I have always been a decent striker of the ball (besides a few shanks a round), however it did not take me long to realise that I could not putt...
at all.
I would three putt my way around the course cursing and swearing because I would be playing good shots and hitting greens in regulation and then would three putt and I am ashamed to say sometimes four putt.
This went on for quite a while and every time I played I would focus on something new about my putting, checking the alignment, closing the putter head, using my shoulders.
I would analyze and analyze my putting stroke as though it were the worlds' greatest math problem and a complete mystery.
What made things worse was that the more I analyzed and changed this, or adjusted that, the further past the holes my putts would roll or the more I would pull them to the left.
What made the problem even worse was that because I was so self conscious about how bad my putting was I would get shaky hands and start missing half metre putts.
And of course the more I did that the more self conscious I got and the more I missed.
I was so bad at putting that I do not think half the players I had played with could quite believe that someone who played as much golf as me could putt so badly.
Anyway One Sunday I was playing with a friend of mine who in fact has the exact opposite game to me.
He is the kind of player who is really irritating to play with because he can put his ball in the water and then put the next one in the hole and make par (which meant I would lose the hole).
His long game was not great but his short game was really good and it seemed as though he only ever used the 3 metres of green surrounding the pin.
To cut a long story short he said to me that if I could just learn to putt I would not be half bad, and his advice was the simplest I had ever heard, "Just put the ball in the hole.
" So simple I almost laughed I mean come on putting is the one part of golf that even the professionals spend more time analyzing and adjusting than any other part of the game, it just could not be that easy how could you not think about alignment and shoulder turn and the slopes of the green and the speed of the putt? A week later I was on the practice green before my round thinking about what my friend had said and figured I would give it a try.
I forgot about my stance and using my shoulders and all that.
What happened was that I started standing about 30 degrees open to the line of the putt.
My feet of course were not aligned now but what it meant was that I could now see from behind the putter face if it was aligned with the hole (not as drastic but similar to the style used by K.
J.
Choi in the British Open this year).
I also tightened my grip on the putter something a lot of coaches will teach against but this helped stop my shaky hands on the shorter putts and helped my distance control on the longer putts.
If the local teaching pro had seen that putting style he would have kicked me off the course but the fact of the matter is that I only had one three putt that round and 4 one putts.
It was the best putting round of my life 31 putts ( I chipped in once).
I am not saying that you should try some unorthodox putting style if you want improve your putting, I guess different things will work for different people.
All I am saying is that if you want to improve your putting forget about all the technicalities and just focus on getting the ball in the hole.