“In a normal putting stroke, both ends of the putter can move off line. By anchoring the butt of the club in your stomach with a belly putter, you guarantee that only one end of the club is moving. That makes for a much steadier stroke, especially for somebody who’s a little shaky with that top hand.”
-Hank Haney

Lets say you are a bowler, and they come out with a new type of ball that makes it a lot easier to throw with proper technique. The cost is about the same, both are legal by PBA rules, but one eliminates the most common human errors and the other is the traditional ball. I would guess most bowlers would choose the ball that encourages proper technique vs. the one that is harder to throw in every way.

Yet, golfers all over the place are willing to putt 40 times and yip their way around greens instead of trying the long putter.

I am not suggesting that a belly putter makes a bad putter a good one, but I am suggesting that it takes out a lot of human error and with practice can make a once bad putter a much better putter.

At the very least, its worth a try.

Meelosh

LAW 7:
Every par-three hole in the world has a secret
desire to humiliate golfers. The shorter the hole,
the greater its desire.
LAW 8:
Palm trees eat golf balls.
LAW 9:
Sand is alive. It will swallow your balls.
LAW 10:
A golfer hitting into your group will always be
bigger than anyone in your group. Likewise, a
group you accidentally hit into will consist of a
football player, a professional wrestler, a
convicted murderer and an IRS agent — or some
similar combination.
LAW 11:
All 3-woods are demon-possessed .
LAW 11:
All 3-woods are demon-possessed .

LAW 12:
Golf balls from the same “sleeve” tend to follow
one another, particularly out of bounds or into the
water (See LAW 3).
LAW 13:
A severe slice is a thing of awesome power and beauty.
LAW 14:
The person you would most hate to lose to will
always be the one who beats you.
LAW 15 :
The last three holes of a round will automatically
adjust your score to what it really should be.
LAW 16:
Golf should be given up at least twice per month.
LAW 17:
All vows taken on a golf course shall be valid only
until the sunset.
LAW 18:
Since bad shots come in groups of three, your
fourth consecutive bad shot is really the beginning
of the next group of three.
LAW 19:
When you look up and cause an awful shot, you
will always look down again at exactly the
moment when you should have continued
watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.
LAW 20:
The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to
share his ideas about your swing.
LAW 21:
If it isn’t broke, try changing your grip.
LAW 22:
Golfers who claim they don’t cheat, also lie.
LAW 23:
A golf match is a test of your skill against your
opponent’s luck.
LAW 24:
It’s surprisingly easy to hole a 50-foot putt when
you lie 8.
LAW 25:
Counting on your opponent to inform you when he
breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of
his own haircut.
LAW 26:
Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts.

LAW 27:
It’s not a gimme if you’re still away.
LAW 28:
The shortest distance between any two points on
a golf course is a straight line that passes directly
through the center of a very large tree.
LAW 29:
You can hit a 2-acre fairway 10% of the time,
and a 2-inch branch 90% of the time.

 
LAW 30:
Every Time a golfer makes a birdie, he must
subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore
the fundamental equilibrium of the Universe.
LAW 31:
If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as Tiger Woods
does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard.
LAW 32:
There are two things you can learn by stopping
your backswing at the top and checking the
position of your hands: how many hands you have,  and which one is wearing the glove.
LAW 33:
Hazards attract; fairways repel.

 LAW 34:
You can put “draw” on the ball, you can put “fade”
on the ball, but no golfer can put “straight” on the ball.
LAW 35:
A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.
LAW 36:
Don’t buy a putter until you’ve had a chance to throw it.
LAW 36:
Don’t buy a putter until you’ve had a chance to throw
it.

first off I have a pre-putt routine that i use, just like i have a pre shot routine that i use always for my full swing…
my putting routine is: when walking to my putt i look at the over all green (high points and low points that are around the green like mounds and water) and the grain of the green, (if it’s a shiny silver it is down grain, if it’s dark green it is into the grain), i then look at the putt from the ball to the hole, and picture the high point of the break, if i can’t figure out which detection it is going from behind the ball i look from the hole to my ball and try to read it picking out a spot in both directions to aim at… i then line up to the angle of my spot compared to the hole, take one practice stroke looking down then one looking at the hole, just to get a feel visually for the speed… i also picture when i look at the hole the ball rolling and falling in the hole, good mental image. i then step over the putt make my stroke and all i worry about is making a good stroke, once i have done that the result is out of my hands. I can’t be mad about a putt i missed when i made a good try at it, i can be if i made a terrible stroke and it had no chance at all…

with the drill i am going to talk about you can use training aids to help produce a correct putting stroke. I use the learning curve by Stan Utley’s Learning Curve to sometimes get my putting stroke on plane… great gift for the golfer in your life

