The “Following” Tip!

The following tip/drill is taken from the Eyeline website which I use in my teaching. It has helped a lot of my students and may help you too. Click on the recommended website for more tips and drills.

Speed control on the slopes

This is a great drill taken from “The Putting Prescription” by my friend, Dr. Craig Farnsworth. His book is available on Amazon.

Our 3-Foot Target Circles can assist.

The Putting Doctor’s Diagnostic Test from page 239 of the book:

“You are at a new course and you note the greens are quite slow compared to the greens at your club. Choose a location on the green that is sloped as much as possible but not too severely. Place a tee in the ground, then walk directly uphill and place another tee in the ground 20 feet from the first one. Then place another tee 10 feet further uphill, and repeat with a tee in the ground another 10 feet further uphill. This gives you a 20-, 30-, and 40-foot target to putt back and forth to.

Start with an uphill putt to the first tee (20 feet), then putt the same ball back to the starting tee. Repeat the drill two more times. You will do six putts, or three cycles, at each distance. Your objective for each putt is to stop your ball within 2 to 3 feet (the length of your putter) of the target tee. Record this as a par. Repeat this for the 30- and 40-footers. All along, you are working to control your speed for each distance and each slope.”

Use these simple drills for great results!

The Putting Stroke – Your hands

Active Hands in the Putting Stroke

Here’s a great Tip about putting from Randy Smith. When it comes to scoring, there’s nothing more important than putting… so get the most out of your game by reading this terrific Tip!

By Randy Smith

When the hands get over-active in the putting stroke, bad things tend to happen rather quickly.  Distance control goes to pieces, and direction is not much better.  Putting is not a matter of hitting or slapping a ball at a target.  Putting is a matter of rolling a ball along an appropriate line to give the player the best chance for success.  Yes, rolling, not hitting.

To get the feel of how passive your hands need to be, go out on the putting green and just roll balls with your hands.  Assume a putting posture and put the ball in your back hand – for a right-handed player that’d be your right hand.  And just pitch it and let it roll to the hole.  Change your distance each time you do this, and see how good you really are at seeing how far you need to roll it.

You will notice that you just let the ball roll out of your hand without flipping it with your wrist.  Your instincts told you to do that.  Those same instincts will work when you use a putter.  Soft, consistent grip pressure is s a must.

Try as much as you can to make your strokes as equidistant as you can.  In other words, if your putt requires a 6-inch backstroke, then it should require approximately a 6-inch forward stroke.  Remember the work “consistent.”

The wrists and hands should feel passive during any stroke.  The length of the stroke – both directions – powered by the shoulders, not the hands and wrists, should give you the proper distance control.  Remember, you cannot trust your hands to do all the work.  They are made for feeling, not hitting, especially when you’re rolling a putt.

Putting for Distance