Reading greens for uphill/downhill using plumb bob

A key factor in determining proper ball speed to travel the distance to the hole is whether it travels uphill or downhill. Some players have a problem in determining ball speed on sloped greens. Editors of Golf Magazine (1973) stated: “There are thousands of players who are consistently short on every uphill and consistently long on every downhill putt. And we mean every.”
The principle challenge is in establishing suitable true reference directions, either horizontal or vertical. This was excellently expressed by Palmer (1986) in his book Peter Arnold Palmer’s Complete Book of Putting:
"The human eye is a remarkably accurate instrument for detecting variations from the horizontal, that is, slopes on greens, provided that the eye can refer to a genuine horizontal such as the roof of a house or the horizon of the sea. A vertical reference, such as a pine tree, is also helpful because we are all thoroughly indoctrinated in the relationship of right angles by living in a world of rectangular buildings, doors, windows, books, newspapers, picture frames, and the like. If a picture on the wall is askew, we can detect it most easily by observing the horizontal top edge, helped by the arrangement of having two eyes set in a horizontal plane, but most of us are also pretty fair at detecting whether a vertical line is out of true if there happens to be a genuine vertical line handy as a reference. So, on seaside links -- or courses that have the vertical trunks of conifer trees or buildings by the green -- golfers can normally read slopes without much difficulty. But our ability to detect them is seriously impaired when we are denied true references, as in mountainous country. Then, indeed, nature sometimes conspires to confuse us.”
The putter is very handy in providing a vertical reference when used as a plumb bob. It also has the added virtue of providing this reference in the direction of green where you wish to judge the green slope where other references "such as a pine tree" are not available. A conventional procedure for reading the green for uphill or downhill putt is to position to the side of the ball-hole line (on the low side) about midway between ball and hole (see figure 1).
Dr. Putt (www.drputt.com) has an excellent explanation of the procedure of preparing your putter for this use (see figure 2):
"What one should do is hold the club with two fingers just below the grip and sight it to the edge of a door or some other opening that is perfectly vertical. Slowly rotate the putter until the shaft appears to be perfectly parallel to the known vertical edge. Then mark the top of the grip so that one can consistently hold the putter in this position when plumb bobbing quickly and accurately on the putting green. If the player fails to do this properly, then all the rest is an exercise in futility."

Attached Images

	Up-down.jpg (48.4 KB, 6 views)
	plumbob4a.jpg (68.5 KB, 8 views)

hi
i tend to go along with dave plez on plum bobbing and dont think it helps on most greens, i also feel that most player plub bob without knowing what thay are doing and only do it because the saw some pro on tv doing it, i know i use to do it without ever knowing what i was trying to really do.
i feel most players can see and judge the borrow just the same as if the plum bob. i know dave plez had done tests and he say it dont work and i have never found it to help me, sorry shorty but you do make a good case for why you would do it if you had a right angle edge to line shaft up on but i still dont see how that helps with your putting.
bill

When you hear of a person trying to plumb bob, they are referring to gathering some information about the break in the ball’s path i.e. breaking to the right or left. To do this type of plumb bobbing, you stand in line with the ball-hole direction, either behind the ball or behind the hole. Also you’re supposed to stand stiff legged to the surface. In his book, Pelz, in his book Dave Pelz’s Putting Bible (p 173), he states that it DOES work for indicating break direction! But he adds the caveat: “And even then, under no condition will the plumb line indicate the amount of the break….The plumb-bob technique that most golfers use simply does not work.” That is, they don’t stand stiff legged.
He then discusses how the ball-hole line appears to the eye when simply holding the club as a plumb-bob (see Attached Fig. 7.11.3 B) and you're not attempting to stand stiff legged to the surface. As the figure shows the ball-hole line is directly in line with the club shaft. Thus, no ball breaking information is revealed by this technique.
However, what he doesn’t talk about is that the picture does reveal that the platform he’s standing on is tilted (see edge of table at the top of picture). The table edge is not perpendicular to the shaft, in fact it tells you that the table slopes to the right, which in fact it does. This is the same situation when you’re trying to read greens for uphill/downhill. For this situation, you are standing nearly perpendicular to the ball-hole line and you’re trying to determine if this line slopes and if it does, which direction. Using the club as a simple plumb-bob works in this situation.

Attached Images

Figure 7-11-13 B.GIF (92.0 KB, 7 views)