When you know how to putt consistently (by using your shoulders and natural tempo of the putt to hit the ball time and time again), you can use a simple drill to teach yourself the correct distance control for putts on any type of green you visit, whether they be fast or slow.

All you do when you arrive at the course, go to the putting green and drop a ball next to a hole. Then with a relaxed tempo and smooth stroke just putt away from the hole (on a flat surface away from the hole, not uphill or downhill). Then walk to where-ever the ball finished and face the hole. You have just putted the correct distance from that hole, so you know what sort of tempo you need to get perfect length on the putt. The practice greens are designed to teach you the general speed out on the course, so take 10 minutes to learn the speed of the greens this way before you go out and play.

I’ve heard of Ben Crenshaw, but don’t know much about him. I’m guessing he was largely before my time, but nonetheless some sound advice on putting which I found useful, namely:

• don’t try to look like anyone else when you putt
• be comfortable when you putt, stop worrying so much about technique

A hard topic to explain really, but an important one so here goes…

You need to learn to feel your balance in the bottom of your feet, and nowhere is this more important than at address. If you are out of balance to start the swing, it’s not going to end very well That weight in your feet tells you what’s going on in the upper body, so learn to feel where the weight is!

This obviously ties in quite heavily with a correct setup position (which is tedious to try and explain so I won’t for now), but once setup correctly I believe you should feel most of your weight in your heels. It’s part of my setup thoughts. Before I pull the club away I make sure my weight is in my heels, and perfectly centered on my heels so I cannot fall forward nor backwards. The reason the weight needs to be on the heels is because at the top of the backswing we want to reach the feeling of a seated position on our right heel. I found if my weight was too far forward on my feet by the time I reached the top of my backswing my head had moved towards the ball several inches, my hips had also moved forward instead of rotating correctly. When you can keep the weight on your heels for the setup and the backswing and you feel as if you are in a near sitting position at the top of the backswing, it’s a good sign you are in balance and your weight is where it should be.

That’s about the best I can explain about balance. You learn it through feedback in your feet. With that information you need to teach yourself to feel it. A good drill is to focus on where the weight is at address, then take your backswing and STOP and feel where the weight is again. You may be surprised at how your weight is no longer perfectly on your heels as it was at address. Use that feedback!

A friend of mine at the driving range and I chat for a long time about various golfing styles and things we’ve learned here and there. A very useful tip we picked up came from Jesper Parnevik (did I spell that right?) and some clinic information he gave about putting at some point in time. It was as follows:

He told it like a secret he was not supposed to tell. He mentioned how the pros will tell you to keep your eyes square over the ball, keep your elbows tucked into your sides, good alignment, all the rest, but they won’t tell you to arch your wrists forward. And every good putter does it. It’s instinctive for a golfer NOT to do this because when holding any other club we essentially do the opposite. We arch our wrists in the other direction! (probably because we are trying to get lag?) When putting, however, to help get the putter head square on the ground and keep minimal rotational movement in your hands throughout the putt, arch your wrists forward so your thumbs and forearms form a straight line.

All I can say is I’ve tried it and it’s worked for me. Between this and some of Geoff Magnum’s putting advice, plus a whole new putting grip designed to get the putter in my palms more (called the reverse overlap I think), I am starting to become a very capable putter. I hope it works for you.

Somehow I came across this guy called Geoff Magnum and his site about putting. God knows the website is horrible, very first generation web design, confusing to find your way around to say the least, but in amongst the horror that is his website I found some very valuable information. And I mean ’some’, because most of it is totally over the top in my opinion. I’d ignore the videos altogether, he just seems to go on and on about very basic things that I don’t believe really need to be talked about (like the principles of the ball rolling, and how far over the hole the ball needs to go so it will drop in the hole …sorry Geoff I’m just being honest). But I figured “this guy has boring information like this, his website is horrible, yet he’s got some good rep on the forums, there has to be something here that is valuable” …and sure enough I found some useful advice which has changed my putting game like never before.

Some of his teaching’s are brilliant. You just have to sift through a lot to find the useful bits. If you visit that link above, scroll down and a mass of text should meet you. The tips I found useful are in amongst there. If you are keen on improving your putting and possible completely overhauling your putting style in favor of a method that will work time and time again, then this will possibly be of interest to you. If you’re just looking for a quick fix for your current putting style I’d say forget it. This guy has specific principles which must be met regarding how far you bend over when putting for the shoulder/eye/neck angles, those are the things I found interesting. And I believe if you are willing to change to some of his simple and effective methods you will become a better putter. It’s all simple angles after all

I have shaved 6 strokes off my putting in the last two weeks from these principles, which is the only reason I’m writing about it. It worked for me, so I like to pass potentially useful information on. Enjoy.