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Putting - what a mental mind game

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lanoxrehab

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I track all my putts (got in the habit couple of seasons ago). My goal is 36 putts a round (2 putts a hole). Anything under is a good day, anything over is a bad day with the flat stick.

Yesterday, I was a master, 33 putts, no three putts and confident as all get out. I felt like Tiger Woods with my Spider.

Today it was like I had never held the fricking club in my hand. 43 putts and had no confidence at all standing over a four footer.

I'm trying to figure out WTH I was doing wrong and how I could fix it. What do you all do when that happens ?
 
lanoxrehab said:
I track all my putts (got in the habit couple of seasons ago). My goal is 36 putts a round (2 putts a hole). Anything under is a good day, anything over is a bad day with the flat stick.

Yesterday, I was a master, 33 putts, no three putts and confident as all get out. I felt like Tiger Woods with my Spider.

Today it was like I had never held the fricking club in my hand. 43 putts and had no confidence at all standing over a four footer.

I'm trying to figure out WTH I was doing wrong and how I could fix it. What do you all do when that happens ?
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Personally I slow it down and find the fastest public greens available and use those to dial my stroke back into form.


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I know I am a decent putter so I just keep doing what I am doing. Today I had a 4 putt, oh well move on. Also you should use strokes gained putting to track your progress. Total putts is pretty worthless stat on its own.
 
I think counting putts is misleading. If you have a bad day with irons you could be chipping a lot and leaving yourself short putts and make your putting look great. Conversely a really good iron day could produce a lot of greens in regulation, but a lot of longer putts which means more putts to get home. This can be frustrating if you're saying well I took 33 putts to shoot an 80 the other day when I couldn't hit a green to save my life and today Ihit every green and took 40 putts to shoot an 80 again. That's not an apples to apples comparison though.
 
You have to practice putting to get better at it. Yes every course may be different, but if you are consistent you can still putt on those courses. Plenty of different drills to use for practice putting.
 
Are you left or right eye dominant? That can affect your aimpoint. Pick a spot a foot in front of the ball after you have chosen the aimpoint at 90 degrees from from behind, not parallel to your feet.
Are your eyes over the ball? If not the putter might be the wrong length (mine was for years).
Experimented with different ball positions, grip styles (like saw/claw etc)?
Are you more worried about line than speed...correct speed is more important than line...leaving a tap in if you miss.At this point in your frustration, I'd be more interested in tracking 3 putts only, trying at first to get no more then one a round, then one in two rounds.

Etc...of the things to consider No one on the internet can analyze it for you.
If you have exhausted your options (or even if you haven't) a proper putter fitting and /or lesson might be beneficial.
 
Yeah, putting is 90% a mind game and the rest of it is just mental.

Over my last three rounds combined, I'm putting about 10 strokes worse than usual (in Strokes Gained metric) for no particular reason that I can discern. Missed an 18-inch putt this weekend that didn't even touch the hole. I even went to Dick's Sporting Goods at lunch time yesterday thinking I was so desperate maybe I'd just buy something and hope it was magic.

I rolled about ten putts with various mallets and whatever, realized I was about to make a huge mistake, bought a couple pair of socks instead and got the hell out of there.

I figure if some equipment purchase is going to get me out a putting slump it's as likely to be a cushy, comfy pair of new socks as it is with a $300 Taylormade putter Just Like Dustin Johnson's.

Through long experience I've found the best cure for bad putting is just to stick to my routine, keep focusing on putting a good roll on the ball and wait for them to start dropping. If I try to grind out practice sessions, buy different putters, change my putting routine, take extra practice swings or anything like that it just ups the stakes. Makes an already mental problem more mental.

P.S. And don't even ask about the two-week rainy spell one winter when I spent an hour a day in front of a mirror in our foyer, rolling 5-foot putts along a line on the floor. Honest to goodness it took me six months to get back to putting decent after that attempt to turn putting into some kind of mechanical system.
 
DataDude said:
I think counting putts is misleading. If you have a bad day with irons you could be chipping a lot and leaving yourself short putts and make your putting look great. Conversely a really good iron day could produce a lot of greens in regulation, but a lot of longer putts which means more putts to get home. This can be frustrating if you're saying well I took 33 putts to shoot an 80 the other day when I couldn't hit a green to save my life and today Ihit every green and took 40 putts to shoot an 80 again. That's not an apples to apples comparison though.
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This for me x1000! As my game improves I'm hitting my green but my putts can really creep up. I've had as low as 26 putts this year but my GIR that day were terrible. I was chipping on almost every green, as such I was left with short putts. Sticking it close from 10 yards is a lot easier than from 100+ yards.
 
You know whether you had a good putting day or not. Don't count number of putts due to the reasons mentioned
 
Proper speed is so essential for good putting. When I find myself struggling with pace, I'll simply practice for a few minutes without watching the ball after it leaves the putter face. I'll keep my head down and listen for the ball to go in. Doing this improves my speed tremendously, and very quickly. Start with 10' putts and step out to much longer putts of 40+ feet as your pace improves.

