Throughout my golfing life I have always been known as a very good putter. In particular, ensuring that I never three putt from any range. There is nothing more crippling to a round than having more putts than you intended on the greens. When I view my students’ statistics of their last round, the first aspect that I look at is the amount of three putts they had. When I look at a plan of reducing the amount of shots that my student has, it will always start with ensuring they always walk off with no more than two putts. This is an area of the game that you can control quite well versus other areas which include trying to always hit a straight drive. The method that I use is knowing exactly how far to take my stroke back for a 10m putt. Of course, when I take it back a certain distance, I must also follow through the same distance. When I view a longish putt on the range or indeed the course, I will always ‘step out the distance of the putt’ so that I know exactly what Im dealing with. You can do this inconspicuously so that it doesn’t attract too much attention from your playing partners if you feel self-conscience. On the practice putting green I will master putting my ball exactly 10m every time. The key to keeping this stroke consistent is making sure the speed of the stroke and the tension of my hands remain the same throughout the stroke. Once you’ve established what your 10m stroke is, you can experiment with other distances. For eg. If you practice a 20m stroke, all you need to do then is double your stroke. But the key to this again is you must keep the speed of the stroke the same and you must keep the tension in your hands the same. The same rule applies to any length putt. If it’s a 40m putt then you quadruple your stroke and if it’s a 5m putt you would halve your stroke. Of course this can change depending on the speed of the greens. If you find that the greens that you will be playing are much quicker than normal, then you must make the adjustment. Keeping the 10m reference in mind, if the greens are a lot quicker than what you have been practicing then your 10m stroke may be in fact a 12m stroke. Therefore you just make the adjusted calculations. I recommend that when playing a new course, that you spend at least 15 minutes before teeing off on the greens testing the speed. If you follow this simple idea you will dramatically reduce your 3 putts or eradicate them forever!!
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