What is AimPoint Golf? A Complete Beginner's Guide
Learn what AimPoint is, how it works, and why Tour pros trust their feet over their eyes to read greens. The complete beginner's guide to AimPoint Express.
If you’ve watched golf on TV lately, you’ve probably seen players standing behind their ball, holding up fingers toward the hole. That’s AimPoint—and it’s revolutionizing how golfers read greens.
But what exactly is AimPoint? And can it help your putting?
What is AimPoint?
AimPoint is a green-reading system that uses your body’s ability to feel slope (proprioception) instead of relying purely on your eyes.
The core idea: Your eyes can be fooled by optical illusions, surrounding terrain, and shadows. But gravity never lies. If you can learn to feel the slope under your feet, you can read greens with scientific precision.
How Does AimPoint Work?
AimPoint Express (the most popular version) boils down to three steps:
1. Feel the Slope
Stand at the midpoint of your putt, straddling the line. Close your eyes if it helps. Feel which way gravity is pulling you. Assign the slope a number from 0-5 (representing the percentage of slope).
- 0-1% = Barely any break
- 2% = Standard break (most common on greens)
- 3%+ = Significant break
2. Point Your Fingers
Stand behind your ball. Hold up the number of fingers that matches your slope read (e.g., 2 fingers for a 2% slope). Line up one edge of your fingers with the hole.
The other edge of your fingers is your aim point—the spot you should start your ball toward.
3. Trust the Math
Roll the ball at your aim point with proper speed (enough to go about 1 foot past the hole if you miss). Gravity does the rest.
Why Do Tour Pros Use AimPoint?
Before AimPoint, green reading was mostly instinct and experience. Great putters had a “feel” that took decades to develop. AimPoint changed that by giving players a repeatable system.
Players like Steph Curry, Lydia Ko, and Adam Scott have used AimPoint to:
- Remove doubt from their reads
- Speed up their routine
- Perform under pressure (because they trust the process, not their nerves)
The Catch: You Have to Calibrate
Here’s the thing most beginners miss: AimPoint only works if your feet are calibrated.
What does “calibrated” mean? It means your body accurately knows what a 1%, 2%, or 3% slope feels like.
Tour pros walk on greens every day. Their feet are constantly calibrated. But if you only play once a week? Your internal slope sensor drifts.
That’s where training comes in.
How to Practice AimPoint at Home
You can practice the finger-pointing anywhere. But to train your feet to feel slopes, you need actual slopes—and you need to know exactly what percentage they are.
That’s why we built SlopeFeel. Our precision-engineered wedges give you exact 1%, 2%, and 3% slopes to train on at home. Five minutes a day recalibrates your feet, so when you step on the course, your body knows the break.
Ready to stop guessing and start feeling? Check out the SlopeFeel Starter Kit →