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Home | Contents |
| "From
The Ground Up / How To Shoot In The 70's"
Chapter Four: Putting |
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It always comes down to putting. Why? Simply enough because it is the final step of the object of the game. To me golf's magic, it's strength, it's overwhelming appeal is entrenched within its simple objective. Take a small round spherical object and hit it into a hole with sticks. It is amazing what has become the most actively participated in sport, started, and remains the most simple of concepts. I have many times wondered if this compelling game's popularity and appeal comes from our past. How many times has man played this game from prehistoric times up until today. Golf probably was reinvented millions or even billions of times by every man who ever had a stick in his hand and a small stone nearby. Of course, it needed to be organized into a sport with rules and procedures to make it what it has been for the last few centuries. However I believe its appeal is held in its overwhelmingly simple object of hit a ball in a hole. I think it helps that most people can physically play the game, but the same is true of many games which do not have the mass appeal golf has. Anyway, putting is the act which actually gets the ball into the hole, well 99% of the time. I don't know the exact % putting occupies for different handicaps, but a player spends at least 35%, usually more with his putter in his hands. It is by far the most used club in the bag. Like it or not it is therefore a very important factor in shooting low scores. Why is the hole so small? Obviously if it were larger, say the size of a bucket, the importance of putting would be diminished. However when this great game was developed a drain pipe was used as the standard cup and not a bucket. So we are involved in getting a small ball to roll along the ground into a hole approximately 2 1/2 times the size of the ball, and even though the ground over which it rolls is well prepared even a putt of 3 ft. requires accuracy and judgment. Which brings us to
how to putt with accuracy and judgment. As you might expect I have
a Drill and a couple of practice routines for putting, but first lets address
the judgment part. This is a highly neglected part of the game for
most high handicap golfers. I don't know
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