Jack's Golf Putting Solutions Blog: October 2010

Oct 30, 2010

How Vital Is Your Golf Putting Tempo?

When someone mentions the importance of tempo in golf, most of us will automatically assume that they are referring to the full golf swing, and of course tempo is a crucial element in achieving an effective golf swing. However, it is also vitally important to work on your golf putting tempo if you want to become a successful and consistent golf putter.

Having a consistent golf putting tempo will dramatically increase your ability to control the speed and distances of your putts and works best with a pendulum type golf putting stroke. This is where you use your shoulders and arms to rotate the putter back and forth. The hands should remain as quite as possible and they should just feel like an extension of the golf putter.

The definition of a good putting tempo is to be able to maintain a consistent speed and distance throughout the entire putting stroke, i.e. the back stroke is the same length and takes the same time to complete as the follow through stroke does, just like the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

If you can maintain a consistent golf putting tempo throughout your entire putting stroke, then all you need to do to control the distance of your putts is too increase or decrease the length of the backstroke and follow through!

Everyone’s natural putting tempo will be different, just like in the full swing, so you will need to spend a bit of time practicing on the putting green or at home on the carpet or indoor golf putting mat to find out what golf putting tempo suits you best.

Once you have found it, continue to practice it so that the feeling will eventually become second nature and hopefully you will find that your golf putting performance and confidence will start to steadily improve.

If you are looking to Improve Your Golf Putting Performance or need some help with another area of your golf game, then please take advantage of my FREE Golf Instruction, Tips and Advice and visit me at: www.jacksgolfingsolutions.com

Golf Putting Drill To Help Develop Your Putting Stroke

If you are comfortable with your golf putting setup and have a solid foundation to work from, then developing a good putting stroke is simply a case of practicing and using an effective golf putting drill.

The best way to improve your putting stroke is to practice those short putts, the 4 to 6 footers that we all expect to make.

Before you get too carried away it’s important to note that even the top touring professionals miss these putts more often than you think. In fact they tend to only average around 50% of the 6 footers!!

When trying to develop a good golf putting stroke it is important to start off by practicing straight putts, as this will give you immediate feedback if you have made a bad putting stroke as of course you would have missed the putt. If you practice on putts with a break you may have missed it because you hit the wrong line or miss judged the pace.

A simple but effective golf putting drill to help develop your putting stroke:

Find a straight putt on the practice putting green and position yourself around 3 feet away from the hole.
Take 10 balls and try and hole them all. If you miss one then you start again and keep repeating this until you hole all 10 balls in a row.
Once you are successful, increase the target to 20, then 30 and so on until your target reaches 50.
Then try this exercise from 4 feet away.

Although simple, this is an excellent golf putting drill to help you develop a consistent and effective putting stroke. It will also teach you to learn how to putt under pressure, as when you reach 46, 47, 48 the nerves will kick and you will not want to start from the beginning again.

Oct 26, 2010

Golf Putting Drill To Develop Lag Putting

Practicing your lag putting with the below golf putting drill is one of the best ways to reduce the number of 3 putts you make out on the golf course.

The idea behind lag putting is to take the hole out of the equation and putt the golf ball with the right pace, so that it stops within an area that is close enough to the hole, so that you are confident in tapping it in.

Just imagine the number of shots you could save if you could turn all of those 3 putts into 2 putts!

To practice this putting drill you will need to find a practice putting green that is fairly large, as you will need plenty of space!

Golf Putting Drill to Develop Lag Putting:

Get a ball of string and cut 5 pieces that are roughly 6 feet in length.
Lay the pieces of string down on the putting green so they are horizontally aligned and at about 3 feet apart.
Grab 10 golf balls and position yourself about 12 feet away from the first piece of string that you have laid down.
Now putt all 10 balls into the area between the first and second piece of string and don’t move on to the next distance until you have managed to land all 10 balls in that first area.

This is a great golf putting drill to help develop your feel for distance control and also teaches you how to lag putt under pressure, as when you reach the 7th,8th and the 9^th putt you will not want to start all over again!

If you want to really improve your putting performance then it’s a good idea to practice this lag putting drill for both uphill and downhill putts.

If you are looking to Improve Your Putting Performance or need some help with another area of your golf game, then please take advantage of my FREE Golf Instruction, Tips and Advice and visit me at: www.jacksgolfingsolutions.com

Oct 25, 2010

Golf Putting Tips To Help With Putting Alignment

There are many issues that golfers face on the putting green and one of the most common problems is not being able to hit the golf ball along the intended line. This may seem simple enough but you would be surprised at the number of golfers who struggle to strike there putts where they actually want them to go.

