Breaking 80

Feeling The Right Line

Practicing a straight putt is a good way to groove your stroke, but most putts on the course will have some break. Create a set of gates with tees, like Pia did here, and practice hitting breaking putts through them. It will help you understand the relationship between speed and line. Another way to get a sense for break is to do this drill in your socks. Just walking to the hole to retrieve your balls will give you a tremendous sense of even slight undulations.

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By Lynn Marriot and Pia Nilsson

With Matthew Rudy

Photos by Dom Furore

June 2007

Tour players spend more time practicing putting than any other individual shot, and for good reason. Being able to make putts gets more important as your scoring potential gets better. Practicing your stroke is important to break 80, but we believe that many players don't spend enough time on "total putting" -- making sure the stroke they're practicing matches who they are, and that the good stroke they're developing is making the ball roll on the correct line. You are unique as a player, and everything from your build to your eye dominance goes into how you make a stroke.

Improve Your Putting Eye
Eye dominance plays a huge part in putting well. By setting up with your dominant eye over the ball (right), you see the line with much less distortion, and it's easier to putt the ball on that line. To determine your dominant eye, make a triangle with your hands and look through the triangle at a distant object with both eyes open. Then, close one eye. If the object stays in the same place in your vision, you are dominant in the eye you kept open. Lynn is right-eye dominant; Pia is left-eye dominant.