Make The Come Back Putt (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Make The Come Back Putt (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

One of the biggest detrimental factors to your score will be three putts. If I can get any golfer to cut out the three putts in that round, guaranteed they will improve their score most people will have one, two, three or four three putts in a round and god forbid you have more than even a four putts in your round, but if you are making 3s and 4 putts in your round, work on this little exercise to get rid of those and improve your scores.

This is all about focusing on making the next putts, so not necessarily making the long first putt but just being good enough to make sure you get the next putt. Now rather than trying to really practice holding a load of 6 putters for trying to save the par or a bogie, make sure you don’t give yourself a 6 putter in the first place, make sure that you will first putt if it’s from distance it doesn’t have the focus of trying to get in, but it has the focus of just lagging up near the hole to make the next putt coming back.

So the first thing here is concentrate more about speed rather than about line because very rarely will you miss a 3 foot left to 3 foot right, you will miss it 3 foot long or 3 foot short and particularly if the slope around the hole is quite a severe slope and you get your putt just trickling past the hole is normal but then it captures the slope and races away you leave yourself a very long come back putt. So just take real careful consideration of what the break or the lie of the land is around the hole. Making sure particularly that if you intend to the run the ball past the hole that is not going to then take the slope and run away, so to be very careful on reading the greens. If it’s a quick downhill putt, actually it just comes to the leaving the putt a little bit short, if I can leave it short and tap it in, that’s fine, so a lag putt for a first putt will then make the comeback putt a little bit easier.

Now if you do hit your first putt and it runs quite a long way past the hole, don’t throw your putter in the air and turn away in disgust, but keep watching that putt, keep watching how it’s rolling, past the hole because the roll that it’s taking, the land that it’s rolling over, to a certain extent you will have that putt coming back, the break won’t be exactly the same because the speed of the putt will be different but you can definitely tell if it’s left to right, right to left or if it’s quite straight. So once my putt is just gone past the edge of the hole, I keep watching it just to see how it finishes and then I will take that putt coming back.

The other thing is also watch what your playing partners are doing quite accurately because if they are taking putts on a similar line to you, you can actually get a second dread and a really good chance to watch that putts and then try and build in a little bit of that into the consideration of how you are going to take your putt. So if you want to improve your scores, eliminate three putts, make the comeback putt easier by making sure your first putt isn’t too aggressive, nicely lined up to the whole thinking about the right distance control and then just tap it in from there and if your first putt is not great, keep watching the line because that will help you on the way back to the hole.

 2012-07-17

One of the biggest detrimental factors to your score will be three putts. If I can get any golfer to cut out the three putts in that round, guaranteed they will improve their score most people will have one, two, three or four three putts in a round and god forbid you have more than even a four putts in your round, but if you are making 3s and 4 putts in your round, work on this little exercise to get rid of those and improve your scores.

This is all about focusing on making the next putts, so not necessarily making the long first putt but just being good enough to make sure you get the next putt. Now rather than trying to really practice holding a load of 6 putters for trying to save the par or a bogie, make sure you don’t give yourself a 6 putter in the first place, make sure that you will first putt if it’s from distance it doesn’t have the focus of trying to get in, but it has the focus of just lagging up near the hole to make the next putt coming back.

So the first thing here is concentrate more about speed rather than about line because very rarely will you miss a 3 foot left to 3 foot right, you will miss it 3 foot long or 3 foot short and particularly if the slope around the hole is quite a severe slope and you get your putt just trickling past the hole is normal but then it captures the slope and races away you leave yourself a very long come back putt. So just take real careful consideration of what the break or the lie of the land is around the hole. Making sure particularly that if you intend to the run the ball past the hole that is not going to then take the slope and run away, so to be very careful on reading the greens. If it’s a quick downhill putt, actually it just comes to the leaving the putt a little bit short, if I can leave it short and tap it in, that’s fine, so a lag putt for a first putt will then make the comeback putt a little bit easier.

Now if you do hit your first putt and it runs quite a long way past the hole, don’t throw your putter in the air and turn away in disgust, but keep watching that putt, keep watching how it’s rolling, past the hole because the roll that it’s taking, the land that it’s rolling over, to a certain extent you will have that putt coming back, the break won’t be exactly the same because the speed of the putt will be different but you can definitely tell if it’s left to right, right to left or if it’s quite straight. So once my putt is just gone past the edge of the hole, I keep watching it just to see how it finishes and then I will take that putt coming back.

The other thing is also watch what your playing partners are doing quite accurately because if they are taking putts on a similar line to you, you can actually get a second dread and a really good chance to watch that putts and then try and build in a little bit of that into the consideration of how you are going to take your putt. So if you want to improve your scores, eliminate three putts, make the comeback putt easier by making sure your first putt isn’t too aggressive, nicely lined up to the whole thinking about the right distance control and then just tap it in from there and if your first putt is not great, keep watching the line because that will help you on the way back to the hole.