On the green shooting for par or even birdie… Last Sunday I hit a 280 yard drive onto the green putting for eagle and what happens?

3 PUTT EVERY TIME!

Drive for show, putt for dough.

I learned how to putt by not putting at all. In my first lessons when I was back in high school I took a bucket full of balls. Showed up to a practice green and for hours would under handed throw hundreds of golf balls and try to sink them in the designated holes. This got my touch down to a science. Having touch is 1/2 the battle but it will take you from a 3 or 4 putt player down to a consistent 2 putt player.

Reading greens takes experience but even if you are a gifted green reader. You still have to have the right touch to apply ball speed based on how the terrain breaks and gives on the balls path to the hole.

Try buying a couple dozen balls and just spend a few hours lightly underhanded rolling the ball (same motion as you would in skee ball) towards the hole and you’ll get better touch.

280 yard par 4? kek

Best drill is to draw a line on your ball
dont bother with making it into the hole right now
Just take swing at make sure the line on the ball goes straight
If it does that mean you square the club face at impact
now try to replicate the successful swing till you get some kind of muscular memories
Then you can start reading greens

You can try using the 'eye to hole' training method. They used this with me at GolfTec to help get my power under control over the putter. When you go onto the practice green, look at the hole as you putt the ball, keep your eyes on the hole. Mentally, your mind will configure how much strength to use by calculating the distance between you and the hole. Putt the ball as you continue to look at the hole. This isn't so much about making the putt, but at least getting you close enough to tap in for par assuming you had a nice up and down, or in your case, drove the green.

Always putt in a slight arc like youre hitting a draw. This will allow more of a true roll as you come into the ball.

In the end, we all have our bad days on the green, but hopefully these tips will allow for better distance control and a true roll to your putting game.

gl out there

Grab one of those perfect putt mats from Costco. I use it for about an hour each week while watching games and it's improved my stroke dramatically.

Hey mate, I play off plus 4 here. Putting is mostly confidence. But there is some technique to it. Other then a few talented individuals most pros use the same concept.

Don't use your hands. You use your shoulders. So the sequence of the putt goes shoulders moves hands which move putter head. Then then same on the way through, shoulder moves hands which moves putter head.

When doing this perfectly with a soft grip you should feel a "micro" wave feel of the putter head at the top of the back swing. The micro wave feel is a slight lag of the putter head to hands to shoulders. This micro lag keeps the putter face slightly closer to the floor and on the same plain of the swing.

Do this by doing the putting swing slowly and softly. Not quick jabs or anything like that.

Other tip is watch the ball get hit. You should still be able to see a white haze of the ball once it is gone!.

Best of luck with your putting mate!

+4? Fuck me sideways.

I could use some help off the tee if you have recommendations. I play to about a 5 right now. Irons and wedges are my strength while my driver is absolutely abhorrent. We're talking about shooting a 73 recently going OB three times off the tee.

Yeah haha its fun playing that low. 5 is nothing to sniff at mate!

Mostly from 5 down to 0 you can hit the ball well enough it is just the mental aspects of the game. you would need to look at your preshot routine. you have to make sure before you hit a shot there are no bad thoughts in your mind and the only thing you are thinking of is where you are hitting the ball. This is right down to the flight you want to see down to the blade of grass that is either 50 meters away or 300 meters away. narrow your focus right down. Aim small, miss small. The biggest shot loss at single figure handicap range is just concentration - a fly gets in your way yet you still hit your shot even though your attention is no long on the ball. -- instead take a moment to gather your focus then restart routine and go again. that may just save you that bogey.

Without seeing your swing - if driver is your bad and irons are good it probably means 1 of 2 things. either your setup with driver is off ie ball not teed high enough/foward enough in stance. (todays drivers like to be high up in the air with the ball right out off your front foot, like almost out side it, maybe in line with your front foot pinky toe) the alternative is if you try to keep your head too still during your swing you could actually be going backward during your backswing (backwards is towards target) then when you try to come back through the shot you have nowhere to go so you have to fire your head back (away from target) and down looping it around, some days this will work, other not so much. Certainty this will hurt you in the long run. This problem is not so bad with your irons because you are hitting down on the ball and using less effort as well. These couple of things are the main problems majority of people do.

