Music plays.
On a putting green, Mark watches as another golfer sinks a putt. Throughout, Mark is shown on putting greens, practicing putts or teaching others his system.
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Charles Schwab Presents
Mark Sweeney: Everybody in the golf industry said it’s impossible, and you can’t predict break. And it turned out it was actually very predictable.
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The Challengers
A series about people who
Question. Engage. Succeed.
Mark Sweeney
Mark: My name’s Mark Sweeney. I’m the founder and developer of AimPoint Golf.
AimPoint is the most used system of green reading in the world today. And it was designed over the course of almost 20 years to be a very simple method for any golfer to read any putt on any green, any amount of slope, and you don’t even need any golf knowledge whatsoever to use it.
I developed AimPoint because I was watching golf on TV in 2003, and I saw a lot of pros missing a putt.
I was watching all these players miss a 10-foot putt, and I couldn’t understand why that was such a difficult problem to solve. And at the time, the Mars rover had landed on Mars and was driving around Mars sending back images.
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How can we put a rover on Mars and not be able to read a 10 foot putt?
Mark: I asked myself, “How is it we can put a rover on the face of Mars and not be able to read a 10-foot putt consistently?”
I was a passionate golfer but not a pro. I actually did not come from golf. I came from finance and IT and software development. And so it allowed me to look at the problem from a very different perspective and not be influenced by all the conventional wisdom about green reading.
And so the first thing I did was have to find a very accurate 3D model of golf greens. And the very first person I asked handed me a business card of the only guy in the entire world who did 3D modeling with LiDAR scans of golf greens.
And so that was pretty fortuitous that the very first person I asked was the only person in the world who did it. And I started working with him and getting accurate surface models. And we put together a program that would solve how any ball rolls across any green, at any green speed of any amount of slope. We had to put in a wind function and a rain function. And it worked much better than I expected it to work. So when I actually went out and tested it, I was shocked with how accurate the prediction actually was because I was told it’s impossible, and there’s too many variables, and you can’t predict break. And it turned out it was actually very predictable.
The evolution of AimPoint went from a highly complex computer program that was about 110,000 lines of code to solve a single putt to something that you could do just with your feet and your fingers. And believe it or not, the express read, which came about 10 years later through trial and error and development and simplification, gives you almost the exact same results as a 110,000-line computer program.
Mark teaches a golfer how to read a putting green on a golf course.
Mark: I have never in my life taught somebody who couldn't do it. And I've taught everybody from six-year-olds to retired golfers, to ex-tour players, to people who have never touched a golf club in their life, and they all can do it. And they’ve all got the exact same read I do within 20 minutes of learning.
Golf student: Yeah.
Mark: Alright?
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I’ve probably worked with between 10 and 20,000 players around the world.
Mark: I’ve probably worked with between 10 and 20,000 players around the world. The first thing I teach every new student is how to feel slope because our eyes are historically very inconsistent, and they’re very subject to optical illusions. And our feet are very, very reliable.
[speaking to golf student on a green] All right, we’ll do a couple short putts, and then we’ll have more fun.
So when we walk in, we are feeling how much slope the ball’s rolling across and putting a number on it—a measured amount of slope. It just happens to be the fact that if you hold up the same number of fingers as the slope that you feel, so if you feel a two% slope and you hold up two fingers against the hole, the space you’re covering is how much the ball is going to break across the slope. So if you put one side of your finger on the hole, the other side of your finger is where you aim. And it works at any length putt. It works at any amount of slope. And then we can also adjust for different green speeds by how much arm bend you have. So you’ll see people hold up two fingers that they might have a straighter arm, a little more arm bend, that’s the speed component of the break.
But the number is the number, and it actually gives you a mathematically correct place to aim based on the physics of a golf ball rolling across a golf green, which to me is really kind of a magical thing because all of your green speeds in golf, from 8 to 14, fit in the length of your arm, basically from a straight arm to a 90-degree bend. So anybody, regardless of golf experience, can go and learn how to feel slope and put a number on it. And then when you hold up your fingers, it does all the conversions for you and shows you a correct place to aim your putt.
The ambition has always been to be able to handle any possible read in any possible situation, and I think we’re there now. As so now there’s a very large growth and fast growth of AimPoint at tour level of golf.
Video clips show Scott McCarron and other golfers sinking putts in golf tournaments, using the AimPoint method.
Mark: The first person to use AimPoint on tour was Scott McCarron, and he went from about 190th in putting ranking to top 10 every year after that. And then Stacy Lewis used it and got her first wins. And I think has won over 14 times since then. Lydia Ko used it since her very very start on the LPGA. And she’s won at least 15 or 16 times—went to world number one. On the men’s tour, Adam Scott went to number one in the world with it. Viktor Hovland won the FedEx Cup with it. Sam Burns had great success with it.
Sam Burns: My name is Sam Burns, and I am a professional golfer.
Sam Burns sinks a putt.
Sam: Overall, AimPoint is something I use basically every single put I hit.
Golf commentator 1: How hard is this play coming up here, Colt?
Sam: It's made reading greens a lot easier for me.
Golf commentator 1: Putt on the way for Sam. It goes right at the end. Oh, what a putt! He did it!
Golf commentator 2: Unbelievable putt there from Sam Burns.
Sam: I think it’s a way of reading putts that everyone can do it, not if you’re just a professional or you’re a 10—or 20-handicap—everyone can do it. And I think that’s the cool part of it.
Mark: Looking back, if you had told me that I would have one PGA TOUR® player using my system, I would have been thrilled to death. And now we’re seeing minimum 50% of all TOUR players are using it. I think seven world number ones have used it. That to me is kind of mind blowing, and it’s still growing every single year. And so what I’ve learned through teaching is that the original AimPoint was very accurate but very complex. And it was difficult to use as a golfer. And so over the years, our number one goal has always been to simplify, simplify, simplify, without giving up too much accuracy.
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Ask questions. Be engaged.
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Own your tomorrow®
Mark: The perfect Sunday for me is watching a major, and everybody in the last group is using AimPoint.
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Music fades.
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Thanks to:
Sam Burns
Nick Schreiber
Old Barnwell
Pat Milkovich
