Everybody knows that the major influence in hitting a putt along a selected line is the orientation of the clubface. The clubface is square the starting line at address (if you are aimed correctly), and we want to get it back to square when the putter meets the ball during the stroke.

It would also be nice if the putter was travelling along the starting line at contact, and not to the right or left of it.

An easy way to solve both problems is to rest your upper arms lightly against your torso. When you swing the putter, in either direction, let your arms stay in contact, sliding back and forth on your torso.

If your hands do nothing but hold the putter, that is, add nothing of their own to the stroke, the putter has to perform as desired.

Don’t worry, the Rules of Golf allow this. It is your forearms that may not be anchored.

The less time you take with a putt, the more likely you are to hit a good one. Try it this way.

Stand behind the ball and read the putt quickly (how to do that is another post). Stop when you see the line. Don’t worry about speed. That is subconsciously built into finding the line.

Now find a spot on the starting line about three inches or less in front of the ball.

Step up to the ball and square up your putter to that line.

Get in your stance.

Take one more look at the hole, then back at the ball, and go–no waiting for the Muse to strike. Hit the ball right over your spot.

All this should take less than fifteen seconds.

Take the “hit” out of your stroke by imagining the ball is transparent to the putter such that it will go right through the ball to strike it first on the side closest to the hole (yellow dot).

Taking out the hit smooths out your stroke, making it more reliable.

At the time you would brace for that little hit, it has already occurred. (And if you think you don’t brace for the hit, think again. You do.)

When you hit an approach putt, you create a sort of stretched feeling on your lower back, because you are swinging your arms, but not turning your torso.

There are two things to notice about this stretched feeling. For any given length of approach putt, the stretched feeling will always be felt at the same place on your lower back.

Also, the stretched feeling for shorter approach putts gets felt on the right side of your lower back, and as the length of putt, and hence length of the putting stroke, increases, the stretched feeling migrates leftward across your lower back.

Please note that this is true only if the sole distance generator for an approach putt is the length of the putting stroke. That is, you do not add on any “hit” with your hands.

Consistently hitting putts on the same place on the putter’s face and using the same tempo in your stroke are important, too.

Spend some time on the practice green putting the ball with the stretched feeling in different places to see how far it goes each different time, and remember those location-distance relationships.

They allow you to relate the length of an approach putt to a known physical feeling instead of entrusting distance control to something vague called “feel.”

In a short time, you should start leaving approach putts close to the hole, and wave goodbye to three-putt greens.

See also: Leave Approach Putts Next to the Hole

Resting the putter on the ground at address means you have to lift it slightly when you make your stroke. That can cause a disturubance that throws off your stroke by enough for you to miss the putt.

Instead, address the ball so the sole barely grazes the grass and the weight of the club is already in your hands. This makes it easy to start the club back smoothly and calmly.

There are two ways to putt.

1. Read the green to get the line and the distance, step into a stance you have practiced, and hit the ball with a stroke you have practiced.

2. Get up to the ball and think to yourself, “Hit the ball into the hole.” Then do it.

One or the other.

There’s a common reason why you miss short putts. I mean putts of four feet or less. The reason is that you don’t read them correctly and a putt that should have gone straight in slithers off to the left.

How did that happen?

I think you know that when you read a 20-foot putt you pay attention to what is happening in the last few feet around the hole. That, and you’re reading the putt from about 25 feet away from the hole, make local slope, and the overall tilt of the green, clearly visible.

But with a four-foot putt, you might glance at it from seven or eight feet away, and that’s too close to detect what you can see from far away.

The answer is to back up and read those shorties from at least 15 feet away. Farther back would be even better. From there, you can see where the ball will roll to.

I have taken a devil-may-care attitude toward my golf game lately. In other words, I don’t play “smart” golf anymore. I attack.

You don’t make birdies if you don’t shoot at pins. You don’t lay up to “your distance.” Closer is always better.

And then there’s putting. Putting is about hitting the ball into the hole. That should be obvious, but it’s not.

What are we taught to do when we putt? Read the greeen. Get the line matched up with the speed. Set up to your starting line. Square up the putterface. Smooth stroke.

Where’s the hole in all that??!!

Instead, stand behind the ball and look at the hole. Fill your head with the thought of hitting the ball into it.

Then step up to the ball thinking the same thought and hit it in.

That simple.

When you’re awake, your conscious mind is always thinking about something. Choose the right thing for it to think about.

When you putt, do you get points for the quality of your mechanics? How well you read greens?

Of course not! You get points for hitting the ball in the hole. So think that, because that’s what you want to do!

I promise you if you try this you won’t putt any worse than you do right now. And you will probably putt better.

A few days ago a friend of mine, who took up golf late in life, asked me for some advice on reading greens. So I described how I go about it.

Later that day I wrote up the procedure and sent it to him in an e-mail message. Here it is.

1. Look at the putt from the side to notice any elevation changes along the line of the putt. You can also see if the ground along that line slopes toward you or away from you. Do this when you first walk on to the green.

2. Look at the entire green in the broad area of the putt to see the slope of the entire piece of ground.

3. Look at the local slope between the ball and the hole. Merge that read with what you got in #2.

4. Go with your first impression. It is usually correct. The longer you look the more you think you see.

5. With short putts, play the break, but do not give away the hole. Spend time on the practice green learning how to take out break by hitting a short putt harder.

6. Spot putt. Pick a mark on the green about two inches in front of the ball on your starting line. Roll the ball over that spot.

1. I’ve been doing something lately that has improved my ability to take the putter way from the ball on a straight line and return it on a straight line.

I rest the sole very lightly on the ground, not hovering it off the ground, but just lightly touching, instead of resting the putter on the ground with all of its weight.

What this does is avoids my having to lift the putter off the ground ever so slightly before I swing it back. The lifting motion can cause me to lose stability in my swing and take the putter back at an angle and spend effort to get it back on line. Not a good way to putt accurately.

I am sinking more putts than before, and this might be a reason.

2. Ever since we have been able to keep the flagstick in the hole when we putt I have been doing that.

A few days ago, though, I had a left-to-right breaking putt of about ten feet for a birdie. For some reason I walked up to the hole and took out the flagstick. I didn’t think about whether or not to take it out, it just seemed like the thing to do.

Sank the putt.

Maybe I’ll do this from now for putts I think are makeable. For approach putts that I can only expect to get close, having the flagstick in gives me a better idea of what the distance is.

3. Speaking of approach putts, for really long ones, 30 feet or more, I have been hitting them with an open stance.

Being turned a bit toward the hole puts my right hand, which has a great deal of sensitivity to propelling an object to a certain distance, as yours probably does, too, in control of the stroke.

The result is hitting the long ones closer than before.