About a year ago, Golf Digest did a big feature with world-renowned putting coach Phil Kenyon asking a simple question:
We got some answers. And now, the golf world is about to get a lot more.
Kenyon, alongside Europe’s Ryder Cup mastermind Edoardo Molinari and former top amateur golfer Marcus Svensson, has joined forces to launch a new putting app: Captured Putting. I’ve been testing it out in recent weeks, and have moved from “interested” to “full on addicted.”
The app started as an idea.
When Kenyon was coaching his multitude of players, he tracked their practice stats with a makeshift app that wasn’t available to the public. It was functional, but never intended to be much more, though that was always the dream.
Kenyon had an idea, so Molinari, a student and friend, connected him with Svensson, who created the Tour Wind app.
The two had met at a small tour event in Spain earlier this year. As the project developed they needed more statistical expertise which then brought Molinari back in as a trio.
Now, the app is live and available to the public. I’ve been using it, and loving it, and learning a lot about putting, too.
1. The putting practice problem
Because putting has so many little details linked within it, it’s easy for things to get messy. For instance, let’s say you missed a putt.
“When you miss a putt, you can attribute it to under-read, over-read, back stroke, bad speed; maybe you picked the right line and hit the line but at the wrong speed,” Molinari explains. “So if you’re missing a putt right, the answer is, it could be four or five different things.”
That’s the issue golfers need to solve with their putting. The mistake people make, Kenyon says, is working backwards from whether the ball went in the hole:
“Most people’s feedback on their read would be deciphered from the outcome, and that’s going to be disguised by the biases they may have in their stroke and aim, as well as their perception around what good speed is...When the average golfer goes to a green, they don’t have that. They don’t have that level of analysis. So often the practice is very sporadic, difficult to get the really quantifiable feedback from which they can work out, ‘Well, how do I get better?’”
2. Organizing around the three separate skills
Solving that problem is at the cornerstone of the app, and of the lessons the rest of us can learn.
- First, you need to practice and measure each skill individually: speed, start line, green reading.
- Then, when you actually put it all together and try to make putts (like on the course), you need to quiz yourself on why you missed a putt.
And because Kenyon, Molinari and Svensson are tracking all of these activities in the app, trends start emerging. And the diagnoses can get pretty granular.
As Kenyon explains:
“Let’s say you’re hitting a bunch of putts in that seven-to-13-foot zone, and the outcome was they finished two foot past, and each time you attributed that to poor speed. Then your perception of where that ball’s finishing and the reason why could be different to the stats, because based upon Ed’s tour speed assessment, that could be an optimum distance past. So we could attribute that then to, actually, it could be more likely read not matching an ideal speed. It’s ultimately giving you probabilities of the highest probability of where to look to improve, with confidence. You’re never going to be a hundred percent right, but we could build up the evidence to suggest that you are more likely to improve your putting if you work on your green reading, for instance.”
For instance, in my own case:
I noticed I was missing a lot of putts from the 7-to-21ft range. I thought initially I was over-reading them.
But when I tested my green reading, it was surprisingly good.
So I tested my speed control, and it was surprisingly bad.
The issue was that I thought my green reading was the problem, when it was actually my speed control on putts from this range. The better I got at that, the more putts I started holing.
3. A good practice diet
So what does this look like in reality? That’s what I asked Edoardo. The app gives you the ability to mix and match different practice routines that hit all of these elements to give you a practice diet. Here’s one Ed suggests:
1. Gate drill: start line
Can you start the ball where you aimed it? It’s isolated, so a miss can’t be blamed on your read.
2. Speed drill
Can you hit a putt at your intended speed? Isolated again; it’s asking a single question of an individual skill.
3. Green reading drill
Edoardo doesn’t hit putts here. He guesses the slope using AimPoint, then tests his accuracy with a level.
4. Performance drill in a specific zone
All three skills back together, in an important strokes gained zone (3 to 10 feet, or 7 to 13 feet).
5. One more performance block
Either the weekly tournament or an 18-hole simulation, something a little more general.
“Basically I practice one of the skills at a time, individually. And then once I do that, I would do a couple of performance drills,” Molinari says.
Cycle through that a few times, and you’ll have enough data on each element to pinpoint the problems.
Once again, you can download the app right here.