I was watching the Memorial tournament today and one of the announcers was talking about watching the ball after it's missed the hole and keeps rolling out. This is only important when the ball is breaking.
We have a ball that is at its highest speed (usually) at the hole and is decelerating as it stops. The point was that on the return putt the speed profiles are reversed. The highest speed will be at the point furthest from the hole.
This switch of speeds will affect how the ball breaks as it returns to the hole area. There is one more point that I would add to this and that is that the ball has traveled down hill from the pin. The amount of break is now less coming back.
It seems that one should spend a bit of time determining what part of the green caused the ball to break. Was it the area near the hole or in the area where it stopped and was moving the slowest.
Issac Newton, an avid golfer, had something to say about this too. He always said that all putts were going to run straight unless something caused them not to. I'm unsure of the Latin on that one, but I think one can find it under Newton's second law of putting. It's a rare volume, but worth the effort to find it.
We have three cases: 1) The slope of the green is constant from the center of the hole to the ball's location. 2) There is more slope near the hole and 3) the slope is closer to the ball.
How do we want to use that data?
In case 1, think we want to play less break than we had coming down. Trying to hit the ball firmly to remove break seems to appropriate. The breaking of the ball should increase as it approaches the hole due to its losing speed.
In case 2, we would expect more break near the hole, but with a straight roll until it gets close. Again a firm putt looks best as it will break less if the ball is moving faster near the hole.
In case 3, since the ball will be moving fastest where the majority of the break is, it would seem that the ball should have less total on the way back. So play less break and, why not, hit it firmly!
Assuming that we will not be risking a four putt or more by being aggressive coming back, it looks to be winning strategy to always hit the comeback putts firmly. We would expect to have the occasional three putt, but expect to make more two putts. Also a firmly struck putt playing less break should hole more putts generally.
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It was a day off from playing and I've wanted to put a thicker grip on my putter, but I didn't want to pay $35 to do it. I wandered over to Golf Galaxy to recheck their stock. Rich II mentioned the grip he had on his putter was only $8 or so. I liked it; I would seek it out. Ha!
The grip he had was now priced at $25.
The repair guy, who was mono-syllabic when I was in about a possible warranty repair, was crazy in need to provide help. He came out and we looked through the stock. Bottom line is that he wasn't much help, but he tried this time.
I did find a Lambkin grip for $7.95. It also had a green sticker on it. When it was rung up, the total bill came to $6.05. That magic green dot was very powerful!
I take the grip and return home and retire to the work bench. I cut off the old Ping grip and find that the tape on the shaft looked pretty good and I decide that I can probably use it like it is. There is not a lot of effort in a putt and I wasn't worried about spinning the grip out of position even with the old tape.
I put some solvent in the grip, cover the little hole in the end of the grip, shake it around and pour it over the tape. This is common practice.
Now the new grip should slide all the way down and be slippery enough for some minor adjustment.
But I start the grip and it goes on about 2 inches and seems to get stuck. Yipes! I pull it off. Well, I tried to pull it off, but it was not moving. Hmm... I manage to slide a tool under the grip to break the tape's tenacity and get it off. Note that I wouldn't be able to cut the grip off as it was the last one the store had with or without the magic green dot.
I bite the bullet, wipe the sweat from the brow and scrape the old tape off. I install some new, use the last of my grip solvent to rejuice the grip and the new tape. The new grip slides effortlessly all the way down. I align the grip using a level -- this is a first, but seemed to work well.
All done and I expect no more than 20 putts tomorrow.
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