Bulldoze for prove, putt for dough.  The old mantra notwithstanding exists today, and if you watch golf on tv, you may have noticed major champions like Adam Scott reading greens a bit different than most.  The Aimpoint Express green reading system has resonated with the professional tours and may exist spreading fifty-fifty faster among competitive amateur golfers.  In this postal service, we volition explore what the system is, why pros are using information technology, and decide whether it is right for your game.

TLDR

  • Aimpoint Limited is a bout-proven greenish reading methodology (hint: Adam Scott) that allows a golfer to read greens using their feet to determine the slope percentage of a given putt.
  • I would by and large recommend the system more for linear putters, but the organization tin exist benign for not-linear putters if using to practice light-green reading
  • To learn Aimpoint Limited in full, you will demand to get in contact with a local certified instructor

Introduction

I learned the organisation about one year ago, about the same time that I learned that I was a non-linear putter. If you haven't read my post on linear vs. non-linear putters, I propose that y'all practise so now, because this post assumes you take a basic understanding of this topic. Anyways, I noticed several of my buddies using the system, and was eager to bring together the fun. I took a short course from a certified Aimpoint Limited instructor whom I knew and immediately started practicing.

Before my lesson, I had no clue what this craze was all nearly! The truth is, green reading is hard!

Nosotros've all been tricked by those subtle breaks every once in a while, and have wished there was a way to overcome this. With Aimpoint Express, no matter who you lot are, you volition exist able to correctly read greens with a sufficient amount of practice. I love the system considering it finally allows the average golfer to read greens like the pros, without years and years of experience.  The but requirement is an adequate amount of practice calibrating your encephalon to recognize different slope percentages with your feet.

Before diving in to the technicalities, let's accept a await at the benefits of the Aimpoint Express Arrangement.

Aimpoint Express takes the guesswork out of green reading

I think the number ane reason that golfer'southward miss putts is due to a lack of trust in their reads. It is much better to commit to the wrong line and make a confident stroke than hit a timid putt with the correct line. The reason I like Aimpoint Express is because information technology allows yous to experience confident about your read and thus commit to your line more frequently. Like annihilation, human fault plays a role in the success or failure of the system, simply it is the closest matter we've got to perfection when it comes to greenish reading.

More than effective practice

Practicing effectively is one of the biggest keys to a solid golf game game. Having the benefit of a greenish reading organization on the golf course is cracking, but I find the real benefits of using Aimpoint Express on the practise light-green. Every bit we will explore later in the mail service, a large component to training your brain to read slopes with your body is the use of a digital level. Although illegal on the golf game class, using a digital level will theoretically give you the "perfect read" every fourth dimension. Knowing that you've read a putt perfectly on the do green helps increase the effectiveness of your practice considering you are training your eyes, brain, and torso to read the light-green. Rather than aiming at the wrong target and compensating with a faulty stroke to make the putt, your practice sessions will exist spent aiming at the correct target striking committed strokes. This trains your brain to run into the breaks more accurately on the course, and eliminates the amount of bounty that has to go on during the stroke.

Aimpoint Express is a tour-proven green-reading method

I'm a big proponent of learning things from the people that are achieving the results yous want to accomplish, then naturally, I was pleased to hear that Aimpoint Express is popular on the professional golf tours. Not merely is it accustomed on bout, a major champion golfer, Adam Scott, has used this system en-route to a Green Jacket.

If the best golfers in the world are using this method, it is surely an effective light-green reading organization for those who practise choose to do it and utilise it.

Aimpoint Express improves your aim and stroke

If you lot have ever taken a course in economics, y'all might be familiar with the constabulary of unintended consequences. As a result of reading the greens correctly, you will naturally aim the doodle improve and offset the brawl on your intended line more ofttimes. Well-nigh golfers don't aim where they think they are aiming, and almost golfers don't read enough interruption in their putts. Dave Pelz proved this in his Putting Bible. If yous're not reading the greens or aiming correctly, the merely fashion to make a putt is to compensate in your stroke. If you employ Aimpoint Limited, you volition brainstorm to escape these compensations that cause day to day putting struggles!

So how does Aimpoint Express Work?

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with AimpointGolf and am non a certified Aimpoint instructor.

Overview

I am not legally entitled to write a full tutorial on how to employ the Aimpoint Express system, but my intention is to explicate it in just enough detail for you to determine if it is correct for you.

