When confronted with a putt that has a sloping green and we have either an uphill or downhill lie, it sometimes can be overwhelming. Our first tendency is to overanalyze the situation and tense up. However, in the end, when it comes down to making your putt, you simply have to pick out a spot to aim for and determine how much speed to apply to get it there.
In this golf putting lesson, we are going to start at the point that you have finished reading the green and have decided what type of putt you are challenged with, such as a downhill that slopes to the right or vice versa, as an example.
Understanding the Green’s Slope
A point to make here is that determining how much a ball would react to different degrees of tilt and slope does take practice and experience. After studying your lie from all angles, a good tip is to visualize how a glass of water would flow if you poured it where your ball was lying.
The goal here is once you have determined how the ball will roll, then pick a spot to aim for and determine your target line. The red line in the illustration to the right shows how the ball will roll on a downhill slope that breaks right.
A Step-by-Step Guide for Downhill Putts
After studying and reading the green, we have determined that our lie has a small downhill slope, and the green tilts from left to right, which will cause our ball to break right. For this example, let us assume our distance to the hole is fifteen feet.
We have only a slight downhill slope but we need to account for this when the ball slows down and reacts to the slope. So we would choose a spot less than twelve feet to aim for. In this case, we will aim for a spot only eleven feet out. Secondly, we will shift our spot to our left to account for the left-to-right tilt in the green.
Considerations for Uphill and Downhill Putts
Now we want to visualize our target line and spot to aim for as illustrated in the above photo. The amount of speed to apply to the ball would be the same as if we had an eleven-foot putt on a flat surface.
Keep in mind that the contour of the green is what will make the ball curve and not our putting stroke. In short, we have simplified this putting situation into a straight nine-foot putt.
Additional Factors to Keep in Mind
Additional factors to be aware of are that uphill putts will be less affected by the slope and break less, while downhill putts will be more affected by the slope and break more. Downhill putts will be struck with less force and move at a slower speed early and, therefore, will react more.
Uphill putts will be moving at a faster speed early and will not react to the slope of the green until they slow down as they reach the hole. A rule of thumb is to play slightly more break on downhill putts and slightly less break on uphill putts.
