What does “one cup left” mean to you?
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Golf has all sorts of curious jargon: Morning ball, hosel rocket, rocking oil, exhausting, jank, inside skin.
Also on that list: there is one cup left and his cousin, a cup to the rightas in shooting target instruction a caddy (or teammate) can offer a golfer. For example, if a right-handed golfer’s swing line has a slight left-to-right break, a golfer might advise his or her golfer to aim “one cup left.” Conversely, if the same golfer’s line has a slight break from right to left, the golfer may tell the golfer to aim “one cup to the right.”
Simple, right?
Umm, not so much. That’s because, as we learned in 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 hoops directly to its left and a caption that read, “What is the spot you should aim for if you’re told to aim for ‘one cup left’?”
Reddit: Captain-Obvious
Dozens of comments on Reddit spawned hundreds more; as of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1,200 golfers had made their voices heard. The debate took its way to X and Instagram, where a repost of illustration from Zire Golf has attracted more than 1,400 comments. Even the US Solheim Cup team weighed. 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 they also bounced around a lot different opinions.
Key sticking point: Does a cup left mean a cup left from the middle of the hole, or a cup left from the left edge? To non-golfers, this distinction may sound trivial, but to golfers who have a birdie attempt or $5 putt riding a read, this is extremely serious business.
“Personally because my default is to aim at the center of the cup, aiming one cup to the left means position 3,” wrote Ok_Victory_6108 on Reddit. “If I wanted position 2, I would say one cup left from the left edge. As 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 for position 2 or the ball will roll over the rim. If I aim at position 3, it hits dead center.”
Added Benjamin244, “As an architect I would say 3 (which is the center-to-centerline distance of a cup). However, as a golfer, I would say the 2 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 full of nuance. Here’s an excerpt: “#3 is completely believable. The confusion stems from people not realizing that people understand center and edges as the basis for measurements: yes, the borders extend half a cup to the left and right, and you usually measure from the edges… but the naysayers don’t. he seems to understand that the center is everything with pocket holes of every kind. “I’m not aiming a cup to the left of the cup, I’m aiming a cup to the left of where I would normally aim.”
If your head is spinning, so was mine, because the graphic made me think about something I never thought about – and now I can’t stop it thinking about. When I shared the Reddit post with my fellow golfers, the most widely accepted option 2 was the “correct” reading, but one associate noted, “I could hear an argument for 3.” My golf nerd friends also leaned towards option 2, but one added in a text thread: “It’s funny if you think about this debate…because one person will read a putt and say to the second person: ‘I see that one cup out on the left.’ But if they each have a different definition of what that means, it’s completely useless.’”
Hungry for expert thoughts on the matter, I reached out to some of the nation’s top golf instructors, GOLF Magazine 100 best teachers. Of course, they can provide closure.
“Option #2,” Cheryl Anderson, director of instruction at Mike Bender Golf Academy in Lake Mary, Fla., wrote adamantly in an email. “I teach my students to read their shots as straight, inside left, edge left, 1/2 cup outside or 1 cup outside. I’d say most professionals read it that way. It allows for more options.”
It makes good sense. But as I was digesting Anderson’s response, another response popped up in my inbox—from New Orleans-based Top 100 teacher Brian Manzella’s live feed.
“The obvious answer is in the middle of the second cup – #3,” Manzella wrote. “If the reading was ‘a cup left, left edge’ or ‘left edge of a cup left’, that would be one thing. But ‘a cup left over’ is something else.”
Uh, back to square one, which means there was only one last place to turn: the caddy ranks.
My first call was to Scott Curry, who has reached out Dunat Bandon for more than two decades and also teaches putting out of San Diego. A source of dreams for said puzzle! When I reached Curry on Wednesday, he said he had seen the “one cup left” chart on Instagram and gobbled up the comments as they offered a window into how everyday players feel about reading the green. For Curry, this debate is A-grade market research.
For his part, Curry said he’s an Option 2 guy and expressed his opinion 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 rim?”
It was a rhetorical question. The answer Curry was looking for was “the rim.”
Of his Bandon colleagues, he added: “None of them would say ‘hit a cup out,’ meaning only 2 inches out of the hole.” In Bandon, “a cup out” is a cup out: 4.25 inches.
The last word? We’re giving it to a former PGA Tour caddy you may know from TV: NBC Sports golf reporter John Wood. Wood has worked for more than 20 years on tour, most recently for Matt Kuchar, and now, in addition to his television work, has taken on the newly created role of manager of the US Ryder Cup team. Players trust Wood, and for good reason: he’s one of the smartest and most thoughtful people in the game.
Like Curry, Wood also had seen Green’s reading chart before I asked him about it Wednesday.
“To be honest with you, it could change,” he began in a text message after I asked for his interpretation of “one cup left.” “It’s something the caddy and player have to agree on before they read together. But in my opinion, if you’re trying to start a shot putt cup, 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 means a golf ball completely off the edge of the cup. His start at the rim is splitting the ball, half outside the edge, half inside. How does this apply here, if you agree that the ‘3’ was a cup out, then what terminology do you use for a ball out? Because if you said 3, ‘one ball out’ would mean left center of the cup and you would never say that. You’re going to say, ‘left-of-center’.”
Wood then gave the exact terminology he uses when offering advice, in the progression from “left center” to “a cup out”:
Center left
Inside left
Split the edge
A ball out
Two balls out
A cup out
“Every player I’ve ever worked with, and I’d say most players on tour, used these terms,” he wrote. “After a cup, we usually tend to go in the direction of specific points.”
Wood being Wood, he also sent a handy photo explainer. We’re working with his system, but only you (and your caddy) can decide what’s best for you.
John Wood
