The Hidden Strategy Pros Use To Make Putts | The Game Plan | Golf Digest

Putting. It’s arguably the most critical part of every golfers’ game. What’s the line? Should I try and hit it harder to take the break out of it? How do I avoid 3-Putts on firm and fast U.S. Open style greens? In this episode of The Game Plan, Golf Digest Senior Editor Luke Kerr-Dineen dives into the data of the often unrealized putting strategy Tour Pros use to avoid disaster and make more putts.

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exactly 25 years ago the US Open came to Pinehurst for the very first time and players well they weren’t exactly thrilled about it I think the pins were very unfair yesterday I think a lot of people agree with that and um well I don’t know if I’ll be playing at Pebble next year Roger I just don’t think it’s worth my time and and um just feel that the the courses are set up just really too unfair not going to go to Pebble and watch the USGA run that Golf Course either but then during the final round of that Year’s Uso open something amazing happened pain Stewart started making pots lots of pots he made almost every pot he looked at that Sunday until there were no more parts left to make paint Stewart set a record that day for the fewest number of parts during a final round of the US Open and set a record for the longest part ever to win a US Open on the final hole if you go back and look closely all these years later we can find lessons hidden within each and every part lessons which reveal the science and the strategy that the pros use to make more parts pain St is the 1999 US Open Champion oh my Pinehurst that year 1999 might have been the most controversial US Open course in history that’s because most of Pinehurst screens are shaped like this they kind of look like turtle shells or domes and because Pinehurst is built on Sand it means that the course gets really dry anytime the US Open comes to Furst it usually plays really difficult which is tough for pros but fun for us because it gives us a fascinating glimpse into how Pros navigate on and around such tricky greens to understand the strategy Pros use to make pots you have to draw three circles around the hole let’s call these scoring circles the outermost circle is the biggest that’s the area where golfers are off the green or on the very edge of the green and pretty far away from the hole think of this as the three short Circle because you’re more likely to finish out in three shots from here than from one shot for pros this circle starts at about 40 ft for amateures it’s way closer maybe like 25 ft when Pros hit a bad shot and find themselves in this Zone most usually look for an excuse to putt sometimes obviously that’s not possible maybe because their ball is in the rough or because there’s a bunker between their ball and the hole or maybe it’s because the ground is just too soft and wet for you to hit a PO it’s one of the many Reon reasons why Pros do everything to avoid missing on the short side where all of these things become a factor missing on the short side forces you to hit a higher more difficult greenside shot with a wedge something they’d rather avoid but whenever that’s not the case they’re trying to pull a poter and if not a poter then make a putting stroke style motion with another club maybe a Del lofted wedge or a hybrid which sends the ball toppling forward like a putt especially on a dry course without much rough like pin Hur it basically takes the worst case scenario out of the equation Pros three put about 20% of the time once they get outside of 60 ft but do the math and those three putts are worth the trade because putting a putter in your hands takes the disaster scenario off the table way more often it sounds simple but the number one priority from this circle even for pros is to get your ball safely onto the green just ask stats genius Eduardo Molinari The Man Behind Europe’s wildly successful Moneyball Rider cup strategy you know I see this in the progams every week obv we play super tight Fairways firm and fast greens compared to what what they used to and they’re like three yards short of the first green and they pull out a lob wedge with like nice Fringe in front of them and the pin is like five on and it’s like no you should P this oh but I never P this I’m like yeah trust me you can p this the poor PT is going to go six seven feet away and it’s better than your best chip shot of the day and then sure enough they pick up the lway and they duft it in front of them it’s like oh I should have heard it I should have listened to you compare a 30 to 60t putt to the same length chip and you’ll find that the make rate is way higher on putts your proximity is also 5 ft closer and you’re also way more likely to get up and down in Two Shots taking what feels like a three pop from the Fairway is annoying but again it’s worth a trade Martin kimer did this