Golf Drill Tips: Tips for bumpy greens (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Drill Tips: Tips for bumpy greens (Video) - by Pete Styles

When I am chatting to golfers about their recent rounds of golf, they might tell me that they played at so and so golf course, or so and so country club and I always say, you know, how was the gulf course, what sort of condition was it in? And most people first response is, oh, the greens, the greens, the greens, the greens were great, the greens were bad, oh you couldn’t play on those greens. The greens make a golf course to a certain extent for most golfers, if they can get a nice smooth putting surface, it will make the golf course look and feel so much better, so much easier to play, but there are going to be times, particularly in the winter months where your playing greens aren’t actually quite nice to put on.

But I think first thing you got to remember is that the greens are the same for everybody, so if the ball is missing and bubbling and bouncing away, the chances are that it is missing and bubbling and bouncing away for everybody and there are going to be times when a ball is dead on line, bounces wide, there is also going to be times when the ball is going to miss the hole, actually bounces in. We tend not to be so good at remembering those, that we always remember the ones that misses, but not the ones that actually bounced in.

So here are three little tips for you, to try and focus on putting on bumpy greens and how you can try and improve your technique. The first thing is to make sure you make a really good firm solid contact, so when you are setting up to the golf ball we got our eyes directly over the top of the ball, we get the ball lined up dead square to the center of the middle of the golf club, we make a really good solid rocking back, rocking through. We got to be careful here, that we are not trying to look open and take a peak and see whether the ball moved off line because that's going to result in bad contact. Staying right down over it, good contact, right on the back of the ball get it rolling toward the hole nicely, so don't be too quick to look open see, whether it went in.

The other thing we want to try and do is actually play a little bit more speed on the put. Generally bumpy greens are actually going to be slow greens. So if bumpy greens are slow greens we can hit the ball harder and in turn we can hit the ball with a bit less break, so if you see a big put that's going to curve from left to right and maybe on a faster green it would curve 8 inches left to right, on a slower green let’s play 5 inches for example and go a little bit firmer. That will get the ball rolling back rather than letting the bumps and the breaks move itself and also bumpy greens is generally slow greens so firmer and straighter and the one thing that might help you out with both of these things are getting a good contact and a firmer put. It’s actually going to be a heavier putter, you might decide that you are going to have a different putter maybe with changeable weights in it, all right, so we just take two putters, not two putters on each round, I am going to be wrong.

You take one putter into your bag when you are playing good fast smooth summer greens and then maybe you have a winter putter that has got bit more weight to it bit more ball to it and its roll the ball more evenly when you are playing on slow greens or bumpy greens, so think about a weighted putter on slower greens and a lighter putter on faster smoother greens.

 2013-03-26

When I am chatting to golfers about their recent rounds of golf, they might tell me that they played at so and so golf course, or so and so country club and I always say, you know, how was the gulf course, what sort of condition was it in? And most people first response is, oh, the greens, the greens, the greens, the greens were great, the greens were bad, oh you couldn’t play on those greens. The greens make a golf course to a certain extent for most golfers, if they can get a nice smooth putting surface, it will make the golf course look and feel so much better, so much easier to play, but there are going to be times, particularly in the winter months where your playing greens aren’t actually quite nice to put on.

But I think first thing you got to remember is that the greens are the same for everybody, so if the ball is missing and bubbling and bouncing away, the chances are that it is missing and bubbling and bouncing away for everybody and there are going to be times when a ball is dead on line, bounces wide, there is also going to be times when the ball is going to miss the hole, actually bounces in. We tend not to be so good at remembering those, that we always remember the ones that misses, but not the ones that actually bounced in.

So here are three little tips for you, to try and focus on putting on bumpy greens and how you can try and improve your technique. The first thing is to make sure you make a really good firm solid contact, so when you are setting up to the golf ball we got our eyes directly over the top of the ball, we get the ball lined up dead square to the center of the middle of the golf club, we make a really good solid rocking back, rocking through. We got to be careful here, that we are not trying to look open and take a peak and see whether the ball moved off line because that's going to result in bad contact. Staying right down over it, good contact, right on the back of the ball get it rolling toward the hole nicely, so don't be too quick to look open see, whether it went in.

The other thing we want to try and do is actually play a little bit more speed on the put. Generally bumpy greens are actually going to be slow greens. So if bumpy greens are slow greens we can hit the ball harder and in turn we can hit the ball with a bit less break, so if you see a big put that's going to curve from left to right and maybe on a faster green it would curve 8 inches left to right, on a slower green let’s play 5 inches for example and go a little bit firmer. That will get the ball rolling back rather than letting the bumps and the breaks move itself and also bumpy greens is generally slow greens so firmer and straighter and the one thing that might help you out with both of these things are getting a good contact and a firmer put. It’s actually going to be a heavier putter, you might decide that you are going to have a different putter maybe with changeable weights in it, all right, so we just take two putters, not two putters on each round, I am going to be wrong.

You take one putter into your bag when you are playing good fast smooth summer greens and then maybe you have a winter putter that has got bit more weight to it bit more ball to it and its roll the ball more evenly when you are playing on slow greens or bumpy greens, so think about a weighted putter on slower greens and a lighter putter on faster smoother greens.