Consider, however, that you rarely face a 10-foot putt that is perfectly straight.  Assuming the hole is cut in a fair location on the green, the maximum slope you’ll find is about a 4% grade (more than that and the ball won’t stay put – it will roll downhill until the slope becomes gentle enough for gravity to halt its motion). 

So, let’s say you’re facing a 10-foot putt with 3% slope. Substantial, but not the biggest break you’ll encounter. And your putt is level, neither uphill nor downhill. With proper pace, on a green that measures 10 on the Stimp Meter, your putt will break about 16 inches, one inch shy of four cups-width.

Choosing the correct line and aiming accurately to a point four cups out is understandably much more challenging than zeroing in on a straight 10-footer. So, consider two likely outcomes: 

1. (High-side miss) If you start this putt more than four cups out and also misaim the putter face further outside your chosen line, you’re essentially rolling the ball more uphill, into the slope. The ball will break a little less than 16 inches, as the ball is fighting gravity in this scenario and will come to rest sooner than an on-line putt. The ball will come to rest above the hole, leaving a short, but testy downhill putt.
2. (Low-side miss) If you start this putt less than four cups out and also misaim the putter face further inside your chosen line, you’re essentially rolling the ball more downhill, with the slope. The ball will break a little more than 16 inches, as the ball is aided by gravity in this scenario, and it will roll for a longer period of time. In this case the ball will break across the face of the hole and keep rolling, potentially leaving an uphill come-backer, but one that is longer than you might like. 

And as you can imagine, the effect is more pronounced the longer the length of putt; a 20-foot straight putt will miss by 4.18 inches, double that of a straight 10-footer. But a 20-foot putt on our level, 3% slope will break 38 inches! Any errors in start line and putter face aim will result in even uglier outcomes and increased risk of more 3-putts.

What Does One Degree Look Like? – Clock Face Visual

To put this in perspective, picture a clock face with hashmarks to identify each of the 60 seconds within every minute span:

The second hand of the clock completes a full revolution of 360 degrees every 60 seconds. Therefore, in one second, the second hand moves 6 degrees (360 degrees/60 seconds = 6 degrees per second).

In order to visualize how small one degree is we need even finer hashmark detail:

How To Aim and Align More Accurately – Golf Ball Alignment Markings

As the clock graphic illustrates, an increment of one degree is almost imperceptible to the human eye. it’s very difficult to tell when your clubface is perfectly square and when it is not. So how do you ensure that you’re lined up correctly? The Rules of Golf prohibit nearly all alignment aids during play. However, there is one remarkably helpful aid that you can use, and it’s one that is used by over 65% of tour players who play a Titleist golf ball – a golf ball alignment marking.

Titleist Brand Ambassador Brad Faxon is credited with being the first tour player to hand-draw a line on his golf ball (click the video below to hear the story). Brad marked a straight line on his Titleist to help him aim the ball, orient his putter face and body lines correctly and get his ball started on the correct line. This practice helped Brad to become one of, if not the best putter on the planet.

Since Brad’s innovation, Titleist began to explore ways to enhance the sidestamps on our golf balls to provide a true performance benefit. In 2007, Titleist introduced Alignment Integrated Marking (A.I.M.) technology on Pro V1 and Pro V1x golf balls. The advance was widely embraced and players found that using the A.I.M. marking helped them to not only putt more accurately, but to also get their tee shots started on-target more often.

Fast-forward to today and AIM has evolved and grown. Titleist engineers have continued to consult with dedicated amateur golfers as well as tour players who use alignment aids on their golf ball. They formalized their research and tested a myriad of different marking options, eventually arriving at the wide range of visual design options available today.

Does AIM Really Work?

In the fall of 2024, Titleist R&D developed a measuring device and invited hundreds of dedicated golfers to participate in a series of tests to determine if AIM alignment features provided an improvement in alignment precision. Using the device, each golfer was asked to line up a selected sidestamp to the center of a golf hole from different distances. After each attempt, the Titleist device was used to collect data and measure how accurately the player aligned the sidestamp to the center of the cup. The player then repeated the process to compare each ball in the AIM product line to a stock Pro V1 sidestamp.

The entire test was focused on how well golfers aligned their golf balls before rolling a putt. This approach was taken to eliminate errors caused by green surfaces, player strokes, putt speed, and other variables. The findings were undeniable. The results of the test showed that players were consistently up to 35% more precise in aligning their putts when they used an AIM product (Pro V1 AIM Performance, Pro V1 AIM Enhanced, AVX AIM 360° and Tour Soft AIM 360°). 

These tests were conducted again recently, when several Titleist creator partners visited Acushnet, MA, home to the Titleist Performance Center at Manchester Lane. Mike Madson, Senior Vice President of Golf Ball R&D joined Piers Ward and Andy Proudman of Me and My Golf, Peter Finch and Micah Morris to shed additional light on the findings.

“How do you actually improve performance from an alignment perspective?” Mike asked the group.

“There were two factors that we were looking to measure. The first is accuracy. So, if you generally aim ten degrees off to one side of the cup or the other and I give you an alignment aid that gets you to zero degrees, that's improved accuracy. That would be a good thing, right? For the most part though, people align it fairly well to the cup, on average. Regardless of the particular alignment design.”

Mike then drew the group’s attention to a visual model that he had created on the putting green using a cup and colored string. Mike explained that the angles formed by the string represented dispersion patterns and illustrated the second factor they tested, variability.

“So, what does that actually mean to the golfer? Given the variability aligning with the stock sidestamp, if you strike the putt exactly as you have it aligned, you’re going to make about seven out of ten putts from four feet. With the variability of any of the AIM products, if you strike the putt exactly as you have it aligned, you’ll make nine out ten putts from four feet. That's pretty significant. If that helps you make a couple extra putts during a round, that to us is a real performance improvement. We can save you a couple strokes purely by helping you align it better to the hole.”

Conclusion

Will a golf ball alignment marking help your game? The short answer is, possibly. But not necessarily. Titleist testing has shown that advanced alignment features can help the majority of players aim and align better. But there are certainly other players for whom an alignment marking can be distracting and who aim and align better without a visual reference on the golf ball.

An alignment marking (whether it’s hand-drawn or applied during the manufacturing process) is simply an option, an additional tool in the toolbox that may help you play better. At the very least, we suggest giving it a try. An AIM marking might just help you to eliminate one wayward tee shot or sink one more putt during your next round.

Click here to learn more and to find the right Titleist AIM golf ball for your game.