I am currently building a website/youtube channel with one of the worlds best coaches should be up in 3 months time. you should check it out will give you plenty of info and then i could actually see you swing and tell you exactly what you are doing! in the mean time if you tell me your bad shots and why you think they happen i could probably deduce what's going on.

I sniff at 5 because I was a 2.4 about 12 years ago.

My large issue is my lower back and hips. A slipped disc led to a pinched sciatic nerve and while my back is much better now than say it was 7 years ago, it's nowhere near where it was 12 years ago. I tend to struggle in the longer swings with getting my hips through and I find myself often throwing my hands at the ball and also coming way over the top.

I am a longer player -- using Mizuno MP59 irons I carry my 8iron about 170-175 yards. My driver swing speed can get up to about 117mph, but I swing steady and comfortable at 112mph. The problem is that again, sometimes, literally mid-round, like what happened on Tuesday -- I'll just lose the ability to turn. I don't necessarily notice it physically, but the swing is obvious to anyone watching and the results are catastrophic.

I played a draw almost exclusively for years and have spent the last 2 years working on hitting a fade or a straight ball. Unfortunately, this leads me to hitting massive blocks with my longer clubs and at times, massive snap hooks. When I find the fairway, or even just off the fairway and in play, I feel confident in my ability to score. My problem is solely off the tee.

I try to play the ball a bit further up in my stance now and focus on holding my right hand (RH golfer) off as long as I can to take the left out of play. But, if you do this without completing a proper turn, you hit massive blocks. I tend to have a right elbow that gets high and I will cross the line at the top. I've been working to shorten the swing (not quite Finau lol) and keep that right arm tucked, but it isn't easy. I also tend to have a stronger left hand grip on the club, but I have seen a number of successful golfers have grips stronger than mine.

Hey mate, Sorry for the late reply. life gets busy!

Well the difference between 2 and 5 is not all that great. as i said above is mostly mental aspect of the game. sure you may be able to pin it down to 1 or 2 errant drives in the round but was it just a bad shot or was it your concentration? It is always harder to give advice when injuries are involved as i cannot see what you are capable of doing. I assume that you are better now but just a bit more stiff in that section? There are few things in what you said above that stikes me. Why are you changing from draw to fade? if the answer is it doesnt hurt then great keep going with that anything to help the back! haha. if the answer is something like it is easier to control or it stops faster etc... thats a really bad answer. why not learn to play both? have a more nutural setup and be able to play the shot that is required or the shot that your eye see. This again comes down to the mental aspects of the game.

If I am to give you technical advice id say during your round work into your preshot routine a simple check to see if your back is tightening up through the round. The way the swing should work is the hips start the swing - it is a small sit onto the right buttcheek (right handed golfer) with the hips starting to turn and wind up storing energy and getting into a position to receive the upper body to coil over the top. The hip will then stall (slow down their coil) with the shoulders contiuning to rotate through to the top of the back swing. Note the head will also move laterally to keep your spine nice and straight through out the swing, depending on how tall you are is how much it will move but basically you want your vertebra to be in natural positions when coiling. no bend to one side( this can be caused by many things ie trying to keep head still... you will infact go backwards towards the target on the backswing, can also be cause by aggressive arm lift - hands doing the backswing rather than body) once the shoulder start to slow and the arms have lifted to the top of the swing your hips will lead creating a stretch on the rest of the body which will then pull the body into impact position. - the hips go lateral, tilt (left higher then right) rotate( in that order). feels a bit like taking a step out towards the target with your left foot - drill front top of back swing take a step towards your target and do a swing mini happy Gilmore. this will show you your natural body rhythm and sequence can do this with or without the ball, also can do this in preshot routine.

with the hips leading in their way lateral tilit rotate. thelateral is done with left hip pulling(and bumping) and rotating backwards then the right hip will rotate down towards the ball and target - this for me is where i get direction how i can hit the ball at things. your shoulders will naturally follow the hips and the arms get dragged along for the ride. Note you cannot use your hands during this motion if they start to fire you will hit your bad shots (maybe where that block is coming from expecially if you feel like you hold off your hands that is how i play a low fade or massive slice if i hold my body back and hands out) this is the biggest thing that most ams and even pros do not do. they do not use their body to swing they use their arms to hit the ball.

