www.GetPedia.com Dave Pelz's Putting Bible The Complete Guide to Mastering the Green DAVE PELZ with James A. Frank DOUBLEDAY NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND PUBLISHED 13Y DOUBLEDAY a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036 DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. Copyright 0 2000 by David T. Pelz. Photo Credits are on page 395. The Library of Congress has established a record for this title. ISBN 0-385-50024-6 Book design by Tina Thompson All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America July 2000 First Edition Dedication To my dearest JoAnn My incredible, wonderful, beautiful wife, You have truly become the light of my life. You run the company, and our schedules, too, Let there never be doubt, I'd be lost without you. You fill our days so full with such pleasure, With you at my side, each one is pure treasure. I feel so lucky on you to depend, As my companion, partner, soulmate, and friend. So I dedicate this book, to your beauty and glow, To your caring and talents, the most wondrous I know. In every way, my most beautiful sight, My unwavering, beautiful beacon of light. I'm so grateful to the force in the somewhere above, For letting me live (and work) with the woman I love. All my love. Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: My Putting Bible xi PUTTING OVERVIEW CHAPTER I What Is Putting? 1 CHAPTER 2 Problems on the Greens 14 CHAPTER 3 Methods of Putting 34 THE FIFTEEN BUILDING BLOCKS OF PUTTING CHAPTER 4 The Seven Building Blocks of Stroke Mechanics 53 CHAPTER 5 Five Nonphysical Building Blocks: Touch, Feel, Attitude, Routine, and Ritual 112 CHAPTER 6 Stability and Rhythm: Two Artistic Fundamentals 132 CHAPTER 7 Green-Reading, the 15th Building Block 142 ADDITIONAL INFLUENCES IN PUTTING CHAPTER 8 Speed Is More Important Than Line 179 CHAPTER 9 Wind, Lopsided Balls, Dimples, Rain, Sleet, and Snow 193 HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PUTTING CHAPTER 10 The Improvement Process 213 viii Contents CHAPTER 11 Establish Your Practice Framework 220 CHAPTER 12 Improve Your Stroke Mechanics 270 CHAPTER 13 Develop Your Artistic Senses (Feel, Touch, Green-Reading) 302 CHAPTER 14 Face Your Special Problems 344 CHAPTER 15 Wrap-Up 364 Addresses 389 Learning Aids 391 Resort and Teaching Facilities 393 Acknowledgments It is slightly overwhelming to think of how many people actually contributed to this work and deserve my thanks. From the technical point of view, my thanks go to all the PGA and LPGA Tour players who have contributed to our understanding of what can and cannot be ac- complished with hard work. I appreciate your trust in coming to us with your putting-game problems and sharing your results, frustrations, and rewards over the years. In addition, I want to give a special thanks to Jim Simons, Tom Jenkins, Allen Miller, Joe Inman, Tom Kite, Andy North, Eddie Pearce, D. A. Weibring, Tom Sieck- mann, Peter Jacobsen, Vijay Singh, Jesper Parnevik, Beth Daniel, Paul Azinger, Lee janzen, and Steve Elkington. These players have a special place in my heart for the way they have helped me learn, and I thank them for being my friends, as well. Another player I want to thank, posthumously, is my friend Payne Stewart. Payne, I know you are there, and I was so looking forward to doing some special things in this book with you. I will never forget your focus and determination in working on your routine, which you maintained perfectly as you made the best three putts in the history of golf to close out your second U.S. Open win. And we all know those were your least important accomplishments over the last few years. We are proud just to have known and worked with you. I also want to thank my technical staff, especially Pete Piotrowski, Eddie Pelz, and J. D. Pelly, for their contributions to the Pelz Golf Institute testing results. Putting this book together, I thank Joel Mendelman, Bryan Allison, and Dave Watford for their graphical talents, Eddie Pelz for project management, Leonard Kamsler for his unparalleled photographic talents, and Tina Thompson for her talent in laying out the book as well as her patience with my "occasional" changes. I also thank my good friends at the best magazine in golf, GOLF MAGAZINE, for their contributions, and especially my editor, Jim Frank, who helped me cut - the size of this book from ridiculous down to just "really more than you want to x Acknowledgments know about putting." Jim, really, I appreciate your talents after this one more than ever. And finally, I want to