And why most golfers fix the wrong thing by BILL FEDDER, PGA / The Club at Glenmore
Instruction
Why Your Putts Really Miss
And why most golfers fix the wrong thing by BILL FEDDER, PGA / The Club at Glenmore
Every golfer has felt it. You read the putt, commit to your line, make what feels like a good stroke, and the ball slides past the hole. You walk away thinking you misread it. Maybe you did— but maybe you didn’ t. After 21 years of teaching and thousands of hours on the practice green,
I’ ve found that most golfers have no idea why their putts actually miss. They feel the miss, they see the result, but they tend to attribute it to the wrong cause. And that means they practice the wrong fix.
Putting breaks down to three categories: speed, line, and green read. Every missed putt involves at least one. Most involve two. The problem is that from the golfer’ s perspective, they all look the same— the ball didn’ t go in.
SPEED: THE MOST MISUNDERSTOOD PILLAR Speed control is the most underrated skill in putting, and the misunderstanding starts with how golfers think. Most assume a speed miss means they hit the ball too hard or too soft. But there’ s a critical distinction most players never consider: the difference between a skill miss and a perception miss.
A skill miss means you knew the right speed but your body didn’ t deliver it. A perception miss means you executed
exactly what you intended, but the plan was wrong— you picked the wrong speed before you ever made the stroke. Most golfers blame the stroke every time. But the plan is wrong more often than they think.
Try this on your next lag putt: Call your speed before you look up. Guess short, long, or just right based purely on feel. Then watch. The gap between what you called and what actually happened tells you whether the problem is in your hands or your judgment. If it’ s a perception gap, then no amount of stroke work will fix it.
LINE: WHERE SLOPE TRICKS YOUR EYES Line is where you start the ball. On a straight putt, this is simple. But on a breaking putt, slope does something subtle and destructive— it distorts your sense of alignment. You pick the right target, step into the putt, and the ground under your feet quietly pulls your setup offline. Your eyes adjust to the slope without you knowing it, and the ball starts somewhere other than where you intended.
This is part of why breaking putts are so much harder than straight putts. Slope simultaneously affects your read and your alignment. The two problems compound each other. A golfer who consistently misses low on right-breaking putts might assume they’ re underreading the break. But the data might show they read the break correctly and simply can’ t align to their target on that slope. Same miss, completely different fix.
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