My Putting Lesson

[tony@CIC]

Over the past month I've been putting terrible so as part of my lesson package I bite the bullet and took a lesson last week. What's interesting is that I can never recall taking one in all the years I golfed - shame on me.  Some of the changes he made; : standing over the ball more, trail shoulder down and shaft angled slightly forward., elbows locked to my sides and knees locked - pressing inward. The latter was especially interesting as he said it keeps you from turning your lower body. I do have a short video but for some reason it won't upload even though it's only 41mb - guess I'll keep trying. 

And the drill he wants me to do! 

Set up two rows of balls starting 18" from the hole and working backwards 2 balls every 6". The drill is to hole out each ball and if you miss you have to start over again. When you get to the point of holing out the rows the you move onto 3 sets of balls.  Man this sounds simple  - but, I was on the practice green today until my back hurt trying. I'd get to the next to the last row and I'd miss - time to start again. I think the instructor is a sadist 

p.s. One additional item is that he felt the putter head is too light and suggested adding some lead tape - fortunately I happen to have 2 - 25 gm. weights that I could swap out from the stock 15 gm. weights. 

We'll see how all of this works next week. Meanwhile I'm off to the putting green later today - once my back recovers with some help from  a 'Fat Tire' or maybe two bottles. 

 

 

 

[sirchunksalot]

3 hours ago, tony@CIC said:

Over the past month I've been putting terrible so as part of my lesson package I bite the bullet and took a lesson last week. What's interesting is that I can never recall taking one in all the years I golfed - shame on me.  Some of the changes he made; : standing over the ball more, trail shoulder down and shaft angled slightly forward., elbows locked to my sides and knees locked - pressing inward. The latter was especially interesting as he said it keeps you from turning your lower body. I do have a short video but for some reason it won't upload even though it's only 41mb - guess I'll keep trying. 

And the drill he wants me to do! 

Set up two rows of balls starting 18" from the hole and working backwards 2 balls every 6". The drill is to hole out each ball and if you miss you have to start over again. When you get to the point of holing out the rows the you move onto 3 sets of balls.  Man this sounds simple  - but, I was on the practice green today until my back hurt trying. I'd get to the next to the last row and I'd miss - time to start again. I think the instructor is a sadist 

p.s. One additional item is that he felt the putter head is too light and suggested adding some lead tape - fortunately I happen to have 2 - 25 gm. weights that I could swap out from the stock 15 gm. weights. 

We'll see how all of this works next week. Meanwhile I'm off to the putting green later today - once my back recovers with some help from  a 'Fat Tire' or maybe two bottles. 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing your experience with us! That drill looks extremely difficult and I can imagine the frustration of nearly finishing and having to start over. Hopefully you won't be standing over the balls so long that your back hurts again today.

[ParFore74x]

That looks like a pretty good drill, aside from the backache.   I may just have to try that one myself. 

[Pouetvl11]

I've seen and used a similar drill. In mine you can miss the hole but cannot go over more than 2 feet, put a club 2 feet pass the hole and if you touch it you are dead and restart. Also You cannot miss short. if you do you restart also... I'm still on the practice Green from my first session from last year... I do it with 1 feet in between ball, sometimes with 5 to 10 balls in a row. Basically it help you cut your 3 putt by controlling your distance.

[MNUte]

22 hours ago, tony@CIC said:

Man this sounds simple  - but, I was on the practice green today until my back hurt trying. I'd get to the next to the last row and I'd miss - time to start again. I think the instructor is a sadist 

 

 

That sounds like a great drill for the mental practice as well. The closer you get to the end the more the pressure mounts and the more room you have to get into your own head and "create" the miss. I'll have to try it out!

[cksurfdude]

Yeah looks like a really good drill, and seems like a very good complement to the Around The Clock drill .. that I like and use a lot.

Interesting, though, that the two lines are pretty close together - did the instructor suggest using a flat part of the practice green? 

[Kenny B]

22 hours ago, tony@CIC said:

Over the past month I've been putting terrible so as part of my lesson package I bite the bullet and took a lesson last week. What's interesting is that I can never recall taking one in all the years I golfed - shame on me.  Some of the changes he made; : standing over the ball more, trail shoulder down and shaft angled slightly forward., elbows locked to my sides and knees locked - pressing inward. The latter was especially interesting as he said it keeps you from turning your lower body. I do have a short video but for some reason it won't upload even though it's only 41mb - guess I'll keep trying. 

And the drill he wants me to do! 

Set up two rows of balls starting 18" from the hole and working backwards 2 balls every 6". The drill is to hole out each ball and if you miss you have to start over again. When you get to the point of holing out the rows the you move onto 3 sets of balls.  Man this sounds simple  - but, I was on the practice green today until my back hurt trying. I'd get to the next to the last row and I'd miss - time to start again. I think the instructor is a sadist 

p.s. One additional item is that he felt the putter head is too light and suggested adding some lead tape - fortunately I happen to have 2 - 25 gm. weights that I could swap out from the stock 15 gm. weights. 

We'll see how all of this works next week. Meanwhile I'm off to the putting green later today - once my back recovers with some help from  a 'Fat Tire' or maybe two bottles. 

Good drill!  What's the odd ball in the pic?

Only 41mb!!    Waaay too big.  I'd like to see the video; maybe you can compress or upload to YT??

[tony@CIC]

3 hours ago, cksurfdude said:

did the instructor suggest using a flat part of the practice green? 

He did - but it's impossible to find one on our practice green. 

[Kenny B]

6 hours ago, tony@CIC said:

He did - but it's impossible to find one on our practice green. 

I wish ours had some slope.  It's nice to practice drills like this one, and it's nice to get the speed of the day on 25-30 footers; but we don't have any green to practice uphill/downhill L to R and R to L putts which are common on our course.  I've spoken to the pro and the Super would like to modify the putting green, but it's a muni and likely won't have funds to do that when other maintenance needs attention.