Putts for Birdie

[fixyurdivot]

Why are they harder to make?  Asking for a friend . Looks like we amateurs aren't the only ones challenged; this study on tour players is interesting.  I wonder if the tendency to be short measures within that 0 to 7" span between our ears?  Yesterday I made 2 of 9 attempts inside 10 feet.  I did send several past the hole though . Maybe I should be elated making roughly one in five birdie putts... but I'm not.  For all you that employ the vairious data gathering apps, what is your birdie make percentage?  

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

28 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

Why are they harder to make?  Asking for a friend . Looks like we amateurs aren't the only ones challenged; this study on tour players is interesting.  I wonder if the tendency to be short measures within that 0 to 7" span between our ears?  Yesterday I made 2 of 9 attempts inside 10 feet.  I did send several past the hole though . Maybe I should be elated making roughly one in five birdie putts... but I'm not.  For all you that employ the vairious data gathering apps, what is your birdie make percentage?  

Based on 19 rounds this year, my birdie percentage is 2%. Interestingly enough, my triple bogey or worse % is the same as my par %. I gotta change that around

[fixyurdivot]

Just now, Vegan_Golfer_PNW said:

Based on 19 rounds this year, my birdie percentage is 2%. Interestingly enough, my triple bogey or worse % is the same as my par %. I gotta change that around

Do you happen to keep stats on total birdie attempts/makes inside of say 10'?  Right or wrong, I use that as my gage.  My GIR has gone way up in the past several months.  While I'm thrilled with that, I don't expect to make putts from beyond 10' and focus more on just getting my first putt within a couple feet.  Most likely just over-thinking the birdie putts - even though I try not too.

[DaveP043]

39 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

Yesterday I made 2 of 9 attempts inside 10 feet.

This might suck, or it might be pretty decent, depending on the distribution of the lengths.  If they were all 8 to 10 feet, 30 to 40% is pretty good (the pros are 50% from 8 feet basedon Strokes Gained numbers).  If they're all inside 5 feet, it sucks.  But I'm with you, I probably leave more birdie putts short, trying to make sure I get no worse than par.  When putting for par, I'm bolder, and I'm a damn good bogie putter.  We all know we should approach each putt as its own world, regardless of the score you're putting for, but its not easy to do it.

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

5 minutes ago, fixyurdivot said:

Do you happen to keep stats on total birdie attempts/makes inside of say 10'?  Right or wrong, I use that as my gage.  My GIR has gone way up in the past several months.  While I'm thrilled with that, I don't expect to make putts from beyond 10' and focus more on just getting my first putt within a couple feet.  Most likely just over-thinking the birdie putts - even though I try not too.

i don't. Those percentages came from the GHIN app. I also believe the majority of my birdie opportunites are well beyond 10'. I do remember one from 3' this year and made it and a few others from within 10' that I missed.

[edingc]

Don't have the numbers for birdie specifically, but I do have make rates from different distances:

• 3 Feet: 91% make rate
• 5 Feet: 47% make rate
• 7 Feet: 25% make rate
• 10 Feet: 21% make rate

My putting has some room for improvement... Grint has me putting as a 10.1 handicap.

[fixyurdivot]

11 minutes ago, edingc said:

Don't have the numbers for birdie specifically, but I do have make rates from different distances:

• 3 Feet: 91% make rate
• 5 Feet: 47% make rate
• 7 Feet: 25% make rate
• 10 Feet: 21% make rate

My putting has some room for improvement... Grint has me putting as a 10.1 handicap.

Looking at your 10' make rate, I guess I'm not that bad a birdie putter... but it sure doesn't feel that way .

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

Just now, fixyurdivot said:

Looking at your 10' make rate, I guess I'm not that bad a birdie putter... but it sure doesn't feel that way .

FYI, pro golfers from 8' have a 50% make rate

[cnosil]

 

1 hour ago, fixyurdivot said:

Maybe I should be elated making roughly one in five birdie putts... but I'm not. 
 

For all you that employ the vairious data gathering apps, what is your birdie make percentage?  

per shotscope my Birdie rate is 5%. I have 53% GIR.  I leave 56% of my putts short.  I one putt 24% of the time.  99% make from 0-3, 68% from 3-6, 44% from 6-9, and 18% from 9-12.   

Making Birdies is hard:  According to recent studies, when comparing PGA Professionals and your average scratch golfer, the average number of birdies per round on the PGA Tour is 3.63. Shot Scope data tells us that the average scratch player has an average of 2.67 per round.

scoring/ handicap improvement does not come from birdies but from reducing bogey or worse numbers.  
 

without knowing distances of the putts you can’t accurately determine if you should have made more birdies.  

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

to go along with others

[fixyurdivot]

You guys are making me feel better with each post.  Perhaps it was just yesterday's round that skewed my perspective.

