Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
Whenever any of us are out on the golf course and on the putting green we all want to hold as many putts as possible. But if we are going to miss a putt it’s better to hit the ball past the hole than to leave it short. If you hit your ball and you finish it shot you don’t have any information about how the ball is going to travel from where the position that it’s got into to the hole. However if you hit the ball past the hole and you’ve watched the ball travel past the hole you’ll have seen exactly what the ball is going to do on the next shot. So if you are going to hit a putt and it isn’t going to go in the hole it’s time to try and make it a little bit longer so that you can watch the ball go past the hole.
Now we all naturally react a little bit frustrated and a little bit annoyed if we haven’t pulled the putt and in doing that if you hit the putt and your reaction, is to be annoyed and to look away and not notice what’s going on with the ball as it rolls past the hole. You have lost vital information there which will help you make the putt on the way back. Basically as the ball rolls past the hole you are seeing exactly what’s going to happen so you can feel really confident about the putt on the way back. So if you do hit the putt and miss try and hold the finish, learn to watch the ball as it goes out and past the hole and watch how the ball moves.
It will show you what the slope is going to do, it will show you the speed that the ball is going to move at. So now you can feel really confident when you have to make that putt back to the hole you’ll know exactly what it’s going to do, exactly where you need to aim and exactly the speed to hit the ball at. So learn to watch the ball as it goes past the hole you’ll hit a lot more putts in on the way back.