There is a lot of time to think while waiting to putt or even standing over a 15-footer.
To give yourself the best chance to hit a good putt, you need to make a free stroke with clarity over what you are trying to do.
Do any of these sound familiar?
1. ‘I missed so many putts today’
Newsflash: Everyone misses putts. Scottie, Rory, Tiger, everyone. The average percentage of putts made on the PGA Tour from six feet is 65 per cent. Yet so many handicap golfers get so frustrated when they miss from six feet.
What is one difference between the two types of golfers though? Well, yes, they practise more, it’s their job etc but what you find is those players you see week in week out on our TVs don’t bring baggage to the putt, yet amateurs tend to.
They bring the fact this is for par or this is to make buffer. A tour player brings no baggage, just an acknowledgement that this is a putt and it requires two things – a chosen line and a good pace to roll the ball.
So the next time that you find yourself missing putts, first of all accept you have and always will miss putts like the world’s best do. But then trigger in to choosing your desired line and your chosen pace and then enjoy the opportunity of rolling the ball into the hole.
2. ‘Get it inside a dustbin lid’
You’ve hit two fantastic shots which have seen you put the ball on the toughest par-4 green on the course. So now your attention turns to the 40-foot putt that you face. The conscious mind kicks in and you remember a great piece of advice you were given – get it inside a dustbin lid.
I love the idea but where is the fun in this? The chances are that you play this game for a hobby so you might as well have some fun trying to roll a long putt in.
Hold it right there though because the last thing you want to do is race it by because you got over eager to hole a putt that you might only hole once every 15 rounds. So let’s go back to the dustbin lid. Admittedly this would be a great result but, if you aim to get within a dustbin lid and miss it by two feet, that is not bad.
Now however, you hit the putt and this time with the goal of holing it and you hit an equally accurate putt by missing that by two feet.
If you leave yourself four feet away then you are leaving yourself with the task of holing a putt that the tour pros hole roughly 75 per cent of the time.
Trying to put a ball inside a dustbin lid is easier than trying to hole it yet, with that mindset, focus can be leaked. The key is to heighten the focus without applying unnecessary pressure.
So next time you are in this position, plan to roll the ball to the hole embracing the opportunity that it might drop in.
3. ‘I can’t believe I missed that last putt’
Well, you did miss that putt but how you missed it is different to just missing it. The result was you missed it but did you do all you could to try roll the ball into the cup? If your answer was yes, then that’s it, you did all you can. You saw the line, you executed the putt with clarity in the mind but it missed.
Process and result are two separate things. If you find yourself dwelling like this on the course, just ask that question if you must, ‘Was my process good?’ If the answer was yes then great move on.
If it was no, then you can take action by focusing well on the next shot. You should never try to make up for something because you can’t. You cannot make up for a bogey on the last with a birdie on the next. That birdie is a birdie, that’s it. It does not mean you made up for the last, you just birdied it.
So, when you find yourself dwelling on the last putt, ask yourself if the process was good, and then look forward to the next opportunity to roll the next putt in.
4. ‘I must hole this’
Why must you hole it? You would love to hole it but wouldn’t we all like to hole all putts? Golf isn’t that kind. Those who work, have a family, in fact those who live, will come up against various pressures throughout their lives.
Maybe it is illness, paying bills, meeting work deadlines the list could go on. Those things are real life pressures some have so, now you have acknowledged these, is that putt really that important?
It is obvious you want to hole the putt but do you have to remind ourselves of this? No. Instead you suck the wandering mind back from the future and emotion of the putt, get back to present and the task at hand which simply put is to find the line that you wish to roll the ball down and roll the ball down it at your chosen pace.
At the end of the roll there might just be a hole waiting for it. If not we tap in, walk off knowing you did all you can to roll the ball as best you could and enjoyed the opportunity.
About Duncan McCarthy
Duncan is a mental performance coach who works across all sports including women’s Major champion Ashleigh Buhai
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