Plumb Bobbing, How To Read Greens

Plumb Bobbing For Reading Greens

Plumb bobbing is an excellent tool which can greatly increase the accuracy of reading your putts. Many touring pros use this simple technique and are able to make good decisions about how a putt is going to break.

Simply stand or crouch down behind your golf ball, a few feet or so away. If you are using a convention length putter, hold your putter up so that the shaft covers the golf ball. You'll want to close one eye so that you are looking only with your dominant eye. It doesn't really matter which hand you hold the putter with when you are plumb bobbing, but typically a right handed golfer will hold the putter with their right hand and look with their right eye open only.

Now, find the point where the shaft of the putter covers up the golf ball. Then simply look up the shaft and find where the hole is. If the hole is to the right or the left, that means the putt will break that way however much distance is showing when you plumb bob. For example, if I line up my putter shaft with the golf ball and then look up and see the hole is a couple inches to the left of the putter shaft, this means the putt will break a couple of inches to the left.

Using the plumb bob is not an exact science but is relatively accurate most of the time.

Always use your best judgment. If you look at your putt from other angles and get a different read, trust yourself over the plumb bob.

Plumb Bobbing Works Best With Shorter Putts

Another key with this technique, is it will work better with shorter putts. A longer putt with more slopes and possibly more than one break will be difficult to plumb bob for an accurate read. These are times when you'll need your other green reading skills to come into play to help you make your most accurate read.

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