CHAPTER ELEVEN: ‘DRIVE FOR SHOW; PUTT FOR DOUGH’.

This statement is widely used and mostly true. However; it does help if you can hit fairways with your tee shots as well. The emphasis on today’s golf (at least in company advertising) is on power and distance, while hitting the ball straight comes in a distant third. Golf companies spend huge sums of money on marketing to entice you, the golfer, to part with hundreds of dollars on the latest driver. Very little emphasis is placed on putting and putters, which on average are used around 3 times more than any driver in a round of golf. Smashing a drive which goes forever is more exciting to talk about than having a few less putts.

It sounds simple enough – why do you slice? The main answer I get is “I keep lifting my head”. This statement seems to be used to cover every swing fault known to man. I can say without any word of a lie that even if you have someone hold your head down for you, you can still slice; you can even miss the ball. (I have actually done this for many of my pupils to prove this point). Another answer I get is “my feet were pointing to the right”. It does not matter where your feet are pointing, whether you are on flat or sloping ground, or whether you are wearing a blue golf shirt – there is only one thing that causes the ball to go where it does.

In Dan’s case after his next lesson he was going to see his scores improve with only a little amount of work on the putting green. This was going to be an easy lesson for me.

To me, the technical aspects of swinging a putter and hitting the putt squarely and on line make up about 10% of the art or skill of putting. So I believe 90% of good putting consists of experience, the ability to read a green (which is mostly experience), and adopting an approach to putting which is consistent and repetitive under the pressures that the inconsistencies and uncontrollable influences that the game of golf throws at you.

Like the full shot golf swing mentioned earlier in this book, I believe a sizeable part of how a player swings their putter is a reaction to what has happened previously. Therefore; you could say that a large part of the technical aspect of putting lies in the foundation, or address positions the player adopts before the putting stroke has begun. Because so little about putting is to do with technique, we are not going to cover it in great detail here. There are many great books which will go into great detail about the technical aspects of putting. This is not one of them. This book is about learning to play better golf with the minimum amount of technical knowledge required.

I was on the putting green practicing when Dan arrived for his next lesson. There were 6 balls in a ring around one of the holes, about 8 feet from the hole. As usual, Dan had organized the coffees. While we sipped, I said to him “Dan, I have got 2 questions for you regarding putting. First; how many times do you think the best putters in the world ‘hole’ these length putts in a round of golf?”

“I don’t know – about ninety per cent of the time?” he said. This is a very common answer to the question.

“It’s actually about 50-60 percent of the time on average” I said. “When you see the leaders of a tournament on the t.v. they maybe averaging a little higher than that, hence they are leading the tournament. It is their short game – primarily the putting which singles out the winners of those big tournaments.”

“That’s amazing; every time I see those guys putting it seems like they never miss” Dan said. “I miss a lot of those putts and I thought it was because I was hopeless at it. Now I don’t feel so bad!”

“Well, the guys who are not missing as often usually win. And the t.v cameras tend to follow the leaders, which gives the impression that all of them always hole those putts. But what the cameras never show you is the rest of the field missing 50 per cent or more of these length putts. Even missing 2 more putts per round will put a player 8 shots behind the winner after 4 rounds. Mind you Dan; the rest of the field are all still very good putters. Most of them average around 30 putts per round or even less. My goal today is to get your average down to around 32 putts per round with only a little amount of work on your part.

The reason I asked you how many 8 footers the best putters miss is to make you realize that you cannot be perfect at this aspect of the game, and not to get your expectations up too high. But I still want you to strive to be as good as you can be.”

“What’s the second question?” he asked.

“I’d almost forgotten. Thanks. Which is more important in good putting; correct line or correct speed?” (This is a trick question, but the student’s answer tells me a great deal about ‘where their head is at’ while they putt).

Dan’s answer was all too common; “It’s the correct line!” he replied with confidence.

