I was working on putting today, and trying to pace off 20 feet…This is not a skill I have learned… Has anyone tried to consciously develop this skill?
Is it better to learn to pace off a yard? or just figure out what your “average” pace is and do the math?
Any other “tricks” you use on the golf course? I feel like pacing off putts will help me gain some distance control.
Definitely use your average step. That’s the only practical way to measure after you get outside of 12-15 feet.
Honestly, I think my children will enjoy this game.
I learned way back how to stride out a solid yard. I double check it every once and a while and I’m still pretty accurate. I think with time it can become natural for anyone.
Striding out a yard at a time used to be a lot more important when you only had 150 yd markers and no gps/rangefinders.
I’m not a big fan of walking off distances on the green. I like to think of it like other sports. I know it’s a silly question, but would you walk off the distance to throw a baseball across the diamond? Or to throw a football to hit your receiver in stride?
My philosophy on putting is that you want to engage as much as your athleticism as possible and gauge the distance using your eyes and trying to translate that into your putting stroke. My #1 focus is on speed during my pre-shot routine when I putt (once I have determined my line).
I’m not saying that pacing off your distances can’t work, but I think it’s possible you might remove your “athleticism” from the process, which I believe is your best chance of controlling speed/distance
Yep, the only time I do it these days is when I’m waiting for the green to clear and will check to see how far off my drive was from my target line.
Agree with this (especially the part of being athletic and using eyes), I only pace off distance after I putt for stat tracking purposes.
I developed a good one yard pace growing up caddying. Think I’m a little off now but not too far.
I’m not sure on this… a pitcher’s mound is always 90 feet… there is an iconic scene in Hoosiers where they measure the distances and they are the same…
I come at this from the perspective that I’m a terrible putter. I’m willing to try anything. Distance is obviously only one variable, and I think the “athletic” mind can be a huge help.
With all things, I assume more information is better than less… so knowing how far a putt is SHOULD help. I’m not convinced it does, but once again, I’m a bad putter.
If I’m waiting for others play and have time to burn, I’ll sometimes walk off the yards from my ball to the place I want it to land for chipping/pitching, especially if it’s somewhat blind. I don’t think it’s worth it to hold up play but it gives me a little more confidence when there is a 20-30yd pitch or something like that. Mostly the walk up is to survey the green better but the yardage count is a bonus.
By all means give it a shot, but there’s no “pitchers mound” in golf. You’re getting a different distance each time. Just not sure walking them off each time will be the best use of your time before a putt.
I don’t disagree… once again, I’m a terrible putter… I’m not sure what I need to do to fix it… practice, knowing distances better… getting my putters loft and lie fixed.
I wish I had a simple answer for you! I do think there could be some value for you with the distance exploration during practice. Perhaps a calibration process. My fear with it is just bringing the same routine out on the course.
It’s a mysterious game though - keep poking around and see what can work for you!
Have you ever tried putting while looking at the hole? I think it does wonders for engaging that basic athleticism, the instinctive sense of “do it this hard” that we have when (as @jon alluded to) throwing a baseball or a football to a specific spot.
I did do this for a while (putt while looking at the hole). At this point, I no longer look at the hole, but after getting my stance and alignment, I look up at the hole enough times to try to fix its location in my mind. I am trying, as it were, to see it out of the side of my head while still looking down at the ball, and my primary focus during the stroke is to roll the ball to that hole that I’m imagining.
I haven’t gone that far, but when I make my practice strokes near the ball I am looking at the hole to try and “mentally dial in” the speed.
I second this. I did it for short putts for a little while. Now it’s built into my routine - last practice swing is while looking at hole.
I’m with you buddy. I know statistically putting is holding me back and I can see obvious errors of 3 putting from 15-20ft at times.
I personally think estimating distance is an important part. You may not need to know exactly where 20ft is but you should have a reasonable estimate that this length putt is the same length of another one you confidently putted. For me, I lose strokes missing more than I should inside 6’ and not getting distance right so I spend a lot of time doing the circle putting drills for the short ones with all kinds of slope, and for distance, I try really hard knowing how hard to hit a 20ft putt (or what I perceive a 20ft putt) and a 30ft putt.
My belief is that if I get that distance down for a relatively flat putt, I can use that length stroke as a reference to fine tune the length if it’s a little long/shorter, uphill/downhill. etc. The way i figure it is that I want to get inside 3’ no matter what so if it’s 22ft and I give it my 20ft putt with a little extra, it may roll just 20ft but “mission accomplished”. Same with 30ft. If it’s 25, well I just need to do it in between the two, etc.
I would also guess if you tried putting 10 balls to a spot 20ft away and some were 14ft and others were 27ft, you’d then have more info that there is not a pacing problem as much as a technical problem making dispersion hard to accomplish.
At least, that’s what is going through my head and over the summer, I have seen some improvement
I like to get a long measuring tape 25ft and stretch it out. Then I like to say a distance out loud, putt the putt trying to get that distance or beyond by a foot or two.
I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a second here…
Let’s say you practiced 25 feet on greens that were rolling a 10 one day, and then on greens that were a 7 another day. The amount of force you would need to apply to each putt would be different each time despite the distance being exactly the same.
That’s my main worry with “locking in” distance feels versus using your senses and athleticism to adjust to the green speeds as they are alway variables based on course conditions.
That’s the beauty of the measuring tape drill and stretching it out. You start parallel to it and you call out your distance forcing you to control that distance, no matter what the stimp of the green is.