As a bonus, I've learned that I putt much better from short range without looking up; I actually play this way during rounds and my percentage from 6' and in has improved dramatically.
 
pattyboy21 said:
Proper speed is so essential for good putting. When I find myself struggling with pace, I'll simply practice for a few minutes without watching the ball after it leaves the putter face. I'll keep my head down and listen for the ball to go in. Doing this improves my speed tremendously, and very quickly. Start with 10' putts and step out to much longer putts of 40+ feet as your pace improves.

As a bonus, I've learned that I putt much better from short range without looking up; I actually play this way during rounds and my percentage from 6' and in has improved dramatically.
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Going to focus on this. I wouldn't say I peek at the ball, but I pose and watch it too close. Want to get back to taking in the tempo and that feeling. Ohh, and stop worrying so darn much. I swear the quickest way for me to steer a putt into a miss is to try to guide myself into perfection.

Green's ain't perfect, and my stroke doesn't have to be either. Just enjoy the putt and give it a look.
 
Et Tu Brute? said:
Yeah, putting is 90% a mind game and the rest of it is just mental.

Over my last three rounds combined, I'm putting about 10 strokes worse than usual (in Strokes Gained metric) for no particular reason that I can discern. Missed an 18-inch putt this weekend that didn't even touch the hole. I even went to Dick's Sporting Goods at lunch time yesterday thinking I was so desperate maybe I'd just buy something and hope it was magic.

I rolled about ten putts with various mallets and whatever, realized I was about to make a huge mistake, bought a couple pair of socks instead and got the hell out of there.

I figure if some equipment purchase is going to get me out a putting slump it's as likely to be a cushy, comfy pair of new socks as it is with a $300 Taylormade putter Just Like Dustin Johnson's.

Through long experience I've found the best cure for bad putting is just to stick to my routine, keep focusing on putting a good roll on the ball and wait for them to start dropping. If I try to grind out practice sessions, buy different putters, change my putting routine, take extra practice swings or anything like that it just ups the stakes. Makes an already mental problem more mental.

P.S. And don't even ask about the two-week rainy spell one winter when I spent an hour a day in front of a mirror in our foyer, rolling 5-foot putts along a line on the floor. Honest to goodness it took me six months to get back to putting decent after that attempt to turn putting into some kind of mechanical system.
Click to expand...

Here, here! I second the vote for comfy socks!

To the OP: booze will lessen the sting of a bad putting day.
 
First thing you need to do is figure out you are missing because of a bad strike or a misread. You need to get to a point where you are never fooled by a putt, you may not match speed and line perfectly every time but you need to be close every time. It is also the reason why pros and high level players don't always like what look like dead flat putts. Even then you can have a robot make the stroke perfectly every time and it will still miss putts do to randomness of real grass. I have never done this myself but I have heard good things about SAM putter lab fitting or lesson. You will be able to figure out if you are screwing up the stroke or not.
 
ntanygd760 said:
I know I am a decent putter so I just keep doing what I am doing. Today I had a 4 putt, oh well move on. Also you should use strokes gained putting to track your progress. Total putts is pretty worthless stat on its own.
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What resource are you using to get SG stats?
 
I'm generally a very good putter. So when I'm not, it's a matter of determining what happened. I first review the round to see what was the dominant miss. Was it not starting the ball on my intended line? Misreads? Leaving the ball short? or long? Too many long lags? or too many putts requiring an exact match of direction and speed? This really helps me narrow it down.

If it's too many long lags or putts requiring an exact match of direction and speed it's probably not a putting problem at all. That indicates I wasn't sharp on my approach shots.

If I wasn't putting the ball on the intended line, I know something mechanically is off with my setup or stroke and will go through a checklist.

Distance control issues are usually a ball position or tempo issue for me.

Misreads usually mean I lost focus or rushed a step in my green reading.

Your tendencies may be different, but the point is this process of recognizing the dominant miss then determining the cause works well, and it works even better as you discover your own tendencies.
 
There's only one logical explanation: tone for a new putter!

Ok maybe that's just my strategy. There can be more that comes in to play than how many putts you have. For example last week I think I had three 3 putts during my round but I also left my approach shots with a football field worth of distance between my ball and the hole for my first putt. The rest of the round I putted lights out but those three holes really skewed my number. In that case my poor iron play factored in to it.

For me it's first figuring out where I'm struggling the most and working on that. Last year it was short putts so I spent the winter working on that.
 
Putting is the most difficult part of golf for me. This last 12 months I’ve been learning all the subtle breaks at my new course. It’s been a long time since I’ve had greens that run 10-11 on the STIMP and I’ve never had greens with this much slope so even a 3 footer can break eight or more inches. I’m getting better on the new greens but about half the putts I miss are good putts but a bad read. Yesterday I missed 3 birdie putts inside 7 feet including a 3 footer that were just bad reads. The good news is the greens at all other courses are now easy for me to putt.
 