The other day I was on the practice green and thinking about fun ways to force myself to focus and treat my practice time like it meant something on the course. I decided to mix together a couple different putting drills that I have read/ seen/ done in the past… i took the 3 foot circle drill and the pressure putting drill and turned it into a new type of drill/ game… You mark off from the edge of the hole 3 different evenly space putts in four directions, place tees in the green to make there locations, once you are done it will form a plus sign with the hole in the middle and 4 locations with 3 tees each, i used 6ft, 12ft, and 18ft because mid range putting is where you can really drop some strokes along with short putting… Since i was working with mid range putts i had a goal to hole at least 6 of the 12 putts that were in the set, no you can’t retry each putt if you miss one you must move on to the next putt or set… set a goal for yourself mine was 6, im working to get that many 8 out of ten times, then the other 2 make 7 or 8… from 6 feet you shouldn’t miss very often, from 12 more so and 18 feet is a bonus… you can use this concept for 3, 4, 5 feet if you want, it depends on where your game is the weakest in putting, if you need to work on lag putting then make it where you want to hole 3 in 96putts (8 sets if you use 30, 35, 40 in 4 detections) and not 3 putt any of them… when i say lagg putting i mean longer then 30 feet 31-99 feet… when you are outside of 20 feet you simply don’t want to 3 putt majority of the time… lag it up to a 3 foot circle, the closer the bettor…

here is the catch to this drill/ game, you can’t stop the drill until you reach your goal, if you have a goal to make 4 out of 12 putts with distances of what i used 6, 12, 18 feet then do it until you make that amount of putts, if you make it through the first 3 sets and have your goal go through all for and make you total amount your new goal, so if you make 4 3 times in a row but make 5 1 of the 3 make 5 your new goal… if you make 5 3 times in a row but holed 6 once 7 once make 6 your constant goal, just keep working to make it one higher… just be honest with yourself and work towards your goals… drive for show putt for doe…

for a reference as to what you could work towards percentage wise for holed putts and number of 3 putts, I saw for PGA Your pros of holed putts (source: shot by shot’s software) 1-3 feet: 99%, 4-5 feet: 84%, 6-10 feet: 50%, 11-15 feet: 31%, 16-20 feet: 17%, 21-30 feet: 10%, 31 - 50 feet 3%. Majority of people will drop strokes simply meeting these number on each of there rounds… But I’m not done with putting stats i have averages for 3 putting as well (source: shot by shot’s software)… 1-10 feet: never, 11-20 feet: 2%, 21-30 feet: 4%, 31-40 feet: 5%, 41-50 feet: 20%, 51-99 feet: 16%

hope this is informative to someone, i enjoyed blogging about it…

until next time,
jmiller065

Some rounds I go low and play great, for example i shoot a 34 on a par 36 (only played the front 9 of the course). The course wasn’t extremely tough, but it’s not simple either. I went and played 18 holes at a harder course over the weekend and shoot an 80. I couldn’t putt worth a crap. 34 total putts later it was a mess.

Anyways, I have been thinking about getting bettor and how to accomplish that. First off I want to say that i work 40 hours a week Monday through Friday. I can’t do a Tiger day which starts at 8am and ends and 8pm.
My thoughts and plans on how to get from a 3 handicap to scratch or bettor. So, in other words my goal is to lower my handicap by at least 3 or more. the ultimate goal would be a +3 to +5 handicap (PGA Tour level).

just to give some background in how i break down the golf swing:
mechanics (grip posture, alignment, etc)
The Swing (arm swing [releasing the club], body swing [upper and lower] and contact)
Advanced Swing (tempo, ball flight, controlling spin)

Here Is the practice schedule i have lay out for myself.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday:
30 minutes focusing on one aspect of my short game (pitching, chipping, putting, etc.)
15 minutes on the range focusing on one aspect of mechanics. (for me typically alignment)
30 minutes on the range focusing on one aspect of the swing (for me currently the arm swing)
30 minutes on the range focusing on one aspect of the advanced swing (currently it’s tempo for me)
15 minutes on the range focusing on the previous two aspects working as a unit (working together)

Tuesday and Thursday:
30 minute warm up, my routine is typically 8iron, 5iron, 5wood, Driver, LW, PW, then if I have played the course before i will practice the 1st hole. Tee Shoot, Approach Shoot, and pretend I missed the green and hit some kind of pitch shot. I’m just tryign to get loosend up and understand where my miss is going to be that day (left with a hook, left with a pull, right with a slice, etc.)
I then putt for 5 minutes to gauge a speed of the greens and i go and play 9 holes. I don’t really keep to close attention to my score, rather I view my stats as most important and i chose one area to try and lower that round, for instance, if my average number of putts per 18 holes is 32 i want to get that down to 30 or lower.

Saturday and Sunday:
I play 18 holes, both days. I come to the course with at least 1 hour before my tee time. if it’s a tournament i come with at lest 1.5 hours before my tee time. I will take 15 minutes on putting, 15 minutes on pitching, 15 minutes on chipping,

Hopefully you can find this helpful.

According to their website these are the
differences:

After reading Stan’s book I got rid of the Odyssey 2 ball putter which had been in bag for about 5 years and bought a blade style putter (Taylormade Rossa Daytona).  I then adopted Stan’s method and I haven’t looked back since.  My playing partners now consider me as a good putter and when we play Ambrose I always putt last and invariably I sink’em.  Also my handicap has come down from 12ish to 6.5 in less than a year, and I average 32 putts around with a low putting round of 29.

Last night my team won our twilight series which had been played over the last 15 weeks. Our prize believe it or not was new “Yes” putters.  I grabbed the “Tracy II” and stuffed it into my bag.  Then to the amusement of my playing partner ripped the plastic of it on the first green this morning, two putted from 15 feet for a par and went on to have five 1 putts and 32 putts for the day.

The Art of Putting: The Revolutionary Feel-Based System for Improving Your Score
retails for $16.50 US and is available from Amazon.

If you are an average putter (36 per round) you will only ever be an average golfer.
To be a good golfer you need to be a good putter and if you are a great putter then anything is possible