Here are a couple of useful golf putting tips to help you line up your putts with more accuracy:

One method which is used by a lot of the touring pro’s is to draw a straight line on the golf ball and once you have read the green and are happy with the direction in which you want to send the putt, stand behind that target line and place the ball down so that the mark is aiming at the target you have chosen.

Then when you address the ball just make sure that the putter face is square to the mark on your ball. If you have a good golf putting setup and technique then you should find that the ball will consistently go where you aim it.

Another method which is commonly used is to pick an intermediate target, say a blade of grass or mark on the green that is a couple of feet away from the golf ball and directly in line with the target you are aiming for. Use this blade of grass or mark to aim at when you address the golf ball. This helps because this blade of grass or mark will be within your peripheral vision which in turn makes it easier to line up against.

If you find that you are still not able to hit the golf ball consistently along the line you intend, then you may need to focus on improving your golf putting stroke or work on your putting setup!

Master The 5 Golf Putting Setup Fundamentals

Before you can even contemplate mastering your golf putting performance, you should work on building a solid and reliable golf putting setup. There are 5 key fundamental elements to the putting setup that you need to consider.

The 5 Key Fundamentals to the Golf Putting Setup:

Putting Grip – this is vital as it is the connection between you and the putter. There are many different styles to choose from, so it is down to you to find out which one feels the most comfortable. One of the most common golf putting grips is the Reverse Overlap, so you may want to try this one out.
Ball Position – all golf putters have a slight loft to them, so ideally you want your ball position to back just ahead of the lowest point of your putting stroke. Generally speaking, this will be roughly an inch or so inside your left instep. Having the wrong ball position can have a serious impact on the roll of the ball and direction in which it travels.
Putter Position – the important factors here are that the putter head needs to be flat on the ground, square to the target, the grip end of the putter should be pointing to the centre of your body and your hand position directly under your shoulder line.
Eye Line – this one is not up for debate, your eye line should be positioned so it is looking directly over the golf ball. An easy way to test this is to hold another ball between your eyes and let it drop, it should land on top of the other ball.
Putting Posture – the important factors here are the position of your feet which should be roughly shoulder width apart, flexing the knees slightly so you are comfortable and feel balanced, tilt your body at roughly 45% so comfortable and your eye line is over the ball, your weight on the balls of your feet and slightly favouring the left side and making sure you body is aligned correctly so shoulders hips and feet are parallel to the target line.

You will find that having an efficient and reliable golf putting setup, that you are comfortable with, will give you an excellent foundation from which to build an effective and consistent golf putting stroke.

Oct 22, 2010

Learn How To Master Lag Putting

In some peoples eyes the term lag putt means that you are thinking negatively and ruling out any possible chance of holing the putt in hand. My view on lag putting is that you are still giving the ball a great opportunity of finding the bottom of the hole, but that you are also trying to ensure that you avoid 3 putting by leaving yourself within a comfortable distance from the hole if you should miss.

In my experience I have found that there is only one thing more frustrating than leaving a putt a couple of inches short of the hole when it is bang on line and that is 3 PUTTING!!

If you look at the touring pro's putting statistics, you will notice that they will only 3 putt once, maybe twice during a tournament on average, this means that they are generally leaving their long range putts well within a comfortable distance of the hole so they can avoid 3 putting. You could also say that they are masters of the lag putt!!

The idea behind lag putting is to take your focus away from targeting the hole itself and instead focus on a wider target that circles around the hole of about 6 feet in diameter (or whatever falls into your comfort zone), and then aim to putt the ball into this area. Then if it misses you know you will be left with a short putt that you can make.

Naturally it is not essential to lag every putt that you are faced with as there will be times when you can or need to be more aggressive, like with up hill putts or putts that you have to make if playing matchplay, but if you are suffering from 3 putting a lot, then practicing your lag putts would certainly help to improve your putting performance!

Gain Confidence In Your Golf Putting Stroke

Your golf putting stroke is without question the most important asset in your golf game. If you consider yourself to be a fairly average golfer then you are probably shooting in the high 80’s, 90’s even 100 plus on the golf course. This is more than likely down to the number of putting strokes that you are taking on the golf course!

Touring professionals average one 3 putt every 36 holes! and average around 26 putts every 18 holes!

How many golf putting strokes do you average per round? I bet it is more than 26!!! Next time you are on the golf course make a note of how many putting strokes you make and how many times you 3 putt! and then consider how many strokes you could have actually saved purely through improving this area of your golf game!

