The key to approach putting

There is a simple way to hit your approach putts on the number. It involves knowing what physical impression the stroke for a certain distance makes on your body. I spoke of this in an earlier post, but this post goes into more detail.

This method works only if your putting stroke is a body stroke; that is, the rotation of your torso is the prime mover of the stroke. If you are all hands on the green, read no further.

Go to the practice green and hit several fifteen-foot putts. As you hit these putts, pay attention to any physical sensations you have at the apex of the stroke. For example, I feel certain compression of my upper back muscles on my right side.

What you have found is the physical feeling, for you, of a fifteen-foot putt. Now whenever you recreate that feeling, the putt will go fifteen feet. Simple.

Now make a longer stroke, one that hits the putt twenty-five feet, and look for the physical marker again. For me, it’s a stretching, or maybe a tugging, in the right side of my torso.

Finally, hit some putts that go thirty-five feet. When you have that distance down consistently, search once more for the indicator physical sensation. I feel a stretching or tugging sensation in my lower back.

After you’ve done this, you have found three reference feelings that produce approach putts of three definite lengths. Given a putt of that length, you merely have to reproduce the feeling as you make the stroke and the perfect distance is the result.

For putts between those reference point distances, use the feeling of the shorter stroke and add on a bit of hit with the hands.

For putts of longer than your longest reference stroke, you do the same thing–add a bit of hit with your hands. Practice will tell you how much.

If you calibrate your stroke in this way and memorize these feelings, there is no need ever to guess at how hard to hit an approach putt.

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