It's no secret that putting is a huge, glaring concern on my quest to a single-digit handicap - I've mentioned that before. So, after watching some of the success that many golfers have been having on tour lately using AimPoint (I'm looking at you, Nick Taylor) and coming across an episode on the Sweet Spot Podcast about AimPoint I decided to do some research on the technique and see how I could try to incorporate this into my golf game.
Now, AimPoint is offered through a course taught by certified instructors and, unfortunately, costs a bit too much for me to justify spending at the moment. And, since I'm quite sure there's some sort of trademark involving AimPoint and all that stuff, I'm going to leave out most of the details. But, through a few search engine queries, you should be able to piece together a bit of a working knowledge of the basics - or at least as much as I have.
The largest key for this, as pointed out during the AimPoint episode of the Sweet Spot, is using your feet to feel the slope of the green rather than trust your eyes. Since I've started doing this, I have had much better luck with my lines - it's just the pace that sometimes eludes me... But I would suggest using your feet to feel the slope of a green to anyone who struggles to read greens. It was surprising at the start to see how much difference there was between what I was seeing on the green and what I was feeling. And while judging how much of a slope there is wasn't always easy, at least I wasn't rolling a putt right when I thought it go left.
Adding AimPoint to my Game
But let's talk about how this whole thing actually went. As mentioned in my blog post about my first tournament of the year, putting had been letting me down. So, I made the change to AimPoint after listening to the episode about it on the SweetSpot.
I wasn't expecting much. Like I said, I couldn't afford to take the course and all I knew was learned from various blog posts and articles I found online. It was mentioned on that podcast episode how long it can take people to get AimPoint down - often taking years - but I figured it couldn't hurt to try and decided that no matter what, I was going to stick with it for the next few rounds to see if it might help me.
And wow, was I amazed. For me - instant results. Now, as I mentioned earlier, that's not likely going to happen for everyone. But I think that I was just so bad at picking starting points that this helped me so much. As shown in my Strokes Gained data from that round, I finally had a positive value in putting. And after shooting my worst round in years two days prior (101) I ended up shooting a 3 over 29 for my men's night round. The putter was hot and I had a newfound confidence in the flat stick with AimPoint at my side.
Confidence that carried over into the next few rounds and led to some of my best golf in years.
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