“Sorry Dan – the answer is neither. Both factors are as important as each other. A putt struck on the correct line with the wrong speed will still miss and vice versa. But let me tell you something about your answer; many players say the same thing you did and it tells me that you place too much emphasis on putting technique and perfecting the putting stroke. You do need a good putting stroke, but if the speed and the aim are wrong you will still miss. You always need to work on your putting stroke but, as you now know with your full shots; the best swing with the worst aim and a haphazard application will still produce bad results. The hardest part of putting is to trust your stroke, then let go and focus on your ‘read’ of the green and the speed of the putt.”

“O.K, so what do I have to do?” asked Dan eagerly.

“Alright. First; you need to learn how to aim properly on every putt. Like with the full shots Dan, you think you are aiming correctly, but when we showed you how to do it properly it turned out that you were not aiming very well most of the time.”

“But it’s only a short distance – how hard can it be to aim straight?” he interrupted. This attitude is common. Of course, Dan’s attitude isn’t bad; he is just uneducated in the finer points- the subtleties that make an average player a good player. Today would be a quantum leap for his scores.

“Dan, most people simply walk into the position to putt, have a sideways look at the hole and hit the ball. What they don’t realize is that each time they approach the shot this way they may be aiming wrong, and will have to compensate in their putting stroke to compensate for bad aim. Consequently, they have to make different putting strokes every round and sometimes even on every hole to putt well. It is impossible to be a really good or consistent putter with this approach. Worse than that; they have a different mental approach for both long putts and short putts.”

Dan was thinking; “Actually you’re right – I try to just get my long putts close and try really hard to hole my short ones.”

“I know; and what you do on your short putts is have about five practices swings while on your long putts you have one. This tells me that you are doing a lot of thinking and analyzing - making it ‘life or death’ on the short ones and not really trying much at all on the long ones.”

“You’ve been watching me!” Dan laughed. “But shouldn’t I try to hole all the short putts?”

“Yes, but the emphasis – how much importance you place on each putt should be the same on every putt. But let’s get back to your aiming.” I said, pulling my ‘aim-arrow’ out of my golf bag.

“O.K. Dan, I want you to do a little test for me to see just how good your aim is. Stand about 15 feet from the hole and aim your putter at the hole as though you are going to hit a straight putt.”

Dan positioned himself to hit an imaginary ball to the hole; 15 feet away. This a long enough distance to get a good reading from the experiment. In this experiment you need to select a fairly flat section of the green. This can also be done in your lounge-room.

“Hold still while I place the arrow against the putter-face.” I bent down and sat the ‘aim-arrow’ against the putter-face, then stood up.

The ‘aim-arrow’ is a piece of stiff paper or cardboard, about 10 inches long by about 3-4 inches wide. One end is shaped like the top of a triangle, the other end has a straight edge which is placed against the putter-face. There is a bold red line running from the middle of the straight edge to the tip of the pointed end, at 90 degrees to the straight edge. You can make this yourself at home. NOTE: The ‘aim-arrow’ won’t fix bad aiming; it identifies whether you have an aiming problem. Chances are that if you are a poor putter you have poor aim amongst your problems. The purpose of all this was to make Dan understand that just aiming haphazardly with his eyes alone when he was standing beside the ball wasn’t good enough if he wanted to be up with the best. He had to do things differently.

“O.K, now come back behind the arrow with me and see where it points.”

Dan and I were standing about 10 feet from the arrow now; directly in line with the hole and the arrow. The result was what I have seen many hundreds of times when I conduct this experiment; only the degree of inaccuracy varies. Usually, the better the putter; the better the aim. But I am yet to see anyone aim exactly at the hole. Even tour professionals aim slightly off when they are forced to aim only with their eyes from the side of the ball.

Dan’s arrow was aiming 13 inches to the right of the hole!

“That can’t be right!” he scoffed.

A lot of people have this reaction when we check their putting aim for the first time. “Alright; let’s do it again.” I replied as I walked back towards the ‘aim-arrow’.