What's Up With Caddies Straddling

[jeffwarne]

A very entertaining thread


Recently, I spent 30 minutes attempting to explain to a very smart person why a downhill putt over the exact same terrain would break more than an uphill putt(over the exact same terrain in reverse)
Unfortunately, i don't think I reached him.
Fortunately, it was a 30 minute lesson.....

[John Kavanaugh]

A very entertaining thread


Recently, I spent 30 minutes attempting to explain to a very smart person why a downhill putt over the exact same terrain would break more than an uphill putt(over the exact same terrain in reverse)
Unfortunately, i don't think I reached him.
Fortunately, it was a 30 minute lesson.....

If the downhill putt is into the grain isn’t there a length where the break becomes equal?

[Erik J. Barzeski]

If the downhill putt is into the grain isn’t there a length where the break becomes equal?

Almost never happens.

[John Bouffard]

There are many things I don't like seeing when I watch golf. One is watching the player pat down the green with his putter on his line near the hole. I know it's legal now, but it still looks wrong. I also can't stand watching modern tour players futzing all around, having these discussions with their caddies, their deliberate preshot routines (which have gotten longer, slower, and more elaborate over the years IMO), and, yes, watching both player and caddie aimpoint their way around every green. I find all of it annoying. But they do it, all of it, because all of these things work, and they are trying to win.


Slow play is a problem, though, no doubt about it. But rather than go after something because we don't like how it looks, I think they should just institute some type of shot clock or chess clock-type rule in professional events. Let the players figure out what they need to do to stay in time. We can't put a shot clock on ordinary golfers in casual rounds, but maybe everyone would speed up a little if they didn't see tour pros having focus group discussions with their caddie on every shot.


I don't think aimpoint is going away. I think we will see the large majority of golfers using it within 10 years. As much as I dislike watching it, I do it myself because it works better for me than reading slope visually.


But it IS just golf and just a game and for God's sake I wish everyone would get a frickin' move on so we can play the round and not spend 5 hours out there.

[Mike Wagner]

There are many things I don't like seeing when I watch golf. One is watching the player pat down the green with his putter on his line near the hole. I know it's legal now, but it still looks wrong. I also can't stand watching modern tour players futzing all around, having these discussions with their caddies, their deliberate preshot routines (which have gotten longer, slower, and more elaborate over the years IMO), and, yes, watching both player and caddie aimpoint their way around every green. I find all of it annoying. But they do it, all of it, because all of these things work, and they are trying to win.


Slow play is a problem, though, no doubt about it. But rather than go after something because we don't like how it looks, I think they should just institute some type of shot clock or chess clock-type rule in professional events. Let the players figure out what they need to do to stay in time. We can't put a shot clock on ordinary golfers in casual rounds, but maybe everyone would speed up a little if they didn't see tour pros having focus group discussions with their caddie on every shot.


I don't think aimpoint is going away. I think we will see the large majority of golfers using it within 10 years. As much as I dislike watching it, I do it myself because it works better for me than reading slope visually.


But it IS just golf and just a game and for God's sake I wish everyone would get a frickin' move on so we can play the round and not spend 5 hours out there.

Yep .. the easy solution is to simply ban straddling the line anywhere between ball and hole.

[A.G._Crockett]

There are many things I don't like seeing when I watch golf. One is watching the player pat down the green with his putter on his line near the hole. I know it's legal now, but it still looks wrong. I also can't stand watching modern tour players futzing all around, having these discussions with their caddies, their deliberate preshot routines (which have gotten longer, slower, and more elaborate over the years IMO), and, yes, watching both player and caddie aimpoint their way around every green. I find all of it annoying. But they do it, all of it, because all of these things work, and they are trying to win.


Slow play is a problem, though, no doubt about it. But rather than go after something because we don't like how it looks, I think they should just institute some type of shot clock or chess clock-type rule in professional events. Let the players figure out what they need to do to stay in time. We can't put a shot clock on ordinary golfers in casual rounds, but maybe everyone would speed up a little if they didn't see tour pros having focus group discussions with their caddie on every shot.


