How to Hole Every Putt
It is essential to have the positive mental attitude to hole every putt. Once you’ve read the slope correctly and set up properly with confidence that you can make it, all you have to do to hole it is to focus on the speed of the putt.
Also crucial to holing every putt is to make a simple stroke that repeats, and to this end you need to avoid thinking about mechanics. As with all other things, the simpler the putting stroke, the easier it is to repeat and thus the more chance to hole.
For a simple stroke you need to avoid projecting negative outcome and trust your gut feeling. Doubting your gut feelings means that you are concerned about the outcome and not the process.
Concerning yourself about the result breeds fear and doubt that affect your brain’s chemistry, causing your judgment and performance to suffer.
Gut feelings always work better than conscious mind, which tends to be filled with negative emotions. By this token, when you are reading the green, your first choice is usually the best one.
To increase your chance to succeed, you need to hit it to the high side of the hole. Even if you hit it too high, the ball has a chance to trickle in over the edge providing that you hit it with the right speed.
However, from the low side of the hole the ball will never roll into the cup. To keep the ball above the hole and give yourself more chance for success it is necessary to make a few adjustments to your hand and ball positions.
For a putt that breaks from right to left, play the ball back and position your hands forward ahead of the ball so the shaft leans toward the target. That encourages an inside-tosquare stroke, preventing the ball from starting to the low, left side.
That also keeps you from cutting across the ball and pulling it to the low left side of the cup. For a putt that breaks from left to right, set up with the ball forward and your hands slightly behind the ball so the shaft tilts slightly away from the cup.
That way you cannot push the ball to the right that is lower than the cup. From this position, your putter will travel on a path that is slightly out to in and you will get the ball to roll to the high, left side of the hole.
For a putt that is straight, simply keep the shaft in a vertical position both at address and impact. That helps impart a true roll on the ball. For solid, square impact that produces a true end-over-end roll you need to not only keep your wrists from breaking through the ball, but also avoid too short a backstroke with longer follow-through.
A good idea to check if you are delivering the putterface squarely to the ball is to use a range ball with a red line. Putting with an open or closed putterface causes the ball to wobble after impact.
That also helps you line up properly. Positioning that line parallel to your target line facilitates aligning your putterface perpendicular to the target line at address.