Putting Advice

Ernie Els had a welcome return to form in China over the weekend finishing 2nd to Phil Mickleson in WGC HSBC Champions event.

With a stunning final round of 63 Ernie came close to stealing the title, had it not been for a bogey on the last it could have been so much better! Els putted very well throughout the tournament and was ranked 3rd for putts per round averaging just 26.2. Better still for Els though was that he topped the ranking for ‘putts per green in regulation’ averaging just 1.546.

What can we learn from a player like Els on the greens?

The answer is SPEED. We have all heard the chessy phrase,  ’never up, never in’ a hundred times before but there is some truth in it. Too many golfers under hit their putts and so remove any chance of their ball dropping in the hole. For the majority of golfers out there if they could get their ball past the hole they would in turn hole a lot more putts.

So what is the key to good speed on the greens?

Well, it could be that how you read the greens is the most important apsect to consider if you are going to get the ball dropping more regularly.

I’m sure that each of you pay some attention the green, its contours and the potential speed of your putt.

But let me ask you; what part of the green are you actually reading?

The answer for almost of all of you is that you are reading the green from the position of your ball to the front edge of the hole. The fundamental flaw with this is that you will have failed to consider any part of the green past the hole and by doing so you are unlikely to even reach the target.

If you remember centuries ago when people thought the world was flat, how many sailors do you think were prepared to navigate their boats anywhere near to the so called edge? The likely hood is not many, after all why would you sail into an area that does not exist in your mind!

So applying this mentality to the greens, if you haven’t read past the hole is it likely that you will hit your ball with enough pace to go past it? The answer is no! If you truly want to improve your speed on the greens in the very next game, you play then make sure you read past the hole so that your mind knows this place actually exists.

Have you got some good drills for improving speed control on the greens? Please share them in your post and of course add your feedback once you have applied this technique to your game.

Tags: green reading, how to read greens, Putting Instruction, Putting Tips, reading the greens

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Putting Instruction, Putting Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.