The Five Best Senior Putting Thoughts (Video) - by Dean Butler
The Five Best Senior Putting Thoughts (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay, in this Putting Tip we are going to talk about the best senior thoughts. They are just five of them, let’s not make it too complicated let’s just think about those five thoughts in the order. So, there are different ways, different thoughts that you might have in your head. But I want to go down my sort of thoughts and see if they actually click for you. So the first one is, I want you to think about soft hands. Now ‘soft hands’ you might think what, what do I mean? When you grip the Putter, I want you to grip it as light as you possibly can. You want to grip it so you’re squeezing, you’re draining the life out of the grip. I want you to hold it light. A good tip here, for pressure, is; imagine you have a toothpaste tube with no cap on. If you put your hands on it and you squeeze tight, the too – the toothpaste would come out the tube. So, how light would you grip it? And straight away you’ve got this message from me to you, to say right, I understand nice and light; wow that is light! And what’s the idea behind it? Well by gripping the Putter nice and light, it enables us to have a soft feel, it enables us to swing the Putter from the shoulders backwards and forwards. If I grip tight, my arms lock. And you can imagine from here how we tend to get our sort of waver swings. So the first thing I want you to do, is I want you to think about ‘soft hands,’ okay?

The second thing is I want you to think about the line and the Putt. When you get up to the Putt, how many people actually get down here and look at that line? When you’re here, want you to visualize where you want to Putt. And the best thing to do is to look at a little point, maybe six inches in-front of the ball, or line where you want that ball to start its journey. And visualize maybe your favorite color, so it’s like a tracking line. Visualize that color, and then when you come to that ball Putt the Putter not here looking down for the hole, but looking for the marker because you’ve got behind the ball. You’ve got this lovely little marker here, and you visualize in the field that lovely color, your favorite color in your mind. Just from this point here to actually swing the Putter down that line. So you’re visualizing that. The third thing and one of the most crucial factors in Putting, is the clubface itself. If you put two clubs down, on the ground, and you put a ball between, the two sticks in this case or two clubs; the clubface square is absolutely crucial. And the easiest drill and exercise in the world is to put two sticks very, very close to either side of your Putter on the heel and the toe. And from here, you can clearly see if I was to close the clubface, which means aiming it to the left, watch what happens to the Putt, and watch what happens to the Putter, you’ll see it moving towards the left side. So this is about keeping the clubface square. This is what happens when you don’t, and you close the face. You can see that Putt, has gone through the Putt has come over towards the left hand side and the ball has been dragged. So this is a very, very simple exercise, its, it really is so simple, for working on keeping that clubface square. So just put two clubs down and focus on swinging that Putter Face backwards and forwards. And that’s about teaching to keep the clubface square. Now, number four. I want you to think about consistent tempo. So how many times have you seen one of your fellow partners go over the Putt, going back; fast and then slow? Or slow and fast? Or we’ve a long Putt and they are trying to hit it hard. If you’ve got bad tempo, you can see in all those demonstrations there was lots of arms and wrists activity going on. In essence, no control, no feel. And Putting is about feel and control isn’t it? Getting the ball to the; hole it can get safer. So think about that. When you’re actually thinking about your tempo, think about a pendulum; tick-tock, in my mind, your, there’s two things you can do for tempo. You can just visualize a pendulum going tick-tock, tick-tock. Or you can visualize, well not visualize but you can hum. If you were exerting a little bit of energy into a Putt, you would be going something like this: first of all you’d go – as soon as you change the pace of your swing, just like a tennis player up and – As soon as you exert that energy – Your, that hum goes – off the ground. So very simple, but this is tempo, its very, very important part of Putting. So don’t get up in the Putt going, on line if it’s going 24 foot, plus the 20 foot shot; so thinking about your tempo. And I think the third, the five, the fifth thing and the final thing, which is crucial; crucial is that you must always, always have your eyes over the top of the ball. This is something that I see time and time again when people coming along and have a Putting lesson. Their over here, or their over there, their eyes are over that side. Get those eyes over the top of the ball. And if you’re not sure about it, maybe just put a CD disk on the floor with a shiny side up. And when you actually get yourself over it, with the ball in the middle of it, you’ll see your eyes in the middle of that CD. You think wow, what a simple tip that is! So there you go, there are five, there are lots and lots of different things that you might think are more important. But I think those five things there are the basic ingredients to become a much, much better Putter. And if you’re a better Putter you take fewer shots and you enjoy the game of golf. Go and put it into practice, next time you’re down at the golf club. 2014-04-01

