Instinctive putting style - good, but is it good enough?

A couple of months ago, frustrated with missing too many 6 to 8 foot putts, I decided to try aligning the ball with a sharpie line on the ball. This lasted only a few holes in the first round I tried this method though because I spent so much time fiddling with aligning the line that I lost my loose, relaxed putting stroke and started jerking the putter head everywhere.

The putting style I have used for some time is to start reading the green as I’m walking up to the green. I can see the general shape and slope of the green from afar, then hone in on the subtleties as I get closer to the hole. I have used two methods to ascertain slope, one is the “donkey walk” espoused by Shawn Clement on his “Wisdom in Golf” youtube channel. As I walk around my ball and the hole I feel when I’m walking uphill and then when it switches to walking downhill and the switchover is where the fall line resides. I also have tried straddling the putting line and attempting to feel the slope with my feet as in Aimpoint Express. This helps reading break most of the time but I have a hard time feeling the direction of very small slopes.

Once I have an idea of the slope of the shot I place my ball on the green with the biggest blank area facing up. I want no ball lines or markings to interfere with my green alignment intuition. I then visualize the ball rolling on the line and rolling into the cup. I then step to the side of the ball and look at the hole and make one or two strokes with the speed feel I need for that putt at that distance. On longer 40-plus foot lag putts I sometimes take “Goldilocks” practice strokes – make a way too easy stroke, then make a way too hard stroke, then make the “just right” stroke. (That’s another Shawn Clement teaching method and it works great for feeling chip and pitch stroke lengths too.)

Then I step up to the ball, align my putter to the line, align my feet and get comfortable in my stance, making sure to stand tall and not slouch. I look over and visualize the ball rolling into the hole then look back at the path it will take from the hole back to my ball and with that line firmly in mind, feel that my hands are soft on the grip and make the stroke, seeing the ball roll on the line I visualized. I have found if I hold my head still until the ball is well away that I am more likely to putt smoother, but it is hard not to look the ball on its way.

As you can see from the Game Golf screen capture below, this style of putting works for me. At an average of 34 putts per round I putt at a rate for a bogey golfer instead of the 24 HC that I am now. I have long said, if I can improve at getting it on the green, my score will drop like a rock.

But is this good enough? Shall I rest on my laurels? Emphatically NO!

Where can I find my putting improvement?

When I look at the stats I see an need to knock down the three-putt rate of 12%. In addition, I know there is huge room to improve my one-putt stats as well. This is because my wedge and chipping practice has paid off with a lot of balls resting six to ten feet from the pin and I have more often than not failed to capitalize with a one putt at that range.  It is very frustrating to miss out on all those achievable up & down pars.

I have almost no fear of missing putts inside 4 ft. My doctor said I can start putting 3 weeks after my collarbone repair surgery and I started putting last week on my family room carpet. I have a PuttOut putting trainer (image below) which I putt to daily on the carpet from 3 to 7 feet. The PuttOut is the best putting target I’ve ever used! Yesterday I decided to see how many 3 foot putts in a row I could make. I made 27 in a row before I slightly pulled one off line.

I am usually very good at lagging putts inside 30 ft. To practice lag putts I find an area of the practice green without a hole and with about 50 feet of space to work with. I place a tee in the green, then place tees as I pace off 5, 10, and 15 long steps, corresponding to approximately 15, 30, and 45 foot putts. I only use one ball and I randomly putt between the tees and also move around off the tees so I get different lines. During this practice I take the speed-feeling practice strokes on every putt so I can internalize the feel I need for the various distances. I also always make pressure games of this practice – for example, not leaving until I get five in a row within 3 ft of the target tee. Inducing pressure during practice helps make putting during a round the same as practice so putting performance is consistent anywhere.

One thing to note about my lag putting stroke. I used to almost always leave long lag putts short. I putted long lag putts with the same soft hand but stiff wrist “Y” shoulder stroke as short putts, but couldn’t seem to stroke it hard enough to reach the hole. However, I saw a video, I believe on the Mark Crossfield channel, where he explained that long putts should be stroked more like a chip than the stiffer short putt. I interpreted that to mean I could break my wrists on lag putts and immediately found that soft hands with soft wrists in the lag stroke lead to better distance feel and to putts getting to and beyond the hole almost every time.

Most of my three putts occur on longer 50 to 60 foot putts that I don’t lag close enough. Frequently I have the right speed, but misread the line and the ball ends up level with but 8 to 10 ft to one side or the other of the hole. A lot of articles I read say speed is most important for lag putts but I can say categorically that good lag putting requires reading a combination of speed and line.

Grading My Scoring Method Putting Levels

I have added the below image from The Scoring Method Manual (with permission – Thanks Will!) to show what I will be working on in the next few times I head to the putting green. I extracted the putting portion of the Purposeful Practice card. The scores are posted along the top. As someone who shoots between 100 and 95, I should expect that I can sink 3 foot putts between 5 and 7 times out of ten attempts. However, I currently can easily sink better than 9 of 10 3 foot putts on average. At my level, on long putts I should be able to lag within 3 ft. of the pin from 30 feet at least 5 of 10 attempts. I haven’t attempted to score this so it is my goal to find out what my 30 foot 10 putt score is. One thing I will do to ensure I inject realism and pressure into the test is putt no more than 3 putts per hole and move around to various holes on the green so that both speed and line are accounted for in the tests.

Finally, one of the Scoring Method members, Juan G, was so kind as to send me a list of putting drills. Juan is the author of “Make More Putts: A Proven Putting Performance Improvement System” which is well reviewed on Amazon. Several of the drills he sent sounded interesting and one with tees is similar to my tee setup but adds pressure by having to putt 5 balls in a row within 3 feet at each tee and not moving to the next one until that goal is achieved. Another lag drill I liked is the two clubs drill – place a tee at N ft away and put two clubs 3 to 4 feet on each side of the tee and try to lag the putt inside the “box” created by the clubs. I like this because it helps visualize the size of the target area. Finally, I will definitely try the eyes closed 30 ft putt drill – this really should help develop the feel of a 30 foot putt!

Of course I will continue playing my favorite putting game – putt 9 different holes and score the “round”. I plan to keep track of these and other putting test results in a my notes in the hopes I start to see an improvement in my practice scores ultimately leading to lowering my real golf scores.