Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
If you’ve got a really big breaking putt it’s absolutely crucial that you work on getting the ball to the high spot on that break. Now the best way you can work on doing that is if you take a coin or take a tee peg and as a drill go to a green where there is a really big break on the green and then work on putting the tee peg or the coin to where you feel the high spot is on the break. So that’s the area where the maximum curve is on the putts or where the ball is furthest away from the hole left or right depending on the break. And what you want to work on doing is aiming the club up to that point where you’ve decided where the break is and then making sure you get the ball around the coin or around the tee peg. That will now mean that once the ball is at its maximum break point, the ball will start coming back down the slope towards the hole and it’s going to topple into the hole in the side of the hole as it approaches. If you don’t get the ball all the way out to that high spot, the break is going to bring the ball back down, it’s going to start dropping too early down towards the hole and it’s always going to fall short and won’t have a chance to go in it at all.
So work on getting that tee peg or that coin out on the green and making sure the ball goes round the outside. Now if you are not sure how far to put the coin or the tee peg out for where the maximum break is, one drill you could try is if you create a string line, so you could do those with 2 tee pegs or if you’ve got something like 2 little knitting needles, put one into one side of the ball and the other to the far side of the hole. So you are just creating a straight line between the ball and the hole. You now hit your putt down that line and then you’ll watch how the ball curves away from the line. So you are picking up on the break of that putt. Okay so now you’ve seen how the ball curves away from the line. What we need to do is get the ball to curve into the hole. So we’ve got to now take the point that’s holding this string next to the hole out of the ground and move it right or left depending on the curve that we’ve seen away from the hole. We are going to put it in a position where we are going to do exactly the same thing, we are going to put directly along that line and we are going to experience the same curve of the ball coming off the line but now you should notice that the ball curves off that line and finishes in the hole. So it’s exactly the same concept. You are working on getting the ball up to the high spot on that breaking putt and then watching it from that high spot curve back down to the hole and into the hole. And as I said, if you don’t get the ball up to the high spot, the ball is always going to finish short and if it’s short of the hole, it hasn’t got a chance of going in. So work on getting the ball up to that high spot the next time you are facing a big breaking putt, you should find your putting really improves and you maybe even hold the putt. 2014-04-14 Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
If you’ve got a really big breaking putt it’s absolutely crucial that you work on getting the ball to the high spot on that break. Now the best way you can work on doing that is if you take a coin or take a tee peg and as a drill go to a green where there is a really big break on the green and then work on putting the tee peg or the coin to where you feel the high spot is on the break. So that’s the area where the maximum curve is on the putts or where the ball is furthest away from the hole left or right depending on the break. And what you want to work on doing is aiming the club up to that point where you’ve decided where the break is and then making sure you get the ball around the coin or around the tee peg. That will now mean that once the ball is at its maximum break point, the ball will start coming back down the slope towards the hole and it’s going to topple into the hole in the side of the hole as it approaches. If you don’t get the ball all the way out to that high spot, the break is going to bring the ball back down, it’s going to start dropping too early down towards the hole and it’s always going to fall short and won’t have a chance to go in it at all.
So work on getting that tee peg or that coin out on the green and making sure the ball goes round the outside. Now if you are not sure how far to put the coin or the tee peg out for where the maximum break is, one drill you could try is if you create a string line, so you could do those with 2 tee pegs or if you’ve got something like 2 little knitting needles, put one into one side of the ball and the other to the far side of the hole. So you are just creating a straight line between the ball and the hole. You now hit your putt down that line and then you’ll watch how the ball curves away from the line. So you are picking up on the break of that putt. Okay so now you’ve seen how the ball curves away from the line. What we need to do is get the ball to curve into the hole. So we’ve got to now take the point that’s holding this string next to the hole out of the ground and move it right or left depending on the curve that we’ve seen away from the hole. We are going to put it in a position where we are going to do exactly the same thing, we are going to put directly along that line and we are going to experience the same curve of the ball coming off the line but now you should notice that the ball curves off that line and finishes in the hole.
So it’s exactly the same concept. You are working on getting the ball up to the high spot on that breaking putt and then watching it from that high spot curve back down to the hole and into the hole. And as I said, if you don’t get the ball up to the high spot, the ball is always going to finish short and if it’s short of the hole, it hasn’t got a chance of going in. So work on getting the ball up to that high spot the next time you are facing a big breaking putt, you should find your putting really improves and you maybe even hold the putt.
