PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

[prakcom]

Hi!
What is the best way to practice, to hit golf balls to correct distance on the greens, using the co-relation of putting distance and the putter speed (back swing distance in pendulam style).

What are the methods used by Professionals to repeatedly shoot the ball at corrects speed for the exact distance (apart from the numbers of hours of practicing their game and getting that feel).

[GregJWillis]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

Take a look at my putting drill. Talks about this very thing.
http://members.cox.net/gregjwillis/LESSON4.htm

[LowPost42]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

The trick is to take your putter back the same distance all the time, and then decelerate the right amount to die the ball into the hole. At least, that's what I do.

Seriously, though, Greg has provided what you're looking for. Follow his link.

[prakcom]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

Thanks, Greg's lesson is good and with some practice things should start shaping up well.

[gark]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

Have you heard of the concept of 'putting while looking at the hole'?

The main ideas of this concept are:

- similar to throwing or lobbing a ball at somebody which we do by just looking at the person, doing a few practice swings then executing, putting is the same way. By staring at the hole and absorbing its distance from you, our brain automatically computes how strong we have to stroke the ball for it to get close to the hole.

- after looking at the hole, the longer time we spend not looking at hole - in the case of putting, we look down at the ball - the more we lose this previously computed stroke strength feeling.

At its purest form, putting while looking at the hole means exactly that.
a) perform your regular practice strokes while looking at the hole
b) step forward to address the ball, place your putter behind the ball as quickly as possible, look back up at the hole. Look at the hole for a few seconds
c) perform your actual putt while looking at the hole.

I can definitely say that following most of the principles of this concept has improved my putting (of all lengths) tremendously.

The only part that I changed was the part where I had to look at the hole while executing the actual putt. It always gave me this weird uneasy feeling that I was going to miss the ball or at least not hit it flush and pure.

I do a) and b) as described above but for c) I do a slight variation.
c*) After looking at the hole for a seconds, I look down at the ball. Without any hesitation, right at the moment that I see the ball, I then start my actual stroke. Doing this doesn't seem to have any negative effect on my putt.

Another change that improved my putting was allowing for the ball to die a couple of feet (or whatever you consider a gimme) beyond the hole.
What this does is to straighten the putt and allow you to not aim too far outside the hole and also lessens the chances of being short.

[doogkie]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

you dont think about how hard or far you pull your arm back when you throw a baseball, so neither should your putter, i basically just look at it and feel how hard i need to hit the ball with this putter to get it there


works for me

[prakcom]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

Thanks everyone for the advise.

After some practice I was able to get the ball in or within 15" from the hole.

Actually, I had changed my old putter with this new 2-ball odessey and things had gone from max 2-putts to 3+ putts (which was quite bad on the nerves).

Even though I am getting the distance correct but I am still finding little difficulty in aiming, the reason may be that I was used to "aiming line" on my old putter and now I have 2-balls on the putter to aim.

ANY IDEAS

[mariner]

Re: PUTTING-Distance/PUTTER-Speed

You could try one of those little kits where you draw a line round the equator of the ball, then line it up with your target - then you only have to worry about speed.