Putting!

You have to love putting :)

No really! I think It must be the one area that a club golfer can become as good as a pro in and it makes such a massive difference to your scores.

Putting does not take the natural athleticism and robot like precision of a tour pro's full swing, it only needs a decent technique, a lot of dedicated practice time and the mental belief that you are, or are going to become a great putter. And yet constantly on Golf forums you see people bemoan that they are crap at putting, I have even been guilty of it myself in the past! The funny thing is that while every club has a practice putting green, the only people I ever see on ours for more than 10 minuets before a round are Juniors or young scratch team players. Yet go to a Tour event's practice day and the practice green will not only be full of pro's but also of coaches and gizmos/computers/cameras and they stay there working on their putting for a long time.

I'm confident that I'm going to become a great putter :)

To that end I'm dedicated to practicing my putting and I have been thinking about how I'm going to do that over the winter when the practice green will be hairy and slow. Also what I need to practice and how.

Firstly my putting has improved no end this year from practice and the corresponding belief, but I need to build on it so...

I need to have a lesson, but not just any old lesson. I want to find a pro that is a bit of a putting specialist because I want some one to teach me a solid basic putting stroke. Grip, stance, stroke, tempo etc. I'm currently using a straight back, straight through stroke with a face balanced mallet putter but find myself wondering if I'm not more suited to a taller stance and an arc putting style. Once I have some expert guidance on my putting stroke then I can shift the doubt from my mind and get on with practicing my stroke over the winter.

I figure the winter is the best time for working on the technical aspects of the putting stroke and that summer is the time to work on the feel, line reading and target concentration aspect of putting.

My aim is to be able to almost always lag a put to within three feet, To be deadly at holing out from three feet and to be very handy from the 5-10 ft range :D