Dave Pelz's Putting Bible

Rating:
Summary: More advise that is impossible to implement
Review: Dave Pelz is starting to tick me off. If you thought his "Short Game Bible" was demanding, wait until you see this book. In it he insists that the only route to improvement is to practice his "pils" stroke until you've done 20,000 repetitions. And that's just for starters. Call me wacky, but I find that downright discouraging. I'm as dedicated to improving my golf game as the next guy, but jeez I've got a job. I don't have all day every day to wire myself up with all of his feedback gadgets in order to have "meaningful" practice. In fact, by his standards my feeble practice sessions are only guaranteeing my mediocrity. He'd have me just quit. Interesting and illuminating scientific discoveries aside, no non-professional golfer could possibly follow his 15-point/47-rule improvement program. Hence, while I predict that every golfer on earth will buy Pelz's book (and most will give it a positive review), I also predict that no one will follow his advice.

Rating:
Summary: More advise that is impossible to implement
Review: Dave Pelz is starting to tick me off. If you thought his "Short Game Bible" was demanding, wait until you see this book. In it he insists that the only route to improvement is to practice his "pils" stroke until you've done 20,000 repetitions. And that's just for starters. Call me wacky, but I find that downright discouraging. I'm as dedicated to improving my golf game as the next guy, but jeez I've got a job. I don't have all day every day to wire myself up with all of his feedback gadgets in order to have "meaningful" practice. In fact, by his standards my feeble practice sessions are only guaranteeing my mediocrity. He'd have me just quit. Interesting and illuminating scientific discoveries aside, no non-professional golfer could possibly follow his 15-point/47-rule improvement program. Hence, while I predict that every golfer on earth will buy Pelz's book (and most will give it a positive review), I also predict that no one will follow his advice.

Rating:
Summary: Wow! He did it again!
Review: Dave Pelz's follow up book impresses me as much as the first with his in depth and long thought out scientific studies to help us identify are weak areas. You WILL get better if you have the desire because Pelz has the answer.

Rating:
Summary: He did it again!
Review: Dave Pelz's follow up to his short game bible continues to impress many in his in depth thoughts that he has discovered through many years. This book truly identifies weak areas in your game and can show improvement if you show the desire.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the Faint Hearted
Review: Don't let the 5-star rating fool you, this book is TEDIOUS! While Dave is a fairly entertaining writer, he could have easily trimmed 200 pages from this tome and gotten the same point across. Also, this book is not for the thin-skinned; if you discourage easily, you won't like Dave's super-cautionary vibe. He is VERY emphatic about the unpredictable nature of putting and a more sensitive individual would probably be left wondering why s/he bought the book at all. If putting is really as difficult as Pelz claims, you're likely to just throw your hands up and go with what you are doing already. And that's the sad thing about this book, because it really is, in my opinion, the definitive work on the topic.

The message that Dave seems to be trying to relate is that putting is kind of like the stock market . . . there are highs and lows but if you develop a sound strategy and invest wisely and timely you WILL reap substantial net gains over the long term. I can't disagree. Dave's book is everything you ever wanted to know about putting and a motivated golfer will turn the information and drills in this book into a world-class putting game. Yes, WORLD-CLASS. Despite its cautionary tone, this book is as complete a book as you'll find and I heartily endorse it; along with Dave's book on the short game and Dr. Ralph Mann's excellent book on the full golf swing, "Swing like a Pro," these three books make up the most scientifically accurate information on the golf game today. I've already started to see significant improvements in my game and anyone who gets this book shouldn't be disappointed. Do yourself and your golf game a favor and get all three . . . the difference in your game will be profound.

Rating:
Summary: A $1,000+ Value - Irresistible Solutions to Stalled Putting
Review: Fifteen Stars! ***************

This is simply the best book to improve your putting that has ever been written. It's a 2,000 percent solution!

I had the pleasure and honor of attending Dave Pelz's short game school a few years ago. I became interested in the school after playing golf with a woman in Palm Springs who had just finished the school, and kept putting the ball within 10 feet of the cup from 40-100 yards out. Naturally, I was impressed and wanted to learn how to do that.

Boy, was I surprised by the school. I thought I was a good putter, and I certainly could putt better than most of the people in the class when we started. In fact, I qualified for the regionals of the World Championship of Putting that year. During the instruction, I was diagnosed with over 60 weaknesses in my putting. I still keep the notes, and review them before almost every round.

