Why this green-reading lingo has ignited debate, confusion among golfers

Golf has all kinds of curious lingo: breakfast ball, hosel rocket, swing oil, wormburner, yank, inside the leather.

Also on that list: one cup left and its cousin, one cup right, as in the putt-aiming guidance a caddie (or teammate) might offer a golfer. For example, if a right-handed golfer’s putting line has a slight left-to-right break, a caddie might advise his or her player to aim “one cup left.” Conversely, if that same golfer’s line has a slight right-to-left break, the looper might tell the player to aim “one cup right.”

Simple, right?

Umm, not so much. That’s because, as we learned on the lively virtual town hall known as Reddit earlier this week, not all golfers interpret “one cup left” the same way. The debate was sparked when r/golf user Captain-Obvious posted a thought-provoking graphic of a golf hole with two golf-hole-sized circles directly to its left and a caption that read, “Which point is where you should aim if you’re told to aim ‘one cup left’?”

Dozens of Reddit comments spawned hundreds more; as of Wednesday afternoon more than 1,200 golfers had made their voices heard. The debate also made its way to X and Instagram, where a re-post of the illustration by Zire Golf has drawn an additional 1,400-plus comments. Even the U.S. Solheim Cup team weighed in. The vast majority of commenters said their understanding of “one cup left” is option 2 — with some going so far as to label those golfers who are partial to option 1 or 3 as “psychopaths” — but plenty of differing opinions also circulated.

The primary sticking point: Does one cup left mean one cup left of the middle of the hole, or one cup left of the left edge? To non-golfers, this distinction might sound trivial, but to golfers who have a birdie attempt or $5 press riding on a read, this is gravely serious business.  

“Personally because my default is to aim at the center of the cup, aiming a cup left means position 3,” Ok_Victory_6108 wrote on Reddit. “If I wanted position 2 I’d say a cup left of left edge. Like another commenter said, if the putt is breaking a cup width, and I’m told to aim a cup to the left, I don’t want to aim at position 2 or the ball would roll over the edge. If I aim at position 3 it hits dead center.”

Added Benjamin244, “As an architect I’d say 3 (which is the centerline-centerline distance of one cup). As a golfer I’d still say 2 though, feels more intuitive despite being geometrically wrong.”

Another user, whose R-rated handle cannot be printed on this website, offered a 309-word reflection that was chock full of nuance. Here’s an excerpt: “#3 is fully plausible. The ambiguity stems from people not understanding that folks intuit both the center and the edges as the origina for measurements: yes, the boundaries extend half a cup to the left and right, and you usually measure from the edges… but the naysayers don’t seem to realize that the center is everything with pocketable holes of any sort. ‘I am not aiming a cup left of the cup, I am aiming a cup left of where I would aim usually.’”

If your head is spinning, so was mine, because the graphic got me thinking about something I’d never thought about — and now can’t stop thinking about. When I shared the Reddit post with my golf-nerd colleagues, most agreed option 2 was the “correct” read, but one co-worker did note, “I could hear an argument for 3.” My golf-nerd friends also leaned toward option 2, but one added on a text thread, “It is funny if you think about this debate…because one person will read a putt and tell the second person, ‘I see it a cup out on the left.’ But if they each have a different definition of what that means it is totally useless.’”

Hungry for expert takes on the matter, I reached out to a few of the best golf instructors in the land, GOLF Magazine’s Top 100 Teachers. Surely, they could provide closure. 

“Option #2,” Cheryl Anderson, director of instruction at the Mike Bender Golf Academy in Lake Mary, Fla., wrote unflinchingly in an email. “I teach my students to read their putts as being either straight, inside left, left edge, 1/2 cup out or 1 cup out. I would say that most professionals read it this way. It allows for more options.”

Makes good sense. But just as I was digesting Anderson’s response, another reply appeared in my inbox — from straight-shooting New Orleans-based Top 100 Teacher Brian Manzella.

“The OBVIOUS answer is in the MIDDLE of the second cup — #3,” Manzella wrote. “If the read was ‘one cup left, left edge’ or ‘left edge of one cup left,’ that would be one thing. But ‘one cup left’ is something else.”

Ugh, back to square one, meaning there was only one last place to turn: the caddie ranks.

My first call was to Scott Curry, who has looped at Bandon Dunes for more than two decades and also teaches putting out of San Diego. A dream source for the conundrum at hand! When I reached Curry on Wednesday, he said he had seen the “one cup left” graphic on Instagram and devoured the comments as they provided a window into how everyday golfers think about green-reading. For Curry, this debate is grade-A market research.

For his part, Curry said he’s an option 2 guy and laid out his thinking in no uncertain terms.

“Let’s say I told you a putt broke 4 inches right to left,” he said. “Does that mean it broke 4 inches from the middle of the hole, or does it mean it broke 4 inches from the edge?”

It was a rhetorical question. The answer for which Curry was looking was “the edge.”

Of his fellow Bandon caddies, he added, “None of them would say ‘hit it a cup out,’ meaning only 2 inches outside the hole.” At Bandon, “a cup out” is a cup out: 4.25 inches.

The final word? We’re giving that to a former PGA Tour caddie who you might recognize from TV: NBC Sports golf reporter John Wood. Wood caddied for more than 20 years on Tour, most recently for Matt Kuchar, and now, in addition to his TV work, has filled the newly created role of manager of the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Players trust Wood, and for good reason: He’s one of the wisest and most thoughtful people in the game.

Like Curry, Wood also had seen the green-reading graphic before I asked him about it Wednesday.

“To be honest with you, it can vary,” he began in a text message after I’d asked him for his interpretation of “one cup left.” “It’s something that a caddy and player have to agree upon before reading putts together. But in my opinion, if you’re trying to start a putt one cup out, the correct answer is ‘2’, and I think most players would say the same. Here’s why: If you say, ‘a ball out,’ I think most would agree that would mean one golf ball completely outside the edge of the cup. Starting it on the edge is splitting the ball, half outside the edge, half inside. How this applies here, is if you agreed that ‘3’ was one cup out, then what terminology do you use for a ball out? Because if you say 3, ‘one ball out’ would mean left center of the cup, and you would never say that. You’d say, ‘left center.’”

Wood then provided the precise terminology he employs when offering putting counsel, in progression from “left center” to “one cup out”:

Left center
Inside left
Split the edge
One ball out
Two balls out
One cup out

“Every player I’ve ever worked for, and I’d say the majority of players on tour, used these terms,” he wrote. “After a cup, we usually tend to go to pointing at specific spots.”

Wood being Wood, he sent a handy photo explainer, too. We’re running with his system, but only you (and your caddie) can decide what’s best for you.