Putting is one of the most crucial parts of a golfer’s play. And from what’s surfacing on X lately, it’s also central to many controversies. It’s stirring up fresh commentary and a growing divide among golf commentators and golfers. Even longtime CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz has criticized the use of AimPoint to put, which he believed was slowing down the game. But PGA Tour pro Jordan Smith countered by defending the putting method.

“Yeah, you do see a bad rap for AimPoint, but I mean, everyone’s using it. I don’t think it’s slowing down play. If anything, it’s probably being a bit quicker. I think it’s just the player that’s being slow. So yeah, it gets bad rap, but it’s great,” Smith said on the Sliced Podcast.

Jim Nantz had expressed strong frustration with AimPoint in 2024. He called it a process that lacks feel as players turn their backs to the hole. “It really drives me crazy when you see their backs to the hole, and they’re trying to feel the break, and they walk another five feet and they do it again,” Nantz said. His October 2024 remarks resurfaced and went viral, with Golf Digest’s Alex Myers noting Nantz’s disdain for players “spinning around a couple times” to feel breaks.

Nantz questioned its value on 20-footers, preferring traditional aim points like a cup outside the hole. Even former US Open champion Lucas Glover addressed the issue in January 2025. While some commentators and golfers say that AimPoint can lead to slow play, Jordan Smith is against that line of thinking.

If anything, he believes that the AimPoint technique can actually help increase the speed compared to traditional green reading because it provides a systematic, body-based method to quickly gauge slope and break. This eliminates prolonged visual analysis from multiple angles. Instead, he pointed to individual habits, which could be overthinking or poor pre-shot routines, as the real culprits.

Jordan Smith himself has been using the technique regularly now. “I think everyone’s seeing how good it is because I always struggle with the green read, and I was always, I think, I was underreading left to right putts and then overreading right to left putts or vice versa,” Smith said. “So, it’s definitely helped, just to obviously get like a good sort of guesstimation, I guess, of how much it’s going to break.”

While Smith used his own example, there are many more golfers using AimPoint green reading. AimPoint claims that around 50% of the PGA Tour winners use it.

Half of the World’s top 20 does too. Some elite names using it include Viktor Hovland, Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, and others.

But while some golfers like and use AimPoint, many others are against it, and even demand its ban.

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The criticism surrounding AimPoint

Besides Jim Nantz, one of the most vocal critics of AimPoint is the former US Open champion Lucas Glover. He called for AimPoint to be banned, asserting it is “rude,” “takes forever,” and statistically hasn’t improved putting success on the PGA Tour. He dislikes players stomping around near the hole and thinks it disrupts others.

Another on the list is the golf influencer Paige Spiranac. She condemned the improper use of AimPoint on social media. Spiranac commented, “Ban Aim Point” on an X post shared by MetalWork Golf about A Lim Kim using AimPoint at the Honda LPGA Thailand. She later clarified that it is not the method itself but how golfers use it improperly that leads to slow play.

Butch Harmon also criticized AimPoint publicly during Masters coverage in 2025. He expressed skepticism about its effectiveness. Harmon stated that the statistics suggest AimPoint “doesn’t improve anybody at all.” This indicates doubt about the claims that the green-reading method helps players putt better.

Jordan Smith’s stance adds a calmer voice to a debate that keeps resurfacing as more golfers adopt their preferred routines. Whether AimPoint stays divisive or gradually becomes standard practice, the discussion shows no sign of fading anytime soon.