The putting technique dividing the golf world
Golfers are divided over AimPoint—a putting technique built on data and feel. Some pros swear by it, others want it banned for slowing the game. Here's why the green-reading method is sparking heated debates on the PGA and LPGA Tours.
Golfers and fans haven’t been this divided on a putting technique since Happy Gilmore’s first year on the Tour. AimPoint, a method of reading greens and lining up a putt, is growing in popularity among players despite calls for it to be banned from official play.
Finding the aiming point
AimPoint was created in the early 2000s by Mark Sweeney, a golf fan with a background in finance and software development.
After watching players continuously miss the same putt on the 18th green of the British Open, he wrote 100,000 lines of code for a program that would laser scan greens and calculate the optimal path and speed for every putt – the “aimpoint.” This program is currently used by broadcasters like Golf Channel, NBC, and CBS to show viewers a virtual path a ball needs to travel to finish in the hole.
But golfers aren’t like famed freestyler Harry Mack – they don’t have a computer where their heads should be. So in an effort to make AimPoint useful for players while on the course, Sweeney came up with a technique. Here’s how it works:
- Straddle the putt’s line at the point of the biggest break.
- Use your footing to discern the amount of tilt, at which point you assign a number – one through five – to the slope’s severity.
- Stand behind the ball with one eye closed and a pointer finger aimed at the center of the hole, then raise the number of fingers that corresponds to that slope. Ex: If you estimate the slope at 3% from right to left, you aim at the point outside your ring finger.
Some pros really like it…AimPoint is used by Max Homa, Viktor Hovland, Keegan Bradley, Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa, Adam Scott, and more. The technique has reportedly shaved putting strokes off each of the above pros’ games, according to data shared by Sweeney.
But others really hate it…Critics, including 2009 US Open winner Lucas Glover and storied commentator Jim Nantz, have called for AimPoint to be banned, claiming a lack of etiquette (ex: stomping on greens in the line of others’ putts) and that it’s contributing to a slow pace of play – which many say is a growing issue.
Looking ahead: The PGA Tour recently released a list of four potential solutions it’s exploring to speed up gameplay (none involve axing AimPoint), while the LPGA this month introduced new policies to that same end.
