Putters Putting Stroke Tips (Video) - by Pete Styles
Putters Putting Stroke Tips (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now it can mean nothing more frustrating for a golfer than feeling like you've got really good stroke mechanics, but you are just not holding any putts. You might spend all week in the lounge carpet just up and down holding putts into your little bowl return cup on the putting mat, everything is going in. You go out on the golf course on the weekend and suddenly you can't hold a thing. So here's a few little putting tips that will hopefully help you in the real-world situation out on a golf course. One of things I often see people do when they are putting is they lose their routine.

They don't stick enough to a routine. So you watch a good player, they will have a very solid routine that happens the same every single time, whether it's the 30-footer on the first hole or a three footer on the last hole. And the routine might be that they spend some time behind the ball, looking and lining everything up. But then as they come into the side of the ball, and just going to set it to the side again looking at the hole club down, a couple of practice swings. And those practice swings are very relevant for the putt we’re going to hit. There's no point practicing for three-footer with big wafty swings like this. That's actually engraving the wrong thing. So make sure your practice stroke is relevant for the stroke you going to get. Then set up and go ahead and pull the trigger, and hopefully you'll be able to repeat the same stroke. The other things that we can do with putting is make sure that we're reading the putt correctly, make sure we're trusting our eyes to read the putt correctly. And quite often to read a good putt is actually helpful to break the putt into two halves, particularly if you've got a very long putt, very sloppy putt or even a double breaker. So start at the hole end and work your way back by reading it. So if where the camera is, is the hole I’d actually walk halfway down and have a good look down at the surface here and see how the putt is going to break into the second half? The reason I break it into halves and stop by the second half is the second half has more influence. The ball is slowing down in the second half of the port putt. It will therefore take more break and curve more. So I need to see where that's going to curve into. And then work out – if he's going to curve left or right, whether we want to get the ball to before it and take it to the break. So now from back here, I can think well I need to get the ball to there, so it can then curve in. So I start to line up, look at my spots, judge the speed, judge the break of the hole putt, and then focus on hitting it to there. I then need to really start to trust my instinct, trust my eyes. If my eyes have seen it, it’s probably going to turn in the right way, probably going to break the right way. A lot of golfers, they see a break, and then they don't trust and they end up just steering the ball back to the hole. So they have lined up left, they have got the club lined up left. Everything is looking good and then their eyes see the ball over and see the hole over there. The instinct kicks in and trying to push the ball out towards the hole. If you can trust that line that you've seen, focus on that spot, nice smooth putting stroke straight at it. Remember you’ve practiced your putting stroke first, you can then set up and go ahead and execute the perfect putting stroke straight towards that. And hopefully by following those little routines tips that you’ll read in the green tips, you'll actually improve the number of putts you take. You'll get more putts in even though you haven't actually changed the stroke mechanics. 2015-07-15

Now it can mean nothing more frustrating for a golfer than feeling like you've got really good stroke mechanics, but you are just not holding any putts. You might spend all week in the lounge carpet just up and down holding putts into your little bowl return cup on the putting mat, everything is going in. You go out on the golf course on the weekend and suddenly you can't hold a thing. So here's a few little putting tips that will hopefully help you in the real-world situation out on a golf course. One of things I often see people do when they are putting is they lose their routine.

They don't stick enough to a routine. So you watch a good player, they will have a very solid routine that happens the same every single time, whether it's the 30-footer on the first hole or a three footer on the last hole. And the routine might be that they spend some time behind the ball, looking and lining everything up. But then as they come into the side of the ball, and just going to set it to the side again looking at the hole club down, a couple of practice swings. And those practice swings are very relevant for the putt we’re going to hit.

There's no point practicing for three-footer with big wafty swings like this. That's actually engraving the wrong thing. So make sure your practice stroke is relevant for the stroke you going to get. Then set up and go ahead and pull the trigger, and hopefully you'll be able to repeat the same stroke. The other things that we can do with putting is make sure that we're reading the putt correctly, make sure we're trusting our eyes to read the putt correctly. And quite often to read a good putt is actually helpful to break the putt into two halves, particularly if you've got a very long putt, very sloppy putt or even a double breaker.

So start at the hole end and work your way back by reading it. So if where the camera is, is the hole I’d actually walk halfway down and have a good look down at the surface here and see how the putt is going to break into the second half? The reason I break it into halves and stop by the second half is the second half has more influence. The ball is slowing down in the second half of the port putt. It will therefore take more break and curve more. So I need to see where that's going to curve into.

And then work out – if he's going to curve left or right, whether we want to get the ball to before it and take it to the break. So now from back here, I can think well I need to get the ball to there, so it can then curve in. So I start to line up, look at my spots, judge the speed, judge the break of the hole putt, and then focus on hitting it to there. I then need to really start to trust my instinct, trust my eyes. If my eyes have seen it, it’s probably going to turn in the right way, probably going to break the right way.

A lot of golfers, they see a break, and then they don't trust and they end up just steering the ball back to the hole. So they have lined up left, they have got the club lined up left. Everything is looking good and then their eyes see the ball over and see the hole over there. The instinct kicks in and trying to push the ball out towards the hole. If you can trust that line that you've seen, focus on that spot, nice smooth putting stroke straight at it. Remember you’ve practiced your putting stroke first, you can then set up and go ahead and execute the perfect putting stroke straight towards that.

And hopefully by following those little routines tips that you’ll read in the green tips, you'll actually improve the number of putts you take. You'll get more putts in even though you haven't actually changed the stroke mechanics.