Scotsman Robert MacIntyre knows links golf well, and he loves its nuances, as he spoke about ahead of the 2025 Open Championship.
"It's the purest method of the game that we've got," he says. "There are so many different ways to play it. It's not just 155 yards, pitch it 155 yards, keep it two yards right of the pin. It's not that. It's the unpredictability that it gives us."
One of those details comes on the greens. The greens aren't just slower during the Open Championship (they're rolling at just over 10 on the stimp meter early this week, compared to the nearly 16 that Oakmont's greens were rolling at)—they're also more subtle. The courses are simply older across the pond, so they've had more years of being subtly shaped by the environment. Like a wrinkled piece of paper, you can never quite get it back to flat.
"When you play on the regular tour, whether it's PGA TOUR or DP World Tour, the slopes are just—they're there. They're obvious. But when you play links golf, it's very subtle," he says.
He went on to share some insight into a kind of two-step green-reading process that so many pros use—and it's something the rest of us can learn from.
Warren Little
⛳️ Step 1: Get a feel-based first impression
MacIntyre says one of the reasons he thinks he's good on the subtle slopes of links golf is because he's not too tied to one specific method.
"I use AimPoint not as a science, not as 'I've got the answer.' I use it as a guide," he says.
Basically, step one is to get a first impression of what you think the putt you're about to hit is going to do.
There are a few ways of doing this:
- As you're walking up to the green, take a broader look at the green and the landscape around it.
- Standing to the side of your putt, on the low point, gives you the best vantage point for seeing the slope.
- You can also use your putter as a guide (yes, it's legal!)
- MacIntyre and most pros use AimPoint, which requires straddling the line of the putt about halfway to the hole and feeling the contours under your feet.
👀 Step 2: Validate it with your eyes
The idea is that in step one, you get a general sense of what's going on with the putt. In step two, you validate or alter your sense of the putt.
A couple of ways to validate it:
- Some golfers go stand on the apex point of the putt (this is the highest point of the slope around the hole) and feel the severity of the green from there.
- Some golfers actually validate their read when they stand over the ball. Maybe they do it before they actually start their routine, or incorporate it in the moments before they hit their putt.
- There's, of course, the traditional way of crouching down behind the ball. This is what MacIntyre uses: AimPoint as his initial guide, his eyes to confirm his feel. That's what most players do.
Ideally, you do the guide-validate method by pairing one feel-based green-reading technique (like feeling the slopes with your feet) with one visual technique (like reading the putt from behind the ball), but there's no science to it. It's whatever makes you feel confident that you have the best read. Done right, it doesn't need to take any extra time. And it'll help you read putts more accurately—it's why the pros do it.