Most of us realize that over 40% of our strokes during a golf round are putts. Some of these putts are under 2 feet in length however, so 40% does sounds a little high when considering that.
AimPoint Green-reading class
What is sometimes forgotten is that if you hit your driver crooked for instance, this doesn’t always cost you a stroke. I saw a perfect example this weekend, while playing a golf match, my partner and I both hit perfect drives on a par four. Our two competitors were both in “golf jail” in the trees. When one of us hit an iron to 9′ from the pin, we were licking our chops at winning this hole. Then something very interesting happened. One of our competitors (my brother no less) hit a shot from 140 yards under and around 10 mature trees uphill in wet grass with an 8′ high 3 iron to a blind green from his angle. As we were standing in the fairway we saw the ball miraculously hop over the hill and onto the green and then dis-appear into the cup for an eagle two. I later went down to the location he hit from and I would dare say you could put the whole PGA Tour out there for as long as they wanted and they would never hole out that shot.
Regardless of all that, the point is a poor drive doesn’t always cost you a shot. It may cost you two shots if you hit it out-of-bounds, it may not cost you anything if you can recover or in this case you can gain two shots, as I’m fairly certain par would have been the score from the middle of the fairway. Hitting a poor iron or poor chip also don’t always cost you a stroke as you can always hit your next shot well to make up for it. Missing a putt doesn’t work that way. Once you miss a putt you lose one stroke.
Why then, do golfers spend so little time working on improving their putting? At any practice area you will see ten players working on their full swing to one golfer working on putting. Ever take a putting lesson? Very few people ever have. 99 percent of players have never been fit for a putter. Most players learn green-reading by trial and error.
For such a progressive sport, it is quite interesting that players don’t spend the time or money to work on the easiest way to drop their handicap. If you took the average 18 handicap player, he will average about 36 putts per round. To become a 14 handicap player, all it would take is dropping to 32 putts per round, which is within every player’s capability. You don’t need John Daly power to make putts, you don’t need strength or speed or extraordinary athletic ability. You just need to improve in the four areas of putting. Aiming, distance control, green-reading and your stroke.
Most players have a putting stroke built around poor aim. If they tend to aim left they have to compensate by making the ball go right for instance. You can be an excellent green-reader, but if you can’t hit it consistently on that correct line, what good will that do. Distance control is most important, but rarely do you see players working on this.
Golf, like every other sport is about improving your weaknesses. If driving the golf ball is a weakness of course you would want to work on improving that. The forgotten piece is going after the “low hanging fruit”. In golf that is almost always putting or chipping. In basketball it’s free throw shooting. In other sports it’s less apparent. Improving putting and sometimes chipping is often fairly easy to accomplish. The strokes will come off quickly and your enjoyment of the game will go up considerably.
SAM PUTT Ultrasonic Training Device
If you really want to become a better golfer, we can help you at Totally Driven. We are very unique in that we are AimPoint Certified for teaching green-reading, Putting Zone Certified Instructors, Edel Putter Fitters and we also utilize SAM PUTT, the most sophisticated putter training device in the world. If you really want to get better, start with putting!
Andy Thompson
Totally Driven
www.totallydriven.com
