What are the three basic skills required to be a good putter? Green Reading, start line, and most importantly speed control. Why is speed control most important? First, it is the starting point for green reading. You can’t properly identify a good aim point for a putt until you have decided on the speed at which you intend to roll the golf ball. On the other side, speed should be the last thing you focus on as you begin the stroke.
Speed is the priority for two main reasons. The first is obvious; 3 putt avoidance is mostly done by good speed control on the first putt making the second putt more manageable on a consistent basis. The second may be less obvious, but there is an ideal speed which allows a ball to stay on line through the lumpy doughnut that may appear around the hole but not arrive with too much speed so that the capture size of the hole is effectively shrunk down. In fact, the physics of it is that a ball which will travel 3 feet past the hole makes the hole’s capture size only about a third the size of the actual hole.
With so much focus put into the line of putts, from getting the perfect read, perfect aim, and perfect start line the focus on speed control becomes secondary and much less effective. In fact, we see the variance of speed control much greater with the average player than the variance of the start line. What does all this mean for you and your game? It means you should spend more time in practice working on green reading with speed as the starting point of the process. Also, more time spent practicing lag putting in different conditions and greens speeds will help you develop the instincts for speed control. This is sure to lower your scores.
Practice Smart!
Dennis Hillman
