Minna no Golf Putting Guide

When you are on the Green you’re only choice of playing a shot is with a putter, having great putting up your sleeves is a huge advantage when trying to keep those low scores. This guide will not help you sink every putt you will ever come across, but it should help you improve and understand how to judge your own putts and or apply some of the ideas into your own play style.

Learning to putt well from a early stage will definitely improve your scores alot quicker in the beginning. It will probably save you from worrying about it when you have become a Pro at the game… should also help you tackle putts that seem impossible at a glance, but sinkable when you apply your knowledge and or experience into it.

Examples of nice putts in Minna no Golf 5:

Flag Indicator*

Newer versions of Minna no Golf support a flag indicator along the top of the power bar. The flag indicator helps with putting alot and makes it easier to judge the power of the putt you are making, Example: On a normal flat green if you were to set your power gauge up to the flag indicator this ball should drop in the cup. If there is no flag indicator then you will have to take note of the distance remaining to gauge your putt power.

*Available from Minna no Golf 3+. 

Overhead Camera Putting**

Usually you spend some time using the Start Buttons overhead camera to see the lines and aim up the putt, but essentially you are putting from a front on view when you use the original input method [Traditional System]. On the Advanced System, apart from having four beeps to help gauge power you may also putt from an Overhead Camera view using R2 to change the views…

While in overhead view you can putt and see the ghost ball projects to about 20 squares if you are within distance of the 10m putter. You can then say that each square represents 5% of power or 50cm of distance. This should help when calculating how much power you need to make a putt in Advanced mode.

**Available in Minna no Golf 5 +
　Everybody’s Hot Shots Golf World Tour Out of Bounds.

Acceleration + Deceleration 

When the ball is hit by the putter it is physically accelerating rapidly and then decelerates until the energy in the ball is lost to the friction of the grass. When feeling the lines of your putt think about the acceleration and deceleration of the ball as it is travelling through the squares of the Green. As the ball travels through a square with fast moving slopes, the longer it stays in the square the more the square’s slope will affect the ball.

So the earlier squares will move the ball less if you hit it hard and the later squares will will move the ball more as it is slowing down. It is because of this uphill putting is regarded as the easier putt to make. The ball is hit harder and the curve towards the cup is sometimes all you need to read as the ball slows down when it reaches the cup and drops easily. Downhill on the other hand can be tricky if the slope is steep, you must read all the lines carefully to see the path your light hit will be traveling across… So how do you know how much power you need?

The Formula

Formulas are nice, it is even better when they work. Minna no Golf and Everybody’s Golf series share the same formula because they both use the metric system…

This Formula is… 

Flag Indicator Power Gauge %
(± (Uphill/Downhill #cm) ÷ (10/20/30/40m Putter Max Dist.) × 10)%
= Amount of Power % Required

Okay then… That looks like abit of a mess, but when you substitute the values that you need into it… Example: Flag is at 50%, 10cm Uphill, 10m Putter Max Distance the formula will end up like this…

50% + (10/10*10)% = 60% of Power Gauge.

[You probably noticed there that on a 10m putter the dividing and multiplying by 10 is redundant but the formula works for all the putters this way so it made sense to keep it.] 

The same formula works for Hot Shots Golf series, but you just need to tweak it a little…

Flag Indicator Power Gauge % 
(± (Uphill/Downhill #ft) ÷ (30/60/90/120ft Putter Max Dist.) × 100)% 
= Amount of Power % Required

Consistency

Why should you use the formula? Well this guide is not forcing you to use this formula to putt, but the aim is to give you an idea of becoming consistent. When you are putting consistently with a rule or formula that you enjoy, you will start to see and feel the lines of the Green more consistently. The experience will help you understand how to tackle the longer and harder putts that you  have to hit because you happened to miss PI and the game decided to leave you far away from the cup.

There are other ways to putt and other people prefer to putt their own way because it works for them, which is fine as the idea is that they follow their own rule of consistency and this gives them good experience of reading the lines with their own rule for putting. As long as it is consistent you will learn from it…

Broken Formula

As you start to land on tougher greens, the formula ceases to work on some putts… There are a few reasons that could explain why it isn’t working anymore. On some greens the breaks that are so intense that no matter how hard you hit the ball using the formula you will find that the ball falls short of the hole. Or  you are putting downhill and the slope gives you little or no room to actually putt… Example: Flag at 50%, 50cm Downhill. [Formula % = 0% Power]…

Since the formula is just a rule for consistency, it is alright to sometimes putt a little differently in order to make the putt. This may include taking alternative routes such as climbing the slope behind you or putting up the hill to the left and letting the ball just barely start trickling down the curve into the cup. You can also putt a little harder because if you can directly make contact with the cup the cup and take up to around 20% of extra power [with 10m Putter Max Distance]. This will come with experience and feel.

One way to keep the formula working in a few broken situations is to aim up the Power % Required before you move the aim of the putt. This is because the flag indicator moves as you turn your putting aim and can result in many putts hit short.

On the Green

Now you should be able to make use of the formula when you Green in Regulation [GIR]. Which should mean less Pars, Bogeys or the two or three-putts to Hole Out. Who knows what you could do… The Putter might be your best weapon…

That concludes this guide for putting. If you have any questions or theories feel free to discuss about putting on the discussion boards.