masterfully back in 2014 he puted off the Green from everywhere it was kind of boring to the eye but it worked spectacularly move a little closer and you’ll arrive in the second scoring Circle the circle that I call the black hole the area when you’re not making many parts but you’re also not three poting too often two poting is clearly the most likely outcome from here for pros this circle spans from about 10 ft to about 50 ft for a 10 handicap it goes from about 7 ft to maybe 30 ft Pros find themselves in this twoot black hole Zone really often especially during the US Open when the pins are tucked the greens are crispy and Par is a good score Steven Sweeney is one of the tour’s top potting coaches who teaches multiple major Champions and he says the strategy on these parts is to go high and soft a putt that is red too high will only miss by about 50% of the distance that it’s over Red by um whereas a PT that’s red too low will miss almost three times lower than what the misre was the ball just starts going downhill much earlier in the entirety of the pot so if we had a 30 footer um and you you overread one by you know two two feet you’re only really missing it a foot height whereas if you under read 1X 2 ft from 30 ft even if your speed’s great you’re at least 6 feet low of the hole and the chances are that because you’ve read it that low it’s going downhill much much earlier for a longer period of time so now you’ve got a a six-footer that’s it could be an 8 to n footer even though you haven’t really done much wrong other than misread putt it’s why when the green reading system aim point measured this they found that under red Parts finish about twice as far away from the hole as the same parts that were over red instead of having gravity work for you it’s working against you and leaving your ball further away from the hole as a result trackman found that when the ball is rolling at 1.6 mph the makeable area of the hole is just 74% but when the ball touches the hole at the slowest possible 0.01 mph you get 100% of the H’s area pots that would have lipped out are now lipping in and it’s why the average proximity on tour on parts that miss the hole is just 2 ft Max when Pros hit puts from this range they’re Crawling by the time they reach the hole then there’s the third scoring Circle the smallest Circle and the one closest to the hole this is the One Shot Circle these are parts that you’re more likely to make than miss the outer limit of this circle is really the most important thing because that’s where the make rate is closest to 50% for pros the outer limit is between 9 and 8 ft for a five handicap it’s closer to 6 ft the further back you can push this line the more you can gain on your peers the best example of this I can think of is Brian Harman at the Open championship last year Brian Harman made 44 of 44 putts inside of 10 ft which meant that that week Harmon’s inner scoring Circle pushed out to something like 12 ft which is actually kind of insane but wherever the outer line is for you this is the crucial make or break zone for every golfer because as Scott fet the founder of decade golf explains literally every inch further away you are from the hole from this distance matters 10 ft something like that is really where you start getting a good chance to make it and every inch inside of you know from 3 to 8 feet is 1% in your make rate I don’t really care if you’re 15 or 20 feet it’s kind of like whatever or 20 or 25t it’s kind of like whatever but the difference in three and eight is a half a shot and so really just being patient and accepting you’re going to have a bunch of 15 to 30 foot putts and you’re probably not going to make very many of them but you’re going to par the course to death try to play the par FES well and not make stupid Bogies like that’s the recipe for Great Golf that’s why you see Pros practicing these putts like crazy yes they’re boring putts but every extra one of these boring pots you make you’re gaining on golfers who lose the coin flip you may make par because of it and your playing partner they may make Bogey and ultimately that’s it that’s the formula Pros use around the greens and it’s what you should use too when you’ve missed the green your goal is simple avoid disaster pot whenever you can just get your ball back into position on the Green as simply as possible when you’re stuck in the black hole go high and go soft and from the innermost scoring Circle you got to run up the margins take interest in the boring ones because the more of these you make the more it’ll matter and that’s what Payne Stewart did so well that day back in 1999 he carefully lagged up all his long ones he went high and soft on all his medium ones and he made all his short ones a three-part form which at the end of it all left golf fans with a memory they’ll never [Music] forget PNE Stewart is the 1999 US Open Champion oh my what a clutch C [Music]