Thanks G0LD, I really appreciate the work you put into this
and your willingness to share. It's pretty darn good. I've tinkered with it a little,
mainly with an eye to making the calculations easier.
Your basic formula is ((x + y) * z) / (30 * x') where:
x = distance to hole
y = slope (positive for downhill, negative for uphill)
z = counted break units
x' = grid lines between ball and hole
30 = width of 1 grid square
To make the calculation easier, my thought was to put x' (#
grid lines) in terms of x (distance). The grid squares are 2 ft square, so on
average, x' = x/2. This is not exact when the distance is an odd number, but
the # grid lines between the ball and the hole can also vary for different
putts of the same distance depending on the angle of the grid squares in relation
to the ball and the hole. Your formula neatly takes this into account because z
(break units) and x' (# grid lines) both rise and fall together - more grid
lines counted results in more break units counted, fewer grid lines counted
results in fewer break units counted.
So to make the substitution (x' = x/2) above work, the break
units also need to be adjusted. I think adjusting the count of the first and last
grid lines would work - only count half for the first grid line if the ball is
half a square away from it, for example. The concept is you'd be trying to
count break across squares, not lines.
So if you slightly adjust the way break units are counted
and make the substitution above, the formula becomes:
((x + y) * z) / (30 * x / 2) =
(zx + zy) / 15x =
(zx / 15x) + (zy / 15x) =
(z / 15) + (zy / 15x)
Since we have essentially multiplied the original formula by
2, the number of units in the width of one grid square must be halved and is
now 15. Take the 15 out of the denominators and the answer to the question
"how many fifteenths of a square should I move the aimer" is:
z + ( zy / x)
That's only the basic formula of course and does not take
into account the additional calculation needed for downward slope. So in simple
English, the basic calculation would be break count plus/minus (break count
times slope over distance). For me, that's easier to calculate, and I think
loss of accuracy is negligible or none with a slight to change to how break is counted.
I apologize if I've given anyone a headache, lol.