Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro

So if you feel like you've corrected all those key elements that might have been causing the ball to push to the right of the target with your putting stroke, yet you're still missing the ball to the right, there may be a consideration that actually you’re not simply aiming in the right direction in the first instance. So when you're setting up to the golf ball, you could be aiming to the right of the hole, and then when you make a good putt everything goes to the rights of the hole. And it wasn't there was a problem with your stroke mechanics, there was a problem actually with your alignment. So we want to be quite careful when we set up to any putt, we focus really keenly on aiming in the right direction.

So for lots of golfers, the aim actually starts in the setup process. So we want to maybe stand behind the goal ball here, look down the target line, and pick a point to aim at. Now the point isn't necessarily the hole, because if the ball has any degree of curve, or break, or or the grain has an effect or even the wind has an effect, we need to pick a point that isn't necessarily the hole to allow the ball to break. And if you've got a longer putt, it can be quite difficult to pick something that's 15 feet away from you to aim at. So a lot of golfers are better served by picking something relatively close to them; maybe just a foot or 18 inches in front of where the ball is, and pick a very small speck of grass or piece of mud, that is on line to your targets, use that as a marker that you can hit the ball over.

Now, you're not actually allowed to pick something up and put it in place, there has to be something that's already on the surface. But I would stand behind my ball here, I would look forwards, I pick a tiny, tiny patch of grass here. So it's so small, it probably doesn't really show up that well on camera, and then I would keep looking at that as I make my practice stroke getting the feel I’m going to roll the ball on that line. And then as I set up, I use that spot in mind to hit my putts down that line.

Now I felt like I gave myself a good chance of making that putt, I actually hit my spot exactly as I wanted to and actually read a little bit of break of just coming in from right to left and I thought most of the way that ball was going to go in. It's actually broken the wrong way right at the end. But I still felt like I gave it a good chance. And there's no guarantee you’re going to hole every putt on the golf course. But it's just picking a spot out in front of you should help improve your alignment. It should help you give yourself the best chance to get the ball starting on the right line, and if you've read the ball correctly off that line, you've got a better chance of it going in. But as you've just seen here, there's no guarantee particularly on pretty bubbly pretty rough greens.