Tip Tuesday: Reading the Grain with a Traditional Putting Approach

Ted Frick from the Classic Swing Golf School in Myrtle Beach, S.C. shows you how to tackle grainy Bermuda putting surfaces with a traditional putter and putting grip.

Ted Frick:
All right, so I’m out here in the putting series and I’m on tip number two. Tip number one, remember, was finding out what your dominant eye is, so you’re going to have to go back to that (video) if you don’t know your dominant eye.

Now, what I’m getting into here is the three different putters: blade (very traditional), mini mallet, and then the mallet. Also, what you’re going to see here is the three types of handles: a pistol handle: 2.0, kind of like a midsize; and then something untraditional, the new modern type of Flat Cats and bigger grips. I’m going to get to these later in other series.

I want to start out with traditional – traditional with green reading, and here’s a green-reading tip. We’re going to have to look down into this cup in just a moment for a hot tip for golfing in the South, because 90 percent of our greens are Bermuda grass. We never hit a putt down here without looking into the cup to find out what side of the cup is browning out. Whatever side of the cup is browning out, that reflects the direction the grain is growing towards. Grain is a big pulling force. With the traditional putter, here’s an old blade and a traditional grip, which you don’t see much of anymore, I’m going to go to the traditional way of holding the putter, which is the right hand, the power hand, on the bottom, and then the lead hand, my top hand, on top. Very, very traditional.

In a traditional way, you would see a lot of guys when they were doing the green reading, they would plumb bob. Again, plumb bobbing, they would close their non-dominant eye. I am right-eye dominant, I have grain moving to the left, so on this putt with traditional, and I don’t hold it traditional, I’m going to go through the traditional putting grip with a traditional putter, but I’m going to start this ball out to the right because the grain is on the left side and my dominant eye says that the ball is going to break at the left at the hole. Notice I just missed that to the left. That’s all grain right there.