The way i have described above is the most biomechanically sound way of hitting a golf ball. watch even base ball pitchers when they throw the ball. big step out with massive body rotation followed by the hand getting dragged through with the final touch being put on with their wrist. if they did it in any ofther order a, they would likely break somthing in their body haha, b. they would not get the speeds they do.

with regards to yourself - I would do some mirror work at home. check to see what is going on. is your head staying still? is your head moving back away from the target as you load your body. do you rotate your chest across you right leg and wind up. all of these things are what we want. nice natural fluid movements driven by the body rather than the arms. Get yourself on the course in your preshot routine checking your sequencing. make sure that you are able to do a proper turn before standing up there with a driver. if you back is not letting you in that moment assess if driver is the right risk to take? either aim for a monster power slice or pull 2iron hit the fairway move on wait for the back to free up again. things to work on with the mind. (the mind does not hear the word DONT) if you get to a hole and go last week i hit 3 out of bounds... guess what this week your going to as well.. haha golf is a bitch like that. we should be in the moment take note of the ob. then go ok there is a blade of grass 330 down the fairway i want to be on focus on hitting the ball at that. think of the flight, shape, and feeling of the swing then really focus on playing the shot not what else is going on or what could happen. If you still automattically think of the negative things thats OK we all do. Just allow the thought to pass and think of a new thought get your mind back on the task at hand, one other thing you could do is try and remember when you did hit a good shot on the hole. really remember what did is sound like what did it feel like. was it a hot day cold day sunny, was there a smell? I know this sounds like bullshit mumbojumbo but you are not thinking of the bad shot anymore are you. haha the brain can be tricked very easily. its up to you whether it is a positive trick or a negative one, you have not even hit the shot yet so how can you know what will happen. All of these sort of things will help you get back to the glory days and will save you a couple of shots a round. Just make sure you are ready to hit the ball when every you go to. Give yourself the best chance possible golf is hard why make it harder hahaha. (the concept of the anyways... you set up to a ball you are not comfortable, think to yourself i should reset then you go ah fuck it ill just hit it anyways... bad shot happens. blah should have reset. there goes your 1-2 shots.) check for the anyways the next time you do a practice round, mark it down on your card. every time you hit a shot and you were not completely focused on where that ball was meant to go, thats a anyways note it on your card. I did this started off with 24 of these in a round and i was off scratch... get it down to 7 or so and there is 4-5 shots -- easy! It is hard work to get yourself to do this well required mental energy but it will make you play better or have less worse shots.

Remember when comparing yourself against someone else - there is more than one way to do this. that is why there are many different swings out there. But just because someone is successful doing it with a super strong grip does not mean it is correct. strong grips promote more of a handsy movement, to be successful with this takes time and natural ability. if that person has been doing it for years like that of course they will do it well. does not mean it is right does also not mean it is wrong. might just mean that they cannot play some shot a person in a neutral setup. Also they could be prone to injury ..

Well i hope this helps. I would get more technical with you but i dont really think you would need to. mostly just soften things up dont use the hands so much in the swing and get the mental game sorted. I will hit you up when the website is ready that way I can actually see your swing via the video transfer system on it and we can discuss changes to your technique if there needs to be any or we just work on matching things up small tweeks to tighten your game. It also depends on the work you are willing to put in / your own goals. Sounds like you do want to get better so I think it would be fun to work with you to get you better!