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.