Over the years, golf philosophers have debated whether a player should charge putts toward the hole or knock them gently up to the cup. Both styles have their advocates with strong records on the green. What should you do? The answer is easy: both.
If you think about it for a moment, it’s easy to see that this is the best strategy. Each putt must be dealt with on its own terms. When you adopt one style, you wind up being good on some putts, but weak on others. Here’s how to decide which approach to take and when.
Start by looking at the length of the putt you face. If you look at a putt and think to yourself, “I can make this,” it’s probably a short putt of 10 feet or under. Your confidence that it can go in needs to be supported by your efforts. Hit this putt hard enough so that when it falls in the ball will hit the back of the cup before it hits the bottom.
What you should be concerned about are small imperfections around the hole, little bumps and dips you can’t see, that will knock the ball off line if it’s traveling too slowly. When you have a makable putt like this, give it every chance to go in. If you miss, you’re likely to have less than two feet coming back. Never up, never in.
Let’s step farther away from the hole now, and look at a putt that you know you don’t have a great chance to make, but you know you can leave close. This could be 20 feet away. Your object is to get down in two. Believe me, that’s all the pros want from here.
This is where you become a die putter. Judging the force of the stroke is more critical from this distance. Running the ball beyond the hole could leave you with a testy putt coming back and now you’re looking at a three-putt green. Just think about hitting this putt up to the hole. If you do, you’ll have an easy tap-in left over, and you’ll be around the hole often enough that some of them will go in.
Go back farther. We should be about 40 feet or more from the hole. Making this putt isn’t even a consideration, and leaving it tap-in close might be to much to ask. Here’s where we adopt a third strategy. Imagine a circle around the hole, maybe lined out in white chalk, about five feet across, and you want your putt to end up inside that circle.
Thinking about the hole from here will get you to thinking too much about direction and not enough about speed. Speed is the only thing you should think about from here once you have a general idea of the line. Having such a large target also serves to take the pressure off making a precise putt from a long way off. With a more realistic goal, there is a greater chance that you will achieve it.
Three kinds of putts, and a different way to think about each one. That’s the way to become a better player on the green.