Every bit alluded to earlier in the post, Aimpoint Limited revolves effectually reading greens with your feet. In a nutshell, you lot get to the mid-point of the putt, feel and determine on a certain slope percentage with your feet, and based on this data you use your fingers to read the green. The photo below demonstrates the basic concept. In the photo, I am reading a right-to-left breaking putt with a slope percentage of 2%. Y'all can encounter that the left border of my leftmost finger is aligned with the center of the cup, and the right border of my rightmost finger is where I should start my putt.

aimpoint measurement two

Gradient percentage and reading with the anxiety

I wanted to start with this detail because information technology requires the well-nigh practise of whatever function of the organisation. With the Aimpoint Express system, the goal is to exist able to recognize what unlike "percent slopes" feel like. Information technology is recommended that you utilize a digital level and click the "tilt percent" button to check yourself. I use the level to find half dozen spots on the putting green with the post-obit slopes: 0.v%, 1%, 1.5%, 2%, 2.5%, and three%.

Once I take institute these slopes, I rotate randomly between them, trying to train my encephalon to identify each of them. After I've done this for a few minutes, I'll walk around the green and use a "guess and check" method for determining the slope. Beginning, I'll estimate what I think the slope of the green that I'm standing on is, and so I'll check it with the digital level.

Using this guess and bank check method helps me go an idea of what different per centum slopes experience like. When reading the gradient with your feet, you should stand with your feet near shoulder width apart.

Where to read the putt from

Although there are a few exceptions (5 anxiety and in, double breaking putts, etc.), the full general dominion for Aimpoint Express is to find the middle of the putt, and stand on the low side of the putt (the side to which the putt is breaking towards). If the putt is a xv-human foot right to left breaking putt, you lot would walk to 7.v feet from the hole on the left side of your line.

How do I read the putt?

So you've skilful feeling different percent slopes and yous are standing at the midpoint of a xv-pes right-to-left breaking putt. What next?

Subsequently y'all've determined what you think the gradient is at the midpoint of the putt, y'all'll go back to the ball and read the putt. Say that yous've determined that the slope of the putt is virtually 1%. You would line the left side of your pointer finger up with the middle of the hole, and your aimpoint would be the red dot shown in the picture beneath.

aimpoint express example measurement

Greenish speed calibrations

Earlier you will be able to read the dark-green effectively with the Aimpoint Express system, you must make up one's mind the speed of the green. Once y'all have adamant the speed of the green, you tin can then "calibrate" yourself. There are two ways to calibrate with Aimpoint Express. The first way is to straddle the ball and adjust the altitude of your paw from your torso for unlike green speeds. If the green your are putting on is rolling slowly, your arm will be much farther from your torso than on a fast green. The second fashion to read a putt is by adjusting the distance that yous stand up behind the brawl according to the green speed while keeping your arm altitude constant. In both scenarios, you have one constant factor.

These subtle components to the Aimpoint Express system are the reasons why I would recommend purchasing the instructional DVD or finding a local instructor. Finding the speed of the greens and calibrating yourself to those speeds is an fine art that requires 1-on-one guidance. That said, I will forewarn you that whenever yous go to a new form, you'll accept to spend 15 minutes with your digital level experimenting with either the distance of your arm (if y'all are straddling the ball when reading putts), or the distance y'all stand behind the brawl (if you are keeping your arm distance constant). In one case you start reading the putts correctly, you'll know that you've achieved an authentic calibration.

Downsides to the Aimpoint Express System

As with any methodology there are bits and pieces that certain people dislike. I generally find the organisation beneficial to whatsoever golfer's game, merely have i major trouble with it that has kept me from a total implementation of information technology in my ain game. I use it on the exercise green as mentioned earlier, but generally stay away from information technology while playing. The reason for this is the fourth dimension commitment. If you lot make up one's mind to prefer this dark-green reading arrangement into your own game, yous need to exist ready to devote several hours practicing your greenish reading. If you can't determine the slope percentages within a 1% departure while on the course, you may every bit well putt blindfolded, and I can say from personal feel, it is not easy to go the slope percentages within that 1% deviation. Just like you lot spend an hour striking your short distance putts on the practice greenish, you will need to do the aforementioned for practicing your green reading. Green reading has historically been an intuitive procedure for golfers. Yous curve downwards, visualize the putt's line, and hit to the line. With the Aimpoint Express system, you often stray away from visualization and more than towards "spot putting". For some golfers (particularly linear putters), putting in straight lines is comfortable. For others like myself, putting to a specific target is discomforting. I tend to visualize a clock effectually the pigsty and choose which time I want to enter the pigsty at.

golf putting clock model

My master use for the Aimpoint organisation is for grooming my brain to see enough intermission in my putts. I volition use it every so often on the practise green alongside a line on my golf game ball to get an idea of where I am currently aiming. It acts as a "reset" for me when my putting has gone south.

Whatever your intentions, I promise this mail clears upward some of the confusion around the Aimpoint Express organisation, and I wish you the best of luck on the greens!

Personal practice plan