How To Improve Putting

August 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Golf Instruction Tips

Most of us when we go to practice we hit the driving range and not concentrate on how to improve putting. That is because hitting the ball a long distance with a driver is a very satisfying experience. But if you take a look at your scorecard you may notice that you only get to drive once per hole while your putts make up nearly half of the total strokes you will make all day. If you are having a bad day on the green it might be more. So even if it is not quite as glamorous, the next time you schedule practice time make sure you spend plenty of it on the putting green.

Putting is frustrating because it seems so simple, but in reality it is very difficult. The good news is that it is a matter of practice not strength or natural ability so everyone has an equal opportunity to be a killer on the green. The most important part of putting is consistency. And that means that you need to practice your stroke over and over again until you know exactly how hard you are going to hit the ball each time you sing the club.

Once you have your consistency down, the second most important thing is learning to read the green. Putting would be easy if all the greens were flat. Then you would only need to know how fast they were which is based on the type of grass, how wet it is and how recently it was cut. Most greens on a good course will be treated the same way so the speed should be the same on all of them. What changes is the slope. When you look at the path your ball will travel to the hole, the green may slope to the left, or to the right and it may be uphill or downhill.

What gets tricky is when the green does several of these things at the same time. If you are putting a long distance you may find that your line to hole will take the ball up, down and to the left or right. Do not dismay, just think through what each change will do to the balls travel. A green tilting to the side is easy to deal with, you just aim a little off to the uphill side of the hole and it should roll down right on target. Uphill puts are also easy, you just have to hit a little harder. Downhill lies are possibly the toughest because if you hit too hard the ball will just keep going and going and going. You can very easily end up further from the hole then when you started.

Remember when putting that if you do not hit the ball hard enough to get to the hole, it has no chance to go in. You should also be thinking of leaving yourself with an easy second putt if you do not make the first one. That means that a well hit first putt will go in the hole or just past it. Now get out there and start practicing, which is the best recipe on how to improve putting.