Obviously it is vitally important to have a good solid and reliable golf putting technique to start with but the quickest way to improve your putting performance is to gain confidence in your own golf putting stroke!

The best way to gain confidence in your putting performance is through experience and practice, so making time in your busy schedule to get out there on the golf course and especially on the practice putting green is going to be the key to your success on the greens.

As time is always so precious, it is of course important that you are not wasting it by aimlessly hitting putts on the practice putting green without purpose, as this will get you nowhere fast.

So first you need to build a solid putting technique that will give you a great foundation to work from and then put in the time and effort practicing this putting technique with some effective golf putting drills.

Oct 21, 2010

Golf Putting Tips For Reading Greens

If you would like to master the art of reading greens, then read on to learn a few basic golf putting tips that will help you to understand some of the factors that influence the way the ball will react on the putting green.

It is important to note that if you ever want to be considered a great putter, then developing your skills in reading putting greens is an essential part of the process.

To achieve the perfect putt (i.e. the one that finds the bottom of the cup) you need to accurately judge the right pace that you need to hit the putt and then send it off in the right direction.

Important golf putting tips to accurately reading greens:

More Momentum equals Less Break - the more momentum that the ball has the less break it will take, so it is only when the ball starts to slow down that the laws of gravity will take over and force the ball along the natural down slope of the green.
Focus your attention around the cup – as the ball will be slowing down as it approaches the cup it is important to focus your attention on the potential slopes around this area.
Down Hill Putts – probably the toughest putts to read as the initial momentum required is less so the golf ball will be looking for the natural slope of the green sooner and you will need to allow for more break in these putts.
Up Hill Putts – the easiest putts to read as the initial momentum required will be greater so you will only need to allow for the break as the ball dies near the hole.
Side Hill Putts – all side hill putts will be uphill initially, so it is important to focus on the last stages of the putt to accurately judge the correct line to hit it on.

Although reading putting greens is a vital part of improving your overall putting performance, it is also essential to develop a consistent and reliable golf putting technique.

Golf Putting Alignment Is Key

When it comes to being able to consistently putt well, there is no other golf putting fundamental that is more important than your golf putting alignment. Without initially having the correct putting alignment in your golf putting setup you are asking for all sorts of problems.

If you are not aligned correctly then you will only be able to hit the putt along your intended line by compensating some other part of your golf putting stroke, which will open the door up to errors!

The reason golfer’s find it a problem getting their putting alignment right is because when they setup to the ball their body is in a position that is perpendicular to their target line. This perspective can create the illusion that you are aligned correctly when actually you may be aligned to the left or to the right of the target.

How to solve your golf putting alignment:

The easiest way to solve your golf putting alignment issues is on the practice putting green (or at home or work on the carpet of course!!) Take a couple of extra golf clubs along with you and lay one of them down next to the ball position, so it is pointing towards the hole or target you are aiming for.

Lay the second club down on the putting green so that it is parallel to the first club and is just inside the position that you will take your stance. Now make sure that your shoulders, hips and feet are in line with this club.

This will give you the perfect putting alignment, so all you need to do is make sure that your head position is directly on top of the ball position and work on developing a solid and reliable golf putting technique

A Simple Golf Putting Routine

Having a simple and repeatable golf putting routine is as important as it is having a pre shot routine for the rest of your game. There are a couple of excellent reasons why developing a good putting routine will benefit you golfing performance.

Firstly, it will enable you to focus your mind on the job in hand, which is to concentrate on making the best possible putt you can at that moment in time and not allowing any negative thoughts or build up of pressure from any previous missed putts to play a part.

Secondly, if you are having a bad day on the golf putting greens, your simple and reliable golf putting routine will be the quickest way to help you get back on track.

The first step of your golf putting routine should always be to read the putting green and this starts as you are approaching it from the fairway. Make a mental note of the high and low points so you have an overall picture of the contours and if there are any water hazards or golf bunkers surrounding it, as the green will almost always slope towards these.

Then take a look at your putt from all angles to give yourself as much information to work from as possible. You will often find that your read of the putt will change once you have assessed the situation from all angles.

Once you are happy with the line and pace of the putt, try and pick a point a foot or so away from the ball which is on the line with where you want to send the putt. This will give you something to focus your alignment on.

Have a few practice swings so you are comfortable with your a golf putting stroke that you want to apply to the actual shot and then hit the putt.

Although simple, you will be amazed at how much of a difference, having a repeatable golf putting routine can make to your putting performance.

Jack's Golf Putting Solutions Blog