How To Become A Better Putter!

Becoming a Better Putter.

“Good putting is at best a fleeting blessing. Here today, gone tomorrow. So I think we waste time and energy trying to perfect the putting stroke... Too much worrying about details of how the hitting is done is fatal to good putting.”  Bobby Jones

I’m writing this as someone who has been there and back.  I started out as a good putter, but something happened in my early thirties and it got so bad that in one tournament I hit the ball thirty-four times from tee to green and thirty-eight times with the putter.  Eventually I went back to putting by feel and not thinking and it came back.

People have the same problem with putting that they have the rest of their game and that’s a tendency to over analyze it. The more you think about the mechanics the worst it’s going to get.  Putting is really just feel.  In order to putt well the only thing you need to do is visualize a positive outcome, line the putt up, take a couple of practice swings while looking at the cup and then step up to it and stroke it.  It is essential to get comfortable.  Don’t worry about missing the putt or think about your stroke.  Don’t think…just do it.  It is also important to have a putter you’re comfortable with and fits your style of putting.  I’m always amazed at people that will spend $300.00 on a driver and $29.95 on a putter.

I know that everybody watches the tour players walk around the cup 360° and look at it from every conceivable angle and maybe somehow that helps them.  For the vast majority of golfers that is just accumulating too much information.  You start to get yourself confused when you get behind the ball and line it up looking at the cup and then walk around behind the cup and look back at the ball.  It never looks or rarely ever looks exactly the same so now doubt starts to creep in.  Simply look at the putt from one angle and walk up to the ball take a practice swing or two so that you can feel the stroke.  It helps looking at the cup when you take a practice swing so you can get an idea of how hard you need to hit the putt in order to get the ball to the hole.  When you’re comfortable with that, put your putter down behind the ball and make your stroke.  Don’t think about it and for God’s sake don’t watch the putter blade go back.  If you watched the putter blade go back it will look like it’s doing figure eights.

One thing I do agree with completely is Dr. Bob Rotella’s idea of picking a very small well-defined target and concentrating on that.  Just look at the hole and pick a spot somewhere on the cup and concentrate on that spot. One thing that everybody was taught at one time or another was the 6 foot circle.  When you had long putts the idea was to putt into a 3 foot radius.  The idea was getting inside 3 feet and then making sure you can make everything from 3 feet. The problem with that is if you’re successful you generally have a three-foot putt.  Why not try to make all of them by picking that spot and try to make it regardless of length.  That way, if you’re successful you make the putt.  If you’re not successful you’re still within 3 feet.

There’s one other factor to becoming a better putter and that is improving your short game.  It just simply makes sense that if you can get the ball closer to the hole with your wedges and your chips then you can make more putts.  So in order to become a better putter one of the things that you need to really concentrate on is becoming a better short game player with your wedges and your chip shots.

In closing, what you’re trying to do is pick a very well-defined target, get a comfortable read on the ball looking at that well-defined target, take a couple of practice strokes so that you get the feel for the putt and step up to it and hit it without thinking.