Instruction
5 steps to building confidence in your putting
Almost everyone can hit a putt, but very few people putt as well as they would like. There are multiple factors from setup to mechanics to feel that are extremely important when learning to putt your best.
Another dynamic of putting, which nearly every golfer will attest to its importance, is the mental factor. You need a consistent putting stroke and solid distance control, but you also need belief in yourself and your putting ability. While this can be challenging, there are 5 steps you can build into your practice that will help you gain and preserve confidence.
Take an honest look at your putting
In putting, positive change starts with taking a realistic appraisal of your game. Understand your strengths and areas for improvement. This can include using statistics and seeking assistance from putting experts, club fitters, eye doctors, and other professionals. In this day and age, there is a lot of great information about how you should properly setup, what your mechanics should look like, what types of putters compliment your style, as well as technologies that monitor your tendencies like Sam PuttLab.
The trick is using this information to maximize your potential by taking an honest look at your putting, creating a consistent plan you believe in, honing your skills, and then making your approach simple and natural again. I do not suggest becoming a golfer that is constantly searching; that is a great way to ruin your putting. Find the information you need from professionals, and then trust and execute your plan.
The next four steps provide some ways to use your plan to improve, as well as how to take it to the course with confidence.
Practice your putting strengths and areas for improvement equally
I typically encourage my clients to embrace their strengths more than the areas that are lacking. For instance, if their strength is driving accuracy I encourage them to play their game and not get into long-drive contests with fellow playing partners. This is slightly different when it comes working on your putting and practicing. You need to work on your strengths to preserve and create confidence, but you also need to develop the parts of your putting that can cause fear or frustration. If distance control is your strength, I encourage you to practice this half the time so you feel confident in your ability. But I also want you to practice the areas that needs improvement, such as short putts, the other half of the time.
Always end your practice session on a positive note
If you want to build confidence, you need to finish every practice session on the putting green on a positive note. You want your last experience on the putting green to be something positive that you can take with you. Think about it; this is your last mental imprint until you visit the putting green again. If you finish on a positive note, it’s much more likely that you will think about how the day was a success and how you’re improving. I’ve worked with golfers who struggle to do this; they consistently find a way turn a positive putting session into a negative experience. They continue working on their stroke until they leave confused and frustrated. If this isn’t a recipe for disaster, I’m not sure what is.
If you want to adhere to suggestions Nos. 1 and 2 in a simple way, I recommend sandwiching your area for improvement during practice. Let the first 25 percent of your practice be your strengths, the middle 50 percent be what you’re working on to improve your putting, and the last 25 percent be another strength.
“Isn’t that being disingenuous, purposely finishing with your strength?”
No, it’s not! It’s being smart and setting yourself up for success. You’re still practicing the areas you wish to improve, but you’re doing it in an intelligent way that builds confidence.
Recognize your successes
It’s not enough to finish on a high note. It’s also important to make a conscious effort to reaffirm what you did well. I suggest every client I work with take a minute or two following every practice session to make a deliberate effort to focus on what they did well. This could be as simple as stating it out loud, calling your coach and leaving a message about what you found positive, or journaling it. The most beneficial of these I have found is to write it out in a journal. This way you not only have a simple ritual that you can follow at the end of every practice, but it’s also recorded for future reference whenever you want to go back and read it. Additionally, there is scientific evidence that suggests the practice of writing strengthens associations and neurological connections in your brain. In essence, every time you write out your successes, you’re creating pathways to confidence in your mind.
Develop and practice your pre-putting routine
The pre-shot routine is one of the most important mental skills you can develop in golf and putting. It not only helps you transfer and preserve your skills from the putting green to the course; it also helps you better manage stress and pressure. While this article isn’t dedicated to pre-shot routines, I have written in-depth in a previous article about routines and encourage you to check it out for suggestions, “Adding P.E.P. to your mental game.”
The first step to almost every successful pre-putt routine is that you make a decisive decision about starting line and speed prior to rehearsing and stepping up to the ball. This will help alleviate hesitation and second-guessing when standing up over a putt. The second step is to find a consistent set of actions that will give you confidence during your routine. Finally, you should go through your routine on the putting green during practice to ingrain it and add in pressure situations to mirror the pressure you feel during competitive golf.
While this may be just the start and other mental training techniques — practices such as self-talk and imagery can continue to help you build confidence on the putting green — I believe that if you start with these 5 steps you’ll be well on your way to believing more in your putting.
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Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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Casey
Mar 10, 2016 at 8:05 pm
Great advice Dan and Go Noles!
Hogg
Mar 10, 2016 at 11:04 am
Nothing wrong with always wanting to feel good in golf
Rhoda Weiner
Mar 10, 2016 at 12:32 am
Golf is more than a game and that’s how I treat my putting. I once was told by a famous putting coach that if you think of the as a cup of coffee and the golfball as a donut and the putter as your arm and your goal is to dunk the donut.
Bob Jones
Mar 9, 2016 at 4:36 pm
My teaching pro told me a story about a guy on his college golf team who was by far the best putter of the lot. One day guy was on the practice green practicing one-foot putts, over and over. My pro guy asked him what he was doing, and other guy said he was practicing making putts. Pro guy says, but they’re only one foot long! Other guy says, yes, but my putter doesn’t know that.
gofish721
Mar 9, 2016 at 12:29 pm
I bought a remnant 4×14′ piece of an ugly looking low pile carpet several years back. Then cut a small 4-1/4″ hole out at one end in the center and marked an X on the other end to putt from. Rolled it out on a concrete section in my workshop and put a marker line every foot on the putting path. I even drew an set of outline footprints to putt from for consistency of stance. I began putting 50-100 balls all the time whenever I had time and I noticed (and partners) that my putting improved tremendously. I putt 12 footers and then move to 4 feet. My confidence to stroke the ball well is high, especially around the hole. Easy to say that all the new clubs and such through the years had way less impact on lowering my scores than this. Best under $10 golfing investment I ever made!
Brian
Mar 9, 2016 at 10:59 am
I practice 8 footers until I hole 10 in a row every night. Can’t go to sleep until I have. I’ve never been more confident from inside 10 feet.
Rob
Mar 8, 2016 at 11:52 pm
Finish on a high note is a great idea. When I was practicing and playing a lot I would stay until I holed a chip then after I holed 10 or 20 3 footers in a row. I would pick an easy chip and dead straight 3 footers too. Just seeing the ball go straight in means I’m rolling it well on the line I choose.