I don't think aimpoint is going away. I think we will see the large majority of golfers using it within 10 years. As much as I dislike watching it, I do it myself because it works better for me than reading slope visually.


But it IS just golf and just a game and for God's sake I wish everyone would get a frickin' move on so we can play the round and not spend 5 hours out there.

Yep .. the easy solution is to simply ban straddling the line anywhere between ball and hole.

This wouldn’t change AimPoint much, and might even cause slower play.  Tour pros and caddies with a lot at stake would take extra care (and perhaps time?) reading the putt on the low side, which is how AimPoint was originally taught anyway. 


Even at that, it might well still be faster than the guys who read a putt from all four sides, which you do NOT do as part of AimPoint.


The AimPoint/pace of play question reminds me so much of the debate when range finders first became available. I argued here that range finders would make the game slower; Tom Huckaby, who I miss greatly, repeatedly and politely told me I was wrong, that range finders would speed play compared to pacing and yardage books.  Tom was right, of course.


Viewers pay more attention to AimPoint simply because they don’t really understand what they are looking at, and they certainly don’t have a valid basis of comparison of how long that same player and caddie would take to read a putt from all four sides.  No matter how many times I write that I take LESS time to putt using AimPoint than I did before, it falls on deaf ears here.

[jeffwarne]

There are many things I don't like seeing when I watch golf. One is watching the player pat down the green with his putter on his line near the hole. I know it's legal now, but it still looks wrong. I also can't stand watching modern tour players futzing all around, having these discussions with their caddies, their deliberate preshot routines (which have gotten longer, slower, and more elaborate over the years IMO), and, yes, watching both player and caddie aimpoint their way around every green. I find all of it annoying. But they do it, all of it, because all of these things work, and they are trying to win.


Slow play is a problem, though, no doubt about it. But rather than go after something because we don't like how it looks, I think they should just institute some type of shot clock or chess clock-type rule in professional events. Let the players figure out what they need to do to stay in time. We can't put a shot clock on ordinary golfers in casual rounds, but maybe everyone would speed up a little if they didn't see tour pros having focus group discussions with their caddie on every shot.


I don't think aimpoint is going away. I think we will see the large majority of golfers using it within 10 years. As much as I dislike watching it, I do it myself because it works better for me than reading slope visually.


But it IS just golf and just a game and for God's sake I wish everyone would get a frickin' move on so we can play the round and not spend 5 hours out there.

Yep .. the easy solution is to simply ban straddling the line anywhere between ball and hole.

This wouldn’t change AimPoint much, and might even cause slower play.  Tour pros and caddies with a lot at stake would take extra care (and perhaps time?) reading the putt on the low side, which is how AimPoint was originally taught anyway. 


Even at that, it might well still be faster than the guys who read a putt from all four sides, which you do NOT do as part of AimPoint.


The AimPoint/pace of play question reminds me so much of the debate when range finders first became available. I argued here that range finders would make the game slower; Tom Huckaby, who I miss greatly, repeatedly and politely told me I was wrong, that range finders would speed play compared to pacing and yardage books.  Tom was right, of course.


Viewers pay more attention to AimPoint simply because they don’t really understand what they are looking at, and they certainly don’t have a valid basis of comparison of how long that same player and caddie would take to read a putt from all four sides.  No matter how many times I write that I take LESS time to putt using AimPoint than I did before, it falls on deaf ears here.

The "lot at stake" argument drives me crazy.
That is a relative term.
The guy waiting, and being agitated also has "a lot at stake"
More processes take time.
Golf takes longer now-period.
I'm just stunned at the denial, but fortunatelly our group just avoids playing with people who can"t play ready golf and pull the trigger without processes that simply take more time than others.
Tournament golf another matter, but I'm on late stages of the back nine of that and eventually 6-7 hour rounds will be the norm or someone will stand up and say enough with these ridiculous processes.