Putting - Half The Game
May 1st, 2011 |Many amatuer golfers spend most of their practice time learning to hit that awesome drive. Although, there’s nothing prettier than the golf ball flying through the air and bouncing neatly into the middle of the fairway approximately two-hundred and fifty yards from the tee. However, most strokes occur near to and on the green. Putting accounts for one-half of the strokes in a par golf game. Practicing with all your clubs will help you improve your game, poor putting skills will literally lose the game for your. Drive for show and putt for dough.
Learning to putt accurately every time will improve your game, so spending time practicing putting is a great use of your practice time. Consistently getting to the green in regulation is not going to do you a lot of good unless you’re able to drop the ball in the cup once you’re there. The “yips” are the bane of many golfers when it comes to putting. This is simply a hesitation – like a hiccup – that causes you not to hit a smooth putt. A smooth putting stroke will provide better control to roll the ball into the cup.
When you’re practicing your putting, you need to pay attention to two elements, speed and accuracy. If you’re having trouble lining the ball up so you feel comfortable hitting it to the hole, then help yourself by marking a line on the golf ball. Many pros mark their ball in a similar fashion. This mark helps you focus on a spot to give you that smooth putting stroke.
Visualize the path you want to putt the ball on, this technique is used by many of the Pros. If your having trouble with your mental picture, try laying a piece of string on the ground between your ball and the cup. This is a technique you can use when you practice your putting. Watching the path your ball takes when you hit it and noticing where it veers off your line will help you identify what you need to do to correct the problem.
Placing too much spin on your putt can be a problem as well. Spin is one of the most difficult techniques for the amatuer golfer to control, and putting is all about control. If you need to hit a long putt, resist the urge to put too much power into the swing. The successful long putt requires that you practice with distance on the practice green. Using too much power will pull the ball and hit it past the hole leaving you a long return putt. Avoid hitting under the ball which places loft on the ball because the higher your ball flies the less roll it has and the less control you will have over it.
You also need to control your putting speed. Rolling past the cup by ten feet is not good. Overshooting the target is a problem in many sports – not just golf. Imagine how often you’ve seen someone take a pool shot only to have the ball ricochet off the back of the pocket and bounce out. You see this happening in baseball, football and basketball when the person throwing the ball over estimates the power needed to make a successful play. It’s human nature to use too much power. There’s nothing more frustrating than to walk past the cup to the new putting position, which is farther from the cup than the last putt. Remember speed and accuracy are the important elements in a successful putt.
When you’re ready to putt, relax take a breath and move your putter on a straight line through the ball with appropriate speed. When you practice make putting part of your practice time and your game will improve with time. To obtain more information on putting and golf in general check out this website: http://www.buy-belly-putter.com .
Email This Post To a Friend
Recent Comments
Very good points made here. I agree totally on where the go...