Gary Player’s best advice to help amateur golfers hole more breaking putts

The best way for golfers to easily shave strokes from their scorecards is on the greens.

According to the USGA, the average golfer makes about 40 putts per round, or just over 2 per hole. If you can two-putt every hole on an 18-hole round, then you’re gaining two strokes to the average golfer already!

But while many of us feel we should make everything within 10 feet, data from ShotScope and Arccos show a much steeper drop-off than most realize, especially when there’s a significant break.

When a putt has a break, you can typically shave another 10–20% off these make rates, as amateurs are notoriously poor at accounting for enough break. But Gary Player has some advice which should see you hole far more of them!

Gary Player’s advice for holding more breaking putts

While most amateurs miss most breaking putts, Player said they often miss on the same side of the hole. So he has some advice to prevent that mistake.

Speaking on the Vanity Index Podcast, he said, “90% of putts that are right-to-left putts are missed to the right. 90%. In fact, watch the pros! I was watching a tournament the other day with a lot of young people and I was giving them a golf clinic. I said, ‘Let’s go and watch them putt’.

“And every time they had a left-to-right putt, most of the time they missed it to the right. Now I don’t know why that is, whether it’s something to do with the eyes, I don’t know. But what I can say is whenever you have a left-to-right putt, aim more left.

“What I do, whenever I have a left-to-right putt, I actually hook it a little bit. Debatably the putter that ever lived was a man named Bobby Locke from South Africa, he came to America he won seven out of 11 tournaments, he won four British Opens, or Tiger Woods, or Jack Nicklaus.

“But you watch these guys, when they putt it, very seldom do they have a left-to-right putt and miss it on the right. They get the blade square at impact. If anything, close your clubface on impact a bit when you have a left-to-right putt.

“But the most important thing in putting is to keep your head dead still. Put a little black mark on the back of your ball, and when you putt, try to hit that black mark. I’m afraid to say you can’t do it, but you can try.”

So next time you’re facing a putt and you think you’ve given it enough break, you haven’t!

Gary Player is right about how golfers miss breaking putts

Data shows that amateurs miss breaking putts on the low side about 85% of the time. Because the ball is moving slower as it nears the hole, the break takes more at the end. Amateurs rarely play enough apex to let the ball die into the cup.

On the PGA Tour, a 12-foot straight putt is made about 90% of the time in a controlled environment. However, the actual Tour make-rate from 12 feet is only 30%. That 60% drop is almost entirely due to the difficulty of reading the break and slope. For amateurs, that drop-off is even more severe.

For a typical 15-handicapper, the 50/50″ distance where you are just as likely to make it as miss it is only about 5 feet. If that five-footer has a sharp break, your odds likely drop to around 35-40%.

So if you’re standing over an 8-foot putt with a hook in it, remember that even a scratch player only makes that about half the time. Your primary goal isn’t necessarily making it, it’s ensuring the second putt is a tap-in.