So I came to this book thinking, this will be a good refresher. That was right, but the insights I got from this book exceeded all that I learned in Dave Pelz's short game school about putting. Since that course cost over $2,000 for 3 days and half the material was on putting, I figure this book is worth over $1,000. Run, don't walk to buy it!

The book explains the engineering approach that Pelz has brought to putting. He measures everything he can think of. The beginning explains key concepts of green problems -- like the raised donut around the hole where no one steps (the rest of the green is downtrodden by thousands of footsteps daily).

The next section explains the 15 building blocks of putting -- like aim, path, touch, rhythm, ritual, feel, face angle, stability, attitude, and routine.

Then Pelz puts special attention on speed and reading the green. Chapter 7 on green reading was worth the price of the book alone. He answered questions I have asked dozens of pros, and received no good answers to.

Then, he describes how to use these basics to improve your putting. I have been using a number of these for the last several years, and can certainly attest that they work.

Each point is beautifully explained. He has photographs of great players, graphs of experiments he has conducted, graphs of research he has done with average and great players, and diagrams of what to do and not to do. The language is simple and unambiguous.

For the average golfer, this book can take 4-6 strokes off your game. It will mean winning a lot of weekend bets.

One of the book's great strengths is that it starts with the thinking that most people have about putting that gets them in trouble. He helps you identify your stalled thinking that holds back your putting, and then shows you how to break out of the stall and develop an improved habit.

If you have a father, grandfather, uncle, brother, or son who is a father and plays golf, this is the perfect gift for Father's Day. I took the liberty of giving a copy to myself as my Father's Day gift this year. Maybe it will help me win the Father's Day golf tournament!

Keep in mind that in the average round you'll make more putts than you will tee shots, fairway shots, or finesse shots around the green. Get better at putting, and your score can really improve! A two foot putt and a 300 yard drive count for the same on the score -- one stroke.

Hit 'em all in the cup!

Rating:
Summary: Good information - but practical solutions?
Review: First the good news: Pelz will tell you more about what can go right or wrong with a putt than you ever would have imagined. More importantly, he will tell you how to test yourself to see how wrong your mind and body are operating compared with how you think they are operating. Now the bad news: The solutions. I did not open this book looking for a free ride to good putting. But the fact is that in order to improve your fundamentals, he suggests you use a bunch of tools that he has developed. He says 80% of your practice should be indoor practice, working on these fundamentals. I think that's great, but do I really have to buy his stuff? I would have enjoyed more ways to practice these solutions with items I have in my house - that's why I bought his book rather than attended his school or bought his tools. That being said, he has great information, and I expect that the awareness of typical faults alone was worth the price of the book.

Rating:
Summary: The Tradition Continues
Review: For those like me that thought Dave's Short Game Bible was great... this is a must read. The book goes into a level of detail in putting that I have not witnessed in 45 years of playing the game.

Rating:
Summary: Great information, poorly organized
Review: I bought this book because I craved a truckload of technical information about putting; the effects of what the golfer does or does not do as well as why putts behave (roll) the way they do.

"Dave Pelz's Putting Bible" does not disappoint on either count.

Mr. Pelz knows putting, there are no two ways about it. He knows it as a physicist and as a golfer, and herein lies my only problem with this book: It is organized in a way that emphasizes the technical forces at work in putting first, while details about the crucial steps the golfer must take in order to improve his putting come much later.

For example, Mr. Pelz refers early and often to a "dead-hands" grip, and to a "pils" (pure-in-line-square) stroke. He hints at what the dead-hands grip might look like, but it is Chapter 11 of this 15-chapter text before any actual instruction about various types of grips for putting, with close-up photos, is presented. And advice on how to develop a pils stroke doesn't show up 'til Chapter 12.

The same is true of the wealth of extremely useful, practical putting exercises which Mr. Pelz has painstaking developed and so thoroughly describes in this book. The result is that the author must repeatedly resort, in the first eight chapters or so, to reassuring the reader that full "how-to" information will be presented in later chapters.

