Rolling the Rock

The most important part in bettering your game, is putting. If you three-putt every green, you're adding on 18 shots a round! That makes your 98 and 80 by simply two-putting every green. Sure, sounds easy in text, but it's not that difficult if you can learn how to control your speed. I see too many people trying to gauge the speed with wrong technique or they're simply trying to make the putt with speed excluded. Truth is, you need both to work with each other. When I was about 12, I lost all feel with my putting. I couldn't get anything near a hole. By near, I couldn't put a ball within 5 or 6 feet of the hole. It was pretty ugly. That saying; "Ray Charles could putt better than me." Goes very true to what I was going through. I've never taken lessons from many people. There may be three lessons I still take to the course with me every day. The putting tip I got that day while I was being miserable on the putting green got me through high school and college golf and helped me win numerous junior events. Plus, it helped me pass my play ability test for the PGA of America. It's by far the easiest drill you can learn.

Put a ball in your dominant hand, most commonly it's your low hand unless you use a cross handed grip. Now, just pick a spot, or hole on the putting green and toss the ball so that it rolls to your intended target. Try getting it to the spot as close as possible. You should only be using one hand and standing as if you're in you putting stance. You'll find that it's very easy to get the speed down after a couple tries. You'll also notice that you need to toss the ball a little bit harder on uphill puts and softer on your downhill puts. It's simple chemistry. Now, with your putter in hand, stand up to the ball and try to imagine you still hand the ball in your hand. When you stroke your putts, imagine you're using that low hand to toss the ball near the hole. You should have it down very quickly and easily. Once you start giving the ball chance to be near the hole, you'll start making more putts from longer distances, plus it eliminates three or four-putting a lot. It will really bring down the scores very quickly.

Come Inside. It's Nice in Here.

I used to have a huge problem of hitting the ball great for stretches and then hitting it sideways for 2 weeks. It happened during my college playing days when my coach hardly knew what a golf swing was and it happened when I had no one to help me. It took probably 3 years before I started figuring out that what I felt I was doing right, was never happening in my swing. In my head it felt like I took the club on plane and put my hands in a good position at the top of my swing. In fact I was. I reminded myself to take the club outside (by telling myself outside, it puts me on the right plane rather than inside.) and put my hands "in the top corner of a doorway". Both were fine. My problem was coming down. What felt like me releasing the club never happened.

Here's some steps to get you to come inside the ball and hit it solid and consistently. My plan for fixing this all started one year when I was caddying at the Verizon Heritage at Harbour Towne. While on the range with my player, I was watching Brett Wetterich hit balls. Brett has his umbrella laying on the ground pointed right at his target. From there he dropped balls on the inside of the umbrella and hit balls making divots all the way down the length of the umbrella. He would then roll the umbrella over into the line of the divots he just made and did it again with different clubs. I realized what he was doing and it took it upon myself to try it. The umbrella forces you on the right plane and reminds you to release your hands coming from the inside. Something I wasn't doing or doing consistently. When you release your hands the club never makes contact with the umbrella and allows you to get on the right plane. If you start nailing it down, it's really a great way to work on cuts and draws. For draws you want to have you club going about 5 yards rights of your target on the follow through. Or hold the club in horizontally on the follow through for a cut. 2 X 4's and driveway markers work just as well. It's a great reminder, and grooves your swing for those big tournaments coming up.