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

another perspective

 

[fixyurdivot]

14 minutes ago, Vegan_Golfer_PNW said:

another perspective

 

I pretty much write off makes from 20-25'. This suggests I should make 5/100 attempts, which seems low to me.  But that is probably "game data" and not on a practice green, rolling the same putt over and over... so maybe it does make sense.

[THEZIPR23]

Decent thread from Lou detailing what might make up the differences. 

[Kenny B]

I don't keep any of those stats... mostly because it would depress me.  I don't get a lot of birdie chances in a typical round, and the number of birdies I make is low.  I can go several rounds without a birdie (still shoot sub-80), and then make 2-3 in one round.  If I am lucky enough to get one, I don't think there is a correlation with how close the ball is to the hole.  I can miss just as many short putts <6' as I can make 10-15 footers.  I know I do much better on fast greens.  When our greens get slow(-ish) I leave more putts short; normal green speed I rarely leave putts short.

[JerryB]

On 9/12/2023 at 1:50 PM, fixyurdivot said:

You guys are making me feel better with each post.  Perhaps it was just yesterday's round that skewed my perspective.

If you're looking to feel better, I'm your guy!!

I average more than 2 putts per GIR.  I do have seven birdies and an eagle this year so clearly golf is way more luck than skill, lol.

[cnosil]

9 hours ago, JerryB said:

If you're looking to feel better, I'm your guy!!

I average more than 2 putts per GIR.  I do have seven birdies and an eagle this year so clearly golf is way more luck than skill, lol.

Not knocking your game, but looks like someone needs some putting practice. 

[JerryB]

10 hours ago, cnosil said:

Not knocking your game, but looks like someone needs some putting practice. 

C'mon man, this isn't about me, this is about trying to make @fixyurdivot feel better! 

But yeah, and I've mentioned this before...putting probably legitimately costs me a good ten strokes per round.  Some focused putting practice this offseason will do me a world of good.

[cnosil]

15 minutes ago, JerryB said:

But yeah, and I've mentioned this before...putting probably legitimately costs me a good ten strokes per round.  Some focused putting practice this offseason will do me a world of good.

Reach out with what's going on,  we'll try and help if we can.  

[Kenny B]

20 hours ago, JerryB said:

If you're looking to feel better, I'm your guy!!

I average more than 2 putts per GIR.  I do have seven birdies and an eagle this year so clearly golf is way more luck than skill, lol.

I won't break 90 with those stats.  The pro at my old course said I had hands of stone (good for boxing; bad for golf).  I worked hard on improving my feel for putting from various distances.  It didn't take long to seriously reduce 3-putts, then focused on green reading and starting the ball on the line I picked.  Now putting is decent and my low scores in the 70's are reflective of how well I putt those days.  

Sounds like you need a plan for practice putting, and I echo @cnosil to reach out with your specific issues.  I'm sure we can help get a plan together.

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

20 hours ago, JerryB said:

If you're looking to feel better, I'm your guy!!

I average more than 2 putts per GIR.  I do have seven birdies and an eagle this year so clearly golf is way more luck than skill, lol.

@BMart519 gave me some great drills for distance control and a kind of use aimpoint. both have helped me understanding break and lag putting. Also, as I said with @fixyurdivot get a LAB. It took me three years to pull the trigger but I am so glad I did.

[JerryB]

@cnosil @Kenny B  @Vegan_Golfer_PNW  Appreciate the offers/advice, fellas!  The first hurdle is the "practice" part.  Thinking maybe going the yardstick route and breaking it up; 2-3-4-x times a day for 5-10 minutes a pop until I have something consistent.  Its the commitment part that's difficult.  In-season I'd rather just be out playing, and off-season other hobbies hit the forefront.  

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

3 minutes ago, JerryB said:

@cnosil @Kenny B  @Vegan_Golfer_PNW  Appreciate the offers/advice, fellas!  The first hurdle is the "practice" part.  Thinking maybe going the yardstick route and breaking it up; 2-3-4-x times a day for 5-10 minutes a pop until I have something consistent.  Its the commitment part that's difficult.  In-season I'd rather just be out playing, and off-season other hobbies hit the forefront.  

FYI most my recent putting practice has been before my round. I rarely practice otherwise. But I do spend 15-20 mins prior to each round. 

[Kenny B]

43 minutes ago, Vegan_Golfer_PNW said:

FYI most my recent putting practice has been before my round. I rarely practice otherwise. But I do spend 15-20 mins prior to each round. 