Putting is probably the best part of my game, I struggle most off the tee but that is coming along. I enjoy putting, when I putt, I read the green, do a couple practice strokes to get the alignment and feel of the speed I think I need. Visualization is the key for me. Eyes dead center over my putter alignment marks and the ball then hit the putt on the line I chose. I think to myself I got this. Made a 35 footer with a slight break yesterday to save par. My putter is nothing fancy, it's a 20 year old McGregor blade with some lead weight taped right behind the sweet spot. I practice putting about for about 30 minutes twice a week and try to hit the practice green for about 10 putts before I head to the tee whenever I play, just to get the green speed for a course.
 
As others have mentioned, # of putts can be skewed based on a lot of factors, like was the hole a GIR, how far your first putt is, did you have to chip.. Counting your putts is a great start, but what has helped me through the years is after a round I go back and think through each hole, and try to locate shots that I "gave away". Maybe a 3 footer that lipped out, or a shanked chip into a bunker, perhaps I tried to punch out through the trees and chose the wrong gap and got too cute. If I find a common theme of types of shots I messed up, that will trigger my mind to think more about that next time. It's not perfect and probably something either Arccos or Game Golf could track too, but it's fun on my drive home running that through my head, then immediately after i get that ah-ha moment and yell "shoot!!! I gave up 8 shots, could of gone 84 today!" Gives me fire for the next round!
 
BlueHen2006 said:
As others have mentioned, # of putts can be skewed based on a lot of factors, like was the hole a GIR, how far your first putt is, did you have to chip.. Counting your putts is a great start, but what has helped me through the years is after a round I go back and think through each hole, and try to locate shots that I "gave away". Maybe a 3 footer that lipped out, or a shanked chip into a bunker, perhaps I tried to punch out through the trees and chose the wrong gap and got too cute. If I find a common theme of types of shots I messed up, that will trigger my mind to think more about that next time. It's not perfect and probably something either Arccos or Game Golf could track too, but it's fun on my drive home running that through my head, then immediately after i get that ah-ha moment and yell "shoot!!! I gave up 8 shots, could of gone 84 today!" Gives me fire for the next round!
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That gave me pause to think about it. Everyone had valid points on this thread. I'm almost always short and right on my approach shot and having to chip and one putt for par. That's why I'm a 17.7 handicap. Some days I can shoot an 83 and some days a 94. I'm going to make it a practice to go back over my card and see where "I gave away shots" and try to improve through that.

I think part of golf is having to fix a problem on the course. Thanks everyone
 
When I use Game Golf I am pretty compulsive about setting the pin position to make the first putt distances close to correct. If I'm doing that, I will take their Strokes Gained: Putting more or less at face value. If you let Game Golf guess the pin positions, I'd recommend not paying attention to their putting or short game stats. It is wrong enough to matter on the majority of holes in a typical round and it doesn't necessarily all average out IMO.

When I'm not using Game Golf (which in the long term is the majority of the time) I remember my first-putt distances and will sometimes look up the Strokes Gained in a table I created from Broadie's book.

Round to round variation is pretty big so I try not to react to just a couple bad (or good) rounds. Long term my putting performance was remarkably stable for quite a few years. The smoothed trend has drifted randomly between 2.5 and 4.0 strokes worse than Tour average, which isn't awful for a 17-handicap weekend golfer. By Broadie's reckoning my putting is several strokes better than the rest of my game.

But lately SG: Putting is trending up beyond 4.0 strokes which is a bit distressing. I know something like a stroke per round is not a big deal but I sure would like to know what I'm doing differently now than I have over the past 8-10 years.
 
lanoxrehab said:
That gave me pause to think about it. Everyone had valid points on this thread. I'm almost always short and right on my approach shot and having to chip and one putt for par. That's why I'm a 17.7 handicap. Some days I can shoot an 83 and some days a 94. I'm going to make it a practice to go back over my card and see where "I gave away shots" and try to improve through that.

I think part of golf is having to fix a problem on the course. Thanks everyone
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If you want to avoid any heavy lifting in terms of record keeping and/or Strokes Gained analysis, many years ago at a half-day golf clinic a sport psychologist recommended that higher handicappers like us really need to know two thing. How often do we three-putt (total per round) and how often do we one-putt after missing the green and chipping. He said if we three-putt more than once or twice in a round then we need to work on our putting. And if we don't one-putt after chipping at least a couple times a round we either need to work on our chipping or our putting.

I think that's a decent, simple recommendation for those of us shooting in the 80's and 90's and seldom hitting GIR. The modern Strokes Gained approach is much more informative but it does involve keeping some shot distance records during each round. It's easy enough to think back after the round and recall something like "I had one 3-putt on #12 and 1-putted twice out of ten times chipping".
 
ntanygd760 said:
game golf. I used to have to use a spreadsheet which was annoying
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I have a new game golf live still in the box. I have been using shot scope. Trying to decide if I should do a side by side comparison. The big draw back to game golf (near as I can tell) is that it doesn’t track putts. You simply tell it how many putts you took, and that the performance stats don’t break out your putting by distance to the hole. True?
 
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