For someone like me, who bought this book because he is salivating, yes, for technical information, but is primarily interested in applying that information to improving his putting game (as I would suppose is the case for most of the book's readers), this poor organization made it difficult to read the book "in order," from front to back. That might be O.K. if the book had an index. Readers could locate information alluded to early but presented farther back in the book, then come back to the "front" to continue with the text as presented. But surprisingly, "Dave Pelz's [380-plus-page] Putting Bible" has *no index.*

It is natural that Mr. Pelz, a former research scientist with NASA, would opt to present his scientific findings about putting -- the product of years and years of exacting research -- first. And there is no question whatsoever that all the information any golfer needs to improve his putting is here.

But even I, starved as I was for the technical nitty-gritty on putting when I purchased this book, found myself thinking, "Enough, already! How do I get started?" by about Chapter 6. And alas, my answer would not come for four more chapters.

All of this notwithstanding, I highly recommended this book. I am confident that this exhaustive text will help me putt better.

I only hope that, in future books, Mr. Pelz will consider presenting the fundamentals and exercises first, and the technical, supporting material which forms the basis for those fundamentals and exercises in appendices, or, at a minimum, in the second half of his books.

I believe many golfers are disappointed with books written by pros which provide little or no basis for the instruction presented. And perhaps the organization of this book is Mr. Pelz's answer to that problem. Nonetheless, I think golfers want to know what they need to do in order to get better first, and to have the "whys" close at hand if they care to study them as they progress. So a minor change in presentation could prove a watershed for golfers and for Mr. Pelz.

And this bears repeating: Serious readers of any text this weighty, regardless of how it is organized, deserve an index.

Rating:
Summary: Great information, poorly organized
Review: I bought this book because I craved a truckload of technical information about putting; the effects of what the golfer does or does not do as well as why putts behave (roll) the way they do.

"Dave Pelz's Putting Bible" does not disappoint on either count.

Mr. Pelz knows putting, there are no two ways about it. He knows it as a physicist and as a golfer, and herein lies my only problem with this book: It is organized in a way that emphasizes the technical forces at work in putting first, while details about the crucial steps the golfer must take in order to improve his putting come much later.

For example, Mr. Pelz refers early and often to a "dead-hands" grip, and to a "pils" (pure-in-line-square) stroke. He hints at what the dead-hands grip might look like, but it is Chapter 11 of this 15-chapter text before any actual instruction about various types of grips for putting, with close-up photos, is presented. And advice on how to develop a pils stroke doesn't show up 'til Chapter 12.

The same is true of the wealth of extremely useful, practical putting exercises which Mr. Pelz has painstaking developed and so thoroughly describes in this book. The result is that the author must repeatedly resort, in the first eight chapters or so, to reassuring the reader that full "how-to" information will be presented in later chapters.

For someone like me, who bought this book because he is salivating, yes, for technical information, but is primarily interested in applying that information to improving his putting game (as I would suppose is the case for most of the book's readers), this poor organization made it difficult to read the book "in order," from front to back. That might be O.K. if the book had an index. Readers could locate information alluded to early but presented farther back in the book, then come back to the "front" to continue with the text as presented. But surprisingly, "Dave Pelz's [380-plus-page] Putting Bible" has *no index.*

It is natural that Mr. Pelz, a former research scientist with NASA, would opt to present his scientific findings about putting -- the product of years and years of exacting research -- first. And there is no question whatsoever that all the information any golfer needs to improve his putting is here.

But even I, starved as I was for the technical nitty-gritty on putting when I purchased this book, found myself thinking, "Enough, already! How do I get started?" by about Chapter 6. And alas, my answer would not come for four more chapters.

All of this notwithstanding, I highly recommended this book. I am confident that this exhaustive text will help me putt better.

I only hope that, in future books, Mr. Pelz will consider presenting the fundamentals and exercises first, and the technical, supporting material which forms the basis for those fundamentals and exercises in appendices, or, at a minimum, in the second half of his books.

I believe many golfers are disappointed with books written by pros which provide little or no basis for the instruction presented. And perhaps the organization of this book is Mr. Pelz's answer to that problem. Nonetheless, I think golfers want to know what they need to do in order to get better first, and to have the "whys" close at hand if they care to study them as they progress. So a minor change in presentation could prove a watershed for golfers and for Mr. Pelz.

And this bears repeating: Serious readers of any text this weighty, regardless of how it is organized, deserve an index.