Okay, in this Putting Tip we are going to talk about the best senior thoughts. They are just five of them, let’s not make it too complicated let’s just think about those five thoughts in the order. So, there are different ways, different thoughts that you might have in your head. But I want to go down my sort of thoughts and see if they actually click for you. So the first one is, I want you to think about soft hands. Now ‘soft hands’ you might think what, what do I mean? When you grip the Putter, I want you to grip it as light as you possibly can. You want to grip it so you’re squeezing, you’re draining the life out of the grip. I want you to hold it light. A good tip here, for pressure, is; imagine you have a toothpaste tube with no cap on. If you put your hands on it and you squeeze tight, the too – the toothpaste would come out the tube. So, how light would you grip it? And straight away you’ve got this message from me to you, to say right, I understand nice and light; wow that is light! And what’s the idea behind it? Well by gripping the Putter nice and light, it enables us to have a soft feel, it enables us to swing the Putter from the shoulders backwards and forwards. If I grip tight, my arms lock. And you can imagine from here how we tend to get our sort of waver swings. So the first thing I want you to do, is I want you to think about ‘soft hands,’ okay?

The second thing is I want you to think about the line and the Putt. When you get up to the Putt, how many people actually get down here and look at that line? When you’re here, want you to visualize where you want to Putt. And the best thing to do is to look at a little point, maybe six inches in-front of the ball, or line where you want that ball to start its journey. And visualize maybe your favorite color, so it’s like a tracking line. Visualize that color, and then when you come to that ball Putt the Putter not here looking down for the hole, but looking for the marker because you’ve got behind the ball. You’ve got this lovely little marker here, and you visualize in the field that lovely color, your favorite color in your mind. Just from this point here to actually swing the Putter down that line. So you’re visualizing that.

The third thing and one of the most crucial factors in Putting, is the clubface itself. If you put two clubs down, on the ground, and you put a ball between, the two sticks in this case or two clubs; the clubface square is absolutely crucial. And the easiest drill and exercise in the world is to put two sticks very, very close to either side of your Putter on the heel and the toe. And from here, you can clearly see if I was to close the clubface, which means aiming it to the left, watch what happens to the Putt, and watch what happens to the Putter, you’ll see it moving towards the left side. So this is about keeping the clubface square. This is what happens when you don’t, and you close the face. You can see that Putt, has gone through the Putt has come over towards the left hand side and the ball has been dragged. So this is a very, very simple exercise, its, it really is so simple, for working on keeping that clubface square. So just put two clubs down and focus on swinging that Putter Face backwards and forwards. And that’s about teaching to keep the clubface square.

Now, number four. I want you to think about consistent tempo. So how many times have you seen one of your fellow partners go over the Putt, going back; fast and then slow? Or slow and fast? Or we’ve a long Putt and they are trying to hit it hard. If you’ve got bad tempo, you can see in all those demonstrations there was lots of arms and wrists activity going on. In essence, no control, no feel. And Putting is about feel and control isn’t it? Getting the ball to the; hole it can get safer. So think about that. When you’re actually thinking about your tempo, think about a pendulum; tick-tock, in my mind, your, there’s two things you can do for tempo. You can just visualize a pendulum going tick-tock, tick-tock. Or you can visualize, well not visualize but you can hum. If you were exerting a little bit of energy into a Putt, you would be going something like this: first of all you’d go – as soon as you change the pace of your swing, just like a tennis player up and – As soon as you exert that energy – Your, that hum goes – off the ground. So very simple, but this is tempo, its very, very important part of Putting. So don’t get up in the Putt going, on line if it’s going 24 foot, plus the 20 foot shot; so thinking about your tempo.

And I think the third, the five, the fifth thing and the final thing, which is crucial; crucial is that you must always, always have your eyes over the top of the ball. This is something that I see time and time again when people coming along and have a Putting lesson. Their over here, or their over there, their eyes are over that side. Get those eyes over the top of the ball. And if you’re not sure about it, maybe just put a CD disk on the floor with a shiny side up. And when you actually get yourself over it, with the ball in the middle of it, you’ll see your eyes in the middle of that CD. You think wow, what a simple tip that is! So there you go, there are five, there are lots and lots of different things that you might think are more important. But I think those five things there are the basic ingredients to become a much, much better Putter. And if you’re a better Putter you take fewer shots and you enjoy the game of golf. Go and put it into practice, next time you’re down at the golf club.