Adam Scott and that strange way he reads the break
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak has a great piece on Adam Scott’s curious new putting routine.
You may have noticed Scott straddling the line of the putt then holding out a couple of fingers. He looks to be determining the break or picking the line putt somehow. It turns out the latter is true and it’s based on a putting technique he was taught to Scott earlier this year.
Brad Malone, Scott’s coach and brother-in-law, is the one who persuaded Scott to experiment with a long putter in 2011. (Scott’s father, Phil, was also using the broomstick with great success.) Earlier this year, Malone took a green-reading class at Kapalua in Hawaii to learn the AimPoint Express Read technique and taught it to Scott, who implemented the system at the Honda Classic in early March.
Scott determines a numerical value for the slope of the green and holds up that many fingers less than an arm’s distance in front of his face to pick the line. If he feels like the putt will break left, he measures his fingers beginning at the right edge of the hole.
Scott has said that the source of his putting woes is often due to incorrect reads. After all, it was caddie Steve Williams who read the Masters winning putt on the second playoff hole.
Schupak’s full story is a great read and Scott seems to think the AimPoint Express technique is working for him.
When Scott was asked to quantify the difference Express Read has made in his game, he whittled his appraisal down to a single colorful descriptor: “It’s been huge,” he said, adding, “Just check my strokes gained putting.”
So we did.
In 2014, Scott ranks 18th for strokes gained putting (a measure of how many shots your making up compared to the rest of the field). In 2013 he was ranked 102nd, 2012 – 148th, 2011 – 143rd. And it gets worse the further back you go.
Maybe there is something in it for all of us. Check out a quick summary of the technique below or check out AimPoint Technologies website for clinics.