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The idea behind this clinic is to give you a complete picture of the best way to walk onto a putting green and make the putt you are facing. If it is the first hole, it will be the first time you have rolled the ball on the actual course putting surface. What exactly should be going on in your mind, and what preparations should you have already made to ensure that you will make your best effort to knock in that putt and save yourself one, two, or three strokes off of your eventual 18 hole score. I will list my thoughts in outline form for your easy reference, and elaborate only slightly. I encourage you to sit down after the clinic and fill in details that you remember and that struck you as particularly important.
1. Before playing you need to hit practice putts on the practice putting green. At Woodmont, that would mean using the large green in front of the clubhouse if you are playing the South Course, and the new green in front of the pro shop if you are playing the North. Hit some long putts first, then some uphill and downhill putts. You are trying to get a feel for the pace of the greens, as well as a feel for your stroke. Hit breaking putts, short putts, mid range putts, and try to take your time and read a few of them to see if you are getting a feel for amounts of break and speed. Spend about 10 to 15 minutes here before you tee off. I like to do this first thing, before I hit balls, then hit a few more after I warm up on the driving range.
2. When you walk onto the green for your first putt, you should already be aware of your surroundings. In other words, you are already trying to “read” the putt. Which way does the green slope? Many times you can see general slope better from a small distance than when you are already standing on the green. Is your putt uphill or downhill? Can you tell if it’s obviously going to break one way or another? Does the green surface appear to be similar to the practice green? Does it look faster, or slower? One thing is for sure about all putts: you are always guessing about every element of the putt before you pull the trigger. No one can see into the future, so you can’t really be “sure” that the putt will be the way you see it; however, the better you get at guessing, the more confident you become that your guess is a good one, and that is a large factor in eventually making more putts.
3. Now you must mark your ball, fix your ball mark, and start figuring out specifically how you are going to hit your putt. I normally look at the line of the putt from directly behind the ball after I mark and clean off the ball. Then, while paying attention not to step in the line of my playing partners’ lines, I will walk around to other side of the hole for another look. Do not wait to do this until it is your turn. If you wish to walk around the hole do it before it is your turn so that it doesn’t take so long. If you are to putt first in your group, you should do this first before marking your ball. Most slow play is caused by taking too much time on the greens.
4. In looking at a putt you are assessing the slope of the green in terms of speed and break. Let’s say you have a 10-foot putt: you need to decide how hard you need to hit the putt to get it up to and about a foot past the hole, and given that speed you need to decide specifically where you need to aim relative to the hole in order for the ball to curve into the cup. If you decide the putt is not going to curve at all, then you would tell yourself “straight in”. If the putt is on a side slope and you think it is going to break to the left, then you need to pick an amount of space to the side of the hole, tell yourself to aim to that spot, say, “two inches outside the hole to the right”, and hit the ball toward that spot.
5. You are always considering that the optimum speed for any putt is to have it end up about a foot past the hole if it were to miss. If the putt is uphill then you will have to remind yourself of that fact and perhaps add the word “firm” into your read, such as “straight in and firm”. Most uphill putts need to fall into the hole and hit the cup on the backside of the hole to have enough energy to end up a foot past. Sometimes I will tell myself to hit the back of the cup with a putt that seems like it might be a bit slow. For a downhill, faster putt, the opposite is true. For the ball to stop a foot past the hole it probably has to just drop in over the front edge of the hole. You might remind yourself of this by adding “soft”, or “easy” to your read. Always try to see the putt go in at optimum speed in your mind before you putt. This can be done in your “routine”.
6. A “routine” is everything you do before you actually hit the putt. It is called a routine because you literally do it exactly the same way every time you hit a putt that you need to mark and take your time on, which usually is everything over 15 inches or so. I start my routine from about 10 feet behind the ball. I stand directly on the line I wish to start the ball on, and I am “reading” the putt, or deciding where to aim, as I am standing there. I usually take a couple of practice strokes while facing the hole and looking at the line, then I walk up to the ball and set up for a practice stroke. I usually take two practice strokes from the side of the ball, standing exactly parallel to my intended line. I may either look at the hole or at the ball while doing this, or I may do one of each. I am trying to make my practice strokes exact duplicates of the stroke I am about to try to use to hit the ball. At this point I will slide the putter head over to the ball, aim the face of the putter, and take my stance. I will look up at the hole once or twice, then hit the putt. You will notice that not everything I do is exactly regimented. I want my routine to have some flexibility so that I don’t fell bound to do exactly the same thing every time. The idea is to do almost the same thing, but to leave some room for “feel”. That means that if you fell ready to hit the putt after one look, do it. If you want to look one more time, do that. Don’t worry about being exactly precise. Putting is an art, and we should leave some of what we do to instinct and feel.