Line vs. Speed — The Battle You Can Actually Win
Share
The Great Debate
“Was it the line or the speed?” Every golfer’s post-miss debate sounds the same. You watch the ball drift past the edge, turn to your buddy, and say, “I had it on the right line, just hit it too firm.” Or, “Perfect pace, just misread it.”
Here’s the truth bomb: from six feet and in, line wins the battle.
Speed matters — but only if your line is true. You can roll the ball at perfect pace, but if the face is open by a degree, you’ll still miss.
At short range, physics takes the wheel. And physics favors precision over feel.
---
What the Data Says
According to Mark Broadie’s “Every Shot Counts” and SAM PuttLab analytics:
- From six feet, the PGA Tour make rate is about 70%.
- From five feet, it jumps to 80%.
- From three feet, it’s nearly automatic at 99%.
So what happens in that tiny gap between “tap-in” and “guesswork”? The line.
When you’re inside six feet, speed variation is minimal — the ball doesn’t have time to decelerate dramatically. But a one-degree face error creates a miss regardless of how perfect your speed was.
It’s not just about reading the break. It’s about delivering the putter face square to your intended start line.
That’s where most golfers lose their edge — not in misjudging slope, but in mis-delivering the face.
---
The Myth of “Dying Speed”
You’ve heard it forever: “Hit it with dying speed — let it fall in.” It sounds romantic. But unless your line is laser-precise, dying-speed putts just exaggerate misses.
When a ball’s speed slows near the hole, it becomes more affected by gravity and break. So if your start line is off, that gentle pace only gives the slope more time to drag it away.
Tour pros don’t “die” putts in. They hit them confidently, with controlled aggression, designed to take out the micro-break near the cup.
They trust their line — because they train it relentlessly.
---
Line: The Non-Negotiable
The ball starts where the face points. Period.
At six feet, if your putter face is:
- 1° open → ball misses roughly 1¼ inches right
- 1° closed → ball misses 1¼ inches left
Even if your read was perfect, your setup betrayed you.
That’s why the Line Lion Putting Trainer was designed — to eliminate illusions about where “straight” really is.
---
The Line Lion Advantage — Real Feedback, Real Consequences
Most alignment drills give you margin for error. Two tees in the ground? Great idea — until you realize you can brush one side and still sneak the ball through. That’s false confidence.
The Line Lion flips the script.
It’s a solid, one-piece gate trainer with a fixed center ball that acts as your visual and physical strike reference. Every putt tells the truth.
If your face is even slightly off, you’ll feel it — the putter glances the side, the impact feels different, and the ball carves off-line instantly.
No ambiguity. No maybe. Just truth.
That’s why elite players love devices that exaggerate feedback. The harder it is to cheat, the faster you improve.
---
The Psychology of Line Commitment
Inside six feet, your brain loves to second-guess. You see the break, you trust it — then your eyes start whispering, “That looks too much left.”
This last-second hesitation leads to what pros call “micro-pulls” or “soft pushes” — subconscious corrections caused by doubt.
But when your training has reinforced your visual alignment — when you know what straight looks and feels like — those whispers go quiet.
That’s what the Line Lion does best: it rebuilds your visual trust. After a few sessions, your eyes recalibrate to what square actually looks like. You stop steering, start stroking, and your confidence compounds.
---
Speed: The Supporting Actor
Let’s be clear — speed isn’t irrelevant. It just plays a different role.
Good speed protects your miss, but good line defines your make.
If you’re firm through impact, you can shrink the effective break. But if your face is open or closed, that firmness won’t save you. The only time speed truly dominates is beyond 15–20 feet, where the putt’s energy decay and slope variability magnify.
Inside six feet, consistency beats creativity. Your goal isn’t to “feel” speed — it’s to own your line.
---
Tour Player Secrets: The Start-Line Bias
Most tour players train with lasers, mirrors, and high-speed cameras to identify one key metric: face angle at impact.
Why? Because they know the start line determines whether a putt ever had a chance.