{"id":603,"date":"2009-10-10T13:51:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-10T13:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/?p=603"},"modified":"2014-03-10T21:50:07","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T21:50:07","slug":"how-to-sink-short-putts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/how-to-sink-short-putts\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Sink Short Putts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Short putts are the ones from four feet and under. They\u2019re the ones you just have to sink and are so afraid of not sinking. So you miss. Is that you? That was me. Here\u2019s how I solved the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The hole is a negative space. We\u2019re trying to hit the ball at something that isn\u2019t there. How can you hit something that isn\u2019t there? That doesn\u2019t make sense to me. What does make sense is to hit the ball at something that is<\/i> there. That gives our mind something positive to aim at, something much easier to hit. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Whenever I practice short putts, I put a water bottle in the hole, and practice hitting the bottle. It\u2019s so simple it should be a crime. Really. You can\u2019t miss. Instead of trying to ease a ball into a tiny opening in the ground, you\u2019re aiming at the broad side of a barn and actually hitting it. There\u2019s a real target to aim at, and that takes off all the pressure. Try it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Best of all, you will never see the ball roll past an empty hole. Never. That implants a wonderful affirmation: \u201cI never miss the hole.\u201d Now your conscious mind might say, \u201cThat\u2019s because you never hit at one!\u201d but we don\u2019t listen to that mind. We\u2019re training the subconscious mind, which knows only black and white. If it never sees the ball miss the hole, it comes to believe, \u201cI never miss.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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After you\u2019ve practiced this way for long enough, the image of an object sticking out of the hole sticks with you. When you\u2019re playing, even though you\u2019re looking at an empty hole, you see the bottle sticking up out of it. In your mind, the task becomes, hit the bottle. If you do, since there\u2019s really no bottle there, the ball goes in the hole. Simple.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If the short ones give you fits, if you\u2019d rather putt from six feet than two, try putting at a bottle on the practice green for a few sessions. Warm up this way before you play, too. It will change everything.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Short putts are the ones from four feet and under. They\u2019re the ones you just have to sink and are so afraid of not sinking. So you miss. Is that you? That was me. Here\u2019s how I solved the problem. The hole is a negative space. We\u2019re trying to hit the ball at something that … Continue reading How To Sink Short Putts<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-putting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4qtRQ-9J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therecreationalgolfer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}