Putting practice and Before Round warmup are two different animals to me.  When I go for practice, it’s a focused session on one or two drills at a time for maybe 20 minutes.  I lose my focus when it’s longer than that, and my back hurts.  I try to do this maybe twice a week along with practice on the range or pitching area, and I do not play golf that day.  On days I play I don’t want to be thinking about drills… only feels.  Before a round I will only spend about 5-10 minutes making sure that I’m hitting the ball square on short putts, then randomly putt to different distances to determine the speed of the green for my tee time (our green speed changes from morning to afternoon).  If I am playing an unfamiliar course, I will spend less time warming up on the range and more time working on green speed.

[Vegan_Golfer_PNW]

9 hours ago, Kenny B said:

Putting practice and Before Round warmup are two different animals to me.  When I go for practice, it’s a focused session on one or two drills at a time for maybe 20 minutes.  I lose my focus when it’s longer than that, and my back hurts.  I try to do this maybe twice a week along with practice on the range or pitching area, and I do not play golf that day.  On days I play I don’t want to be thinking about drills… only feels.  Before a round I will only spend about 5-10 minutes making sure that I’m hitting the ball square on short putts, then randomly putt to different distances to determine the speed of the green for my tee time (our green speed changes from morning to afternoon).  If I am playing an unfamiliar course, I will spend less time warming up on the range and more time working on green speed.

I will say my drills are feels if that makes sense. With the lab putter, I don’t feel I need to worry about setup or stroke so it just lets me feel. I guess that is why I call my pre round practice for me

[cnosil]

12 hours ago, JerryB said:

@cnosil @Kenny B  @Vegan_Golfer_PNW  Appreciate the offers/advice, fellas!  The first hurdle is the "practice" part.  Thinking maybe going the yardstick route and breaking it up; 2-3-4-x times a day for 5-10 minutes a pop until I have something consistent.  Its the commitment part that's difficult.  In-season I'd rather just be out playing, and off-season other hobbies hit the forefront.  

Yea, practice is something that you may need to do at least initially to build the basic skills.   You can do it pre round, while pre round is mostly for getting the feels fine tuned for the day you can still practice.  Here are my thoughts:
 

there are some basic skills associated with putting: setup, line, distance, and read.   Setup is about consistency and getting your posture and ball and club the same every time.  If the ball position is moving around then you will struggle with the other skills.   Using a mirror is a great way to check.   If the face points all over the place you can dial in line.   Put a piece of tape on the ground or use a straight edge to make sure the putter is alway pointing to the same place at setup.   Setup practice is just repetition….have your putter and a mirror station and then just spend 5 minutes or so just working on getting in the same setup.
 

startline would be the next skill.  This gets down to hitting the center if the club face, and the setup stuff in the previous paragraph.   Looking at the numbers you posted (image below) you probably have a startline issue.   Putter face controls about 90% of the balls direction so you need to get the putter face pointing down the target line   Inside of 3 feet you are pretty much always aiming inside the hole. Rolling the ball down a yardstick or setting up a gate (go to the Visio training aid site and look at their gates because they provide some distances to put the gate from the ball to determine face angle control).  I do gate drills for maybe 15 or so minutes when practicing.  Make sure to use different length stroke to ensure you can control the face for short and long putts,   You can also setup a putter gate to make sure you hit the center of the face; missing the center will cause the putter to open or close at impact which impacts start line.
 

speed is probably the most important skill for putting but the hardest to practice indoors since most if us don’t have 20-30 feet of open space.   Roll the ball from the middle of the green to the fringe or do ladder drills.  Try to get everything within the 6 foot diameter around the hole.  0-3 feet should be 98+% success rate and if you get everything within that range you avoid 3 putts   That distance also includes left and right misses.  This is why speed is more important  than startline as you start moving away from the hole; from 20 feet if you leave the face open or closed, you should still get within 3 feet of the hole.  Fast Greens with lots of slope may influence that a little bit more but generally we should be able to control the face to get within 3 feet.  I am fortunate, I have an ExPutt simulator that I use for about 20 minutes in the evening to dial in speed.   Speed determination is what you should be doing ore round.  One thing to do is establish a baseline feel or stroke and see how far the ball rolls; when you get to the course, make that baseline stroke and see if the ball goes a different distance. F it goes shorter, the greens are a little slower so you need to hit the ball with a little more speed.  Opposite of the ball goes farther.  

read comes last.  Obviously we can do aimpoint, feel, or some other green reading methodology but if you can’t start the ball generally on your desired line with the right speed you cant figure out read.  

The key thing ti remember is that if you setup correctly, you started the ball on your line, and hit it with the speed you wanted you have done everything you can to control the putt.  whether it goes in or not is outside of your control.  Don’t change anything or beat yourself up after one or two misses.  If you see a consistent tendency over say 4 or 5 holes then maybe make a mid round tweak.   

again just my thoughts on what I have learned and practice.   @fixyurdivot, the above might be good for you as well