by Andre Sanchez

You can drive as far as you like, but if you can’t sink a three footer you might as well drive 200 yards as 400. However, this is what makes golf the game it is.  You have a combination of shots to play, from the massive drive where your choice of club and strength and flexibility in your swing are all important, to putting where they are relatively meaningless compared to the grass and the way the green slopes.

Some golfers, even the professionals, find putting easy and others difficult.  No matter how hard they practice, they can’t seem to get that ball on target as it rolls towards the hole.  More shots are dropped due to putting than due to the drive. Here are one or two tips to help you to improve your putting, and also to perform better on the green.

You can practice putting with any of the putting aids available online, from your local golf shop or from the club pro’s store.  However, you can practice just as well at home on a carpet, aiming at a chair leg or empty tin can. What you practice at home is your putting stance, so that you can stand rock steady with your eyes on the ball and smoothly strike the ball with the right strength to get it to the hole.

At one time, American and British golfers differed in the way they played a putt.  While the Brits would miss by not quite reaching the hole, the Americans would charge past it. This difference is not so noticeable now, but the Americans would make more first putts than the Brits because of this, but would also miss more second putts, especially on fast greens.  The secret is to be able to read the pace of a green so that if you miss you run past only a few inches.

Putting is not as easy a technique as a beginner might think,  and if you believe that all you have to do is get the ball on the green and the battle is over, then you are wrong. You have to be able to relax your body, develop a consistent grip and swing the club like a pendulum with only your arms and shoulders.  The rest of your body should be completely still. This is what you can practice at home or in the office.

Set yourself up with your feet directly at the target, and keep your eyes on the ball . Your belt buckle and your nose should be in one straight line with the ball. The target, the ball and your putter should form another line.  Swing the putter back like a pendulum, about 9 – 12 inches, then swing through in an easy straight line, with the direction of the putter straight at the hole. Your follow through should be the same distance as your swing, and keep your eyes down on the follow through.

You can practice all that on a carpet or on your lawn until you have perfected it.  This is one skill at which practice DOES make perfect!  You should also practice distance on a variety of surfaces and greens. Try different swing lengths and strengths for different types of putting surface, and develop a putt for slow, medium and fast greens. Practice, practice, and then practice some more until you can do it in your sleep.

You have done all the practice, and your putting action is now a mechanical action that you can repeat like clockwork. You are now standing on a real green with a real putt o make.  What next? Check out the general slope of the green, with specific attention to the path between your ball and the hole. Look for any bumps in the green, and slopes that will carry the ball off-line. Look for the best line to the hole.  Also look at the grass.  The shorter the grass the quicker the green.

If the grass is wet you will have to treat the green as if it were a bit slower than it looks. Your practice should have given a good idea of how to hit the ball for specific types of green, so you should treat a wet fast green, with short cut grass, as playing like a medium green in order to reach the cup.

Reading a green properly is an acquired skill and takes experience, but the more you play the better you will get at it.  Try a few rounds on a putting green to hone up your reading skills. Most of the best golf courses come with a full 18 hole putting green that you can use for practice:  St. Andrews in Scotland has several, and they are invaluable to golfers needing to improve in this skill.

Although putting is a very important component of your game, it is the one most often ignored as most people, especially beginners, tend to practice the glory shots; they practice the drives and the chips.  However, it is putting that wins games, and practice involves developing a repetitive putting action to ensure that the club face, ball and cup are in straight line throughout the putt. You should have practiced until you know exactly how hard to hit the ball and the importance of the follow through, and that you should always keep your eye on the ball, even after hitting.  You should have learned how to read the green and where to aim your putt so that it breaks into the cup.

Follow these golf putting tips, and get these aspects of your game right, , and you should be able to make most of your putts.  Nobody makes them all, so don’t let the occasional miss upset you.