To make more putts, you need to read the greens well. You may have the first shot of Tiger Woods, but without the ability to read the green well, you will never make putts.
I learned this the hard way over the years. While I’m typically able to put a nice roll on the ball, my green reading left a bit to be desired – and my putting suffered as a result.
To help me understand why my green reading was missing, I went to see it GOLF Top 100 Master and PGA Tour putting consultant Stephen Sweeney for some help. You can check out our conversation below on the latest episode of The Lab, hosted by Baird.
“>
How to read the greens
When it comes to reading greens, you can take two different approaches. For some people, reading greens visually is their preferred method, while others like to use the feeling of their feet to get a sense of the tracks.
No matter how lean, it is important that you have an idea of the path that the ball will take to the hole. Once you have this mapped out, you can find the apex of the putt – but don’t mistake this point for the starting line.
“One of the things I think a lot of people struggle with when they read the greens is they see the apex of the putt and try to aim their putt there,” Sweeney says.
However, when you aim for the apex of the arc of the putt, when the ball arrives, it will be broken below that point. And when you misread a low putt, it never has a chance to scare the hole.
“People in general don’t play enough breaks,” says Sweeney.
To solve this under-reading tendency, Sweeney says he likes to split his putts into thirds. He does this by looking at the putt from behind the ball and visualizing a track from the ball to the hole he wants the ball to land on. Then mark each third with a ball mark.
After that, Sweeney will roll putts trying to get the ball to go right over each ball mark on the way to the hole. If he hits his ball marks and the ball goes in, he knows he read the putt correctly and married the line and speed. But if he misses a ball mark or hole, he knows that something is off in his reading or shot.
“I generally give my (Tour pros) five different putts every day,” Sweeney says. “And they score themselves out of five depending on whether they got the reading right or not.”
If you want to improve your green reading, give this drill a shot. When you start rolling the ball over your ball marks and into the hole, you’ll know that you’re reading the greens perfectly and that you’re following your shot.
The 2026 GOLF Top 100 Teachers Summit will take place November 1-4 at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
View Product
