(using both eyes) view of the hole. Many people READ the putt the way Sam was looking at it in croquet style, then when they get over the ball things don't look the same.
p.s.--- I think one of the reasons that Sam Snead putted so well croquet style was that he had a good BINOCULAR(using both eyes) view of the hole. Many people READ the putt the way Sam was looking at it in croquet style, then when they get over the ball things don't look the same.
My experience on this subject is that whenever I don't see the same line standing to the ball as I do standing behind it, I have incorporated an error in the putting stroke that the subconcious somehow manages to account for. Most often this happens when I close the clubface through impact.
For a straight put, I might pick a spot halfway, and then , as I address the ball - the straight line I see goes to the right of this spot. If I trust the phony straight line I have a chance of holing the putt, but obviously I am not putting very well when this error occurs.
This happens every now and then. I am not likely to be the only one - but I suspect that very few are aware of this phenomenon.
"Take a piece of electrical tape 5 feet in length and stick it to the floor in your house somewhere the wife will not move it. Everyday for a month set up to the tape with your putter and walk your eyes down it (toward the hole) and back to the putter face. IT MUST TAKE AT LEAST THIRTY SECONDS. Now read all your practice putts for the next month. After thirty days you will know if you are linear or non linear."
But you don't need tape -- just use a line on your floor, such as a tile floor or the plank of a wooden floor. The phrase "walk your eyes down it" really reveals something about what is happening in this exercise. There are two different movement systems potentially used to "walk" the eyes down the line -- the eye muscles and the neck muscles. The eye muscles (six extraocular muscles per eye) control the "gaze," which is the direction the eeballs are aimed out of the face and skull. The neck mucles aim the head on the trunk. If you hold your head still faing the floor / ball at address and try to "walk" your eyes down the 5-foot line with eye muscles altering only your gaze, you will not be doing what golfers need to do in putting. If you partially turn your head with your neck while also changing the direction of your eyes with eye muscles to "walk" the eyes along the line, you will experience a messy process that generates very questionable sense of the line. However, if you fix your gazeteady direction and then turn only your head to "slide" or "run" the end of your fixed gaze / line of sight in a straight line down the 5-foot line, you will experience clarity of the line visually and also clarity of sense of direction to the target by virtue of the neck nerves.
To see how to really sharpen this process up, make a narrow tube with your hand and hold it to your dominant eye (close the other eye) and -- looking thru the tube of your hand like a telescope or spyglass -- aim the gaze straight out of the face perpendicularly to the plane of the face. (This would be like a pirate sanding with good posture at the helm scanning the far horizon of the ocean for a booty ship.) Setup square to your line on the floor, aim your face and "tube" at the floor so te gaze remains aimed straight out of the face, and then turn the neck to "slide" or "run" the gaze down the line. If you turn your head on the axis from center of neck out top of head so the axis rotates but does not arc backwards or otherwise, the line will stay inside the narrow tube all the way as the head turns down the line.
__________________
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting instructor and theorist
PuttingZone.com http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction
"However, if you fix your gazeteady direction and then turn only your head to "slide" or "run" the end of your fixed gaze / line of sight in a straight line down the 5-foot line, you will experience clarity of the line visually and also clarity of sense of direction to the target by virtue of the neck nerves."
When you say "fix your gazeteady direction" are you saying that you shift only your eyes (w/o turning your head) on a spot on your line? Where would this spot be? A few feet down your line? i.e. with spot putting- you would look at your "spot."
I understand the neck turning part I just don't understand the first step completely (the eye focus part).
BTW Geoff...it's good to see you here. I've definately heard your name before...you seem to be a real putting authority...your site has so much stuff on it I don't even know what to do with myself man. Wow.
This site is getting such good, knowledgeable contributors...so awesome to be able to consult you guys personally. Really tho...VJ, Geoff, Lynn, Ted, Brian, Mike Finney now, Vickie- our personal trainer etc. etc. Really is amazing that you guys are so eagerly passing on your knowledge.
Linear Mode
