We love it. We hate it. Oh, we love it again. Putting is one of the most frustrating components of most player’s games and there are usually a million different people offering advice on how to fix whatever is ailing your putting stroke right now. Take Rory McIlroy for example. He just hired a putting specialist to help him figure out what he is doing wrong and how to fix it. Now, I hate to tell someone of his caliber what to do, but I think if he took a step back and realized that he is the best golfer on the planet (I know that is arguable, but he really is an amazing player) and he can make that 14 foot putt for birdie, he would start making them again. The problem isn’t his stroke, or his reading of the green, it’s that third part, knowing that the putt will find the hole if you do the first two correctly.
One of my favorite movies to watch is the Disney flick, The Greatest Game Ever Played. In that film, a young amateur golfer qualifies to play in the US Open and has an 10 year old caddie for him. The kid has some of the funniest putting thoughts on the planet, but they really do apply to everyone’s games. “Read it, roll it, hole it.” That line lead me to look at my putting and made me realize that often times I am missing two out of the three of those or maybe even all three. Instead of spending hours working on my putting stroke like I had in the past, I try to spend more time looking at the green on the course when I play. I know my stroke is good, but if I don’t get the line, I’m not going to make any putts.
Read it – it seems simple enough, but sometimes, simple isn’t easy. Learning which way a putt will move based off how much speed you put on it is really hard work. So instead of setting up for killer drills, or dropping a bucket of balls on the green to putt at a target hole, try this one instead: Take one sleeve of your game balls to your local course. Stand 20 feet from the hole, crouch down and roll each ball toward the hole from the “north, south, east and west” directions. Watch how the ball breaks and look at the green so you can “see” the break. Get down low and really watch. As you start to see the first hole’s movements, move on to the next practice hole location and do it again. After about 3 or 4 holes, you should start seeing how that green breaks.
Roll it – knowing the line is helpful, but if you can’t roll the ball on that line, you’re dead in the water. As your talent for reading greens improves, knowing the speed and distance you roll the ball at is very important. If you read the green correctly, but hit the ball too hard, it will miss to the high side of the hole and roll past the cup. if you roll the ball to slowly, it will break more than you think and miss to the low side of the hole. Adjusting early in a round to this is key to keeping your putting going well. Remember, you will probably have 35 putts a round if you read the greens well and putt poorly, so recognize the speed of your putts and just roll it to the hole.
Hole it – I’ve said it a thousand times… confidence and consistency is so key to this silly game. We line ourselves up for 18 holes of abuse, and if we aren’t ready to grab each shot that is presented to us and own it, we will fail miserably. That is never more true than in putting. If you stand over a putt in a timid mood with that feeling of dread of leaving it short or hitting it past, you are going to leave it short or hit it past. There is no other way to say it and there is definitely no way to sugar coat it. You need to have 100% confidence in your line and your roll. This is the part that you can’t practice, but practicing the other two will make this easier to handle. Let’s face it, none of us are playing for a million dollar purse, but we sure act like it when we stand over that 20 foot birdie putt. Perhaps if we just took that step back again and realized that we just nailed a 250 yard drive to the middle of the fairway, than an 8 iron from 150 to 20 feet, it wouldn’t seem like such a daunting task to roll the ball in from 7 yards away. It’s all about keeping the confidence level going on every shot.
With that new found confidence, more putts will start finding the hole. I know my stroke is about as good as I can possibly have it now, but my reading needs a bit more work. This means, hopefully, a few more evening rounds in my future to drop a few balls and practice a bit more on real greens, or maybe setting up some target drills on some of the more aggressive areas of the practice greens, but no matter where or how I do it, it’s all about getting a consistent read to match my consistent stroke which will give me a consistent confidence on every putt. The same will work for you as well. Consistency is where this game is won and lost, and that’s true even when you are just playing against yourself.
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