Hole out with confidence
1Conviction and freedom
When you have a tap-in from six inches, you’ll go up to it very confidently and knock it in without worrying. If you can adopt that mentality on all your putts, you’ll hole a lot more of them. They won’t all go in, of course, but try and treat them all like six-inch tap-ins and you’ll roll them with a lot more confidence and freedom. And don’t beat yourself up if you do miss a six-footer or an even shorter one. The PGA Tour average from six feet is around 70 per cent, so you should have realistic expectations. If you hole half of your putts from around that length, that’s exceptional.
2 Don’t peek too early
One of the big mistakes on short putts is sneaking a look at the hole and not trusting your stroke. This makes you come out of the putt a touch early. Your upper body then rises up a little, affecting your strike and often causing a miss left (for right-handers). Drills in which you putt either looking at the hole or with your eyes closed can help prevent this.
4Line your ball up precisely
Draw a line on your ball and aim it exactly where you want to start it. It will also help you to line the ball up in the middle of the face. How the line rolls tells you if you’ve hit a good putt – it should stay straight rather than wobbling - and how good your green reading is. If your putts start where you want, roll end over end with good pace and still aren’t going in, you’re misreading them. 3
You need to get the speed of the greens before you play. Putt to the edge of the practice green from four, six, eight and ten feet. Watch the ball all the way to its finish to take in how fast it’s rolling and how it’s releasing out. Not putting to a hole removes the emotion of holing or missing, so you can focus on calibrating your stroke to the speed of the greens.
Get confident with the pace