Alright, so I gotta tell you about this AimPoint putting lesson I went through. My putting, man, it was a disaster. Seriously, I was either leaving everything woefully short or blasting it six feet past the hole. It was costing me so many strokes, driving me absolutely bonkers.
Finding Out About It
I’d heard some buzz about AimPoint, some folks saying it was like a cheat code for reading greens. Sounded a bit too good to be true, if you ask me. But I was desperate. Anything to stop the three-putt bleeding, you know? So, I looked around and found an instructor who was certified. Figured, what the heck, let’s give it a shot.
The Actual Lesson: Feet First!
So, I showed up for the lesson. First thing the instructor had me do was stand on the green and try to feel the slope with my feet. Yeah, my feet. I’m standing there, shuffling around like I’ve lost something, trying to sense these tiny little inclines. He’s going on about “calibrating my feet” to feel a 1% slope, then a 2%, then a 3%. Honestly, I felt a bit daft. My feet felt… well, they felt like feet on grass. Not exactly precision instruments.
He kept saying, “Trust your feet! Your body knows.” I’m thinking, “My body also knows it wants a bacon sandwich right now, doesn’t mean it’s good at reading putts.” But I played along, trying to get a feel for it. It was weird. You stand on a spot, close your eyes (sometimes), and try to gauge the percentage of slope. One percent felt like almost nothing, two percent a bit more, and so on. It was slow going.
Then Came the Fingers…
After the foot-feeling marathon, we moved on to the AimPoint chart and using fingers. This is the part you often see on TV. Based on how much slope you feel with your feet, you hold up a certain number of fingers against the hole, and that’s your aim point. Sounds simple, right? Well, connecting what my feet thought they felt to a specific number of fingers was tricky at first.
- Was that a strong 1% or a weak 2%?
- Which finger do I line up exactly?
- Am I even standing in the right spot to feel the true slope?
Lots of questions. We spent a good hour just on this part. Putt after putt. He’d ask, “What do you feel?” I’d guess a number. Hold up my fingers. Putt. Sometimes it worked, sometimes… not so much. There were moments of pure frustration. Like, I’d feel a 2, aim for a 2, and the ball would break like it was a 4. The instructor was patient, though. Kept reinforcing the process.
Trying to Make it Stick
The core idea is to get a consistent read, take out the guesswork. Before this, I was just eyeballing it, maybe looking from behind the ball, behind the hole, and then making a wild guess. AimPoint gives you a system. But like any system, you gotta trust it and do it the same way every time. That was the hard part – breaking old habits.
We worked on different kinds of putts: uphill, downhill, sidehillers, short ones, long ones. The instructor emphasized that the “feel” is for the steepest part of the slope between your ball and the hole. For longer putts, you might need to read it in sections. It started to make a little more sense, but it wasn’t like a magic wand suddenly made me a putting guru.
So, What’s the Verdict?
After the lesson, I went out and played a few rounds. First round was a bit of a mess, to be honest. I was overthinking it, taking too long, second-guessing my reads. My playing partners were probably wondering what on earth I was doing, standing there feeling the green with my feet and holding up fingers. Felt like I was performing some sort of ritual.
But I stuck with it. Practiced the routine. And slowly, very slowly, I started to see some improvement. The biggest thing is, I feel like I have a plan now. I’m not just guessing anymore. Some days my “feel” is better than others, for sure. And if I rush, or don’t trust the read my feet give me, I’m back to my old ways.
It hasn’t made me a pro putter overnight, not by a long shot. But has it helped? Yeah, I think it has. I’m definitely holing more of those tricky mid-range putts, and my speed control has gotten a bit better because I have a clearer idea of the line. It’s a tool. A specific process. And like any tool, you gotta learn how to use it properly and practice with it. For me, it was worth the time and the initial feeling of looking a bit silly on the practice green.