thank my instructional staff at our Scoring Game Schools. To you twenty full-time teaching professionals, you are the best in the business, and I couldnt have done this book without you. And Bob Scott, your ed- itorial contributions were awesome ... thanks. Introduction My Putting Bible I want to start this book with a short explanation. Look closely at the title. Notice that I dont claim this to be "THE" putting bible. I call it Dave Pelzs Putting Bible because it truly is "my" bible on putting. It is a compendium of my research, my studies, my test results, my teaching philosophy, and my beliefs about the art and science of putting. It is my bible-or, if you prefer, my notebook or data log book-into which I have transcribed my thoughts, interpretations of test results, observations, and theoretical work that have been instrumental in forming my understanding of putting. It is also from this work that I draw my philosophy for leaching the putting game in the Dave Pelz Scoring Game Schools. My putting bible is a work in progress, because as I continue to study putting, which I do almost every day, Im sure I will learn more. The information youll read here is what Ive learned so far. It started with my playing, thinking about, and studying my own game. I started playing golf when I was six. I played throughout my childhood, was the number-one player on my high-school teams, played in numerous local tour- naments, and had some minor success. I attended Indiana University on a four- year golf scholarship; more important, as it turned out, I also majored in physics. After college, I tried-unsuccessfully-to become a good enough player to make it on the PGA Tour back in the early 1960s. So I began a 15-year career at NASA, conducting research in space, launching satellites into earth orbit and beyond, and studying how the sun controls our atmosphere. Since then, having changed my focus from the stars to the little white ball, I have studied the performance techniques and results of many tour professionals and am- ateurs, golfers of all sizes and skill levels, whenever and wherever I find them. I also have studied thousands of putting greens, balls, the behavior of balls on those xi xii Introduction greens, myriad putting implements, and many of the varied techniques of putting. I have filled most of my last 25 years measuring and trying to improve the teaching and learning techniques for putting and the short game. I have had some success improving the putting of my students, from beginners to Tour pros, all over the world. As I write this today, I am deeply involved in several continuing (and very ex- citing) research projects relating to how players can learn to putt and play better. Again, this is "my" research and "my Putting Bible." But Ive put it in a form to help you become a better putter. I'm a Researcher Several years ago, I founded the Pelz Golf Institute, which has as its mission "re- search for the good of the game." We chose that charter because it is a noble pur- pose and fits very nicely with what Im trying to do-help golfers of all handicap and skill levels play the game better and enjoy it more. This has become my lifes work-and better work you could not find! But we also have taken this mission one step further: That is, we want to make the game simple enough to understand that everyone can "get it;" and, therefore, shoot lower scores and have more fun. To make teaching and learning the game this simple, we have to study it in depth. Luckily for me, that is something I dearly love to do. Its obvious to me now that all my previous experience-my years playing ju- nior, high school, and collegiate golf; my first career conducting space research at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center (where my Indiana University book learning changed into real knowledge of how to conduct valid, scientific research); the in- depth studies I made of my own game; and my most recent work conducting re- search with the Pelz Golf Institute-were merely preparation for what Im doing now. Its taken me 54 years (since I first picked up a club at age six) to be ready to tell you, and show you, how you can improve your ability to sink putts while un- derstanding the game better and enjoying it more. As youll soon learn, one of the keys to lower scores is better putting. And the better you learn to putt, the more you will enjoy the rest of the game. Why This Book? Thats easy: I had to write this book because putting is so important. Further- more, besides being a researcher, Im also a teacher.