March 26, 2025 • 22 mins
Claude discusses the importance of focusing on trying to make the putt as opposed to trying not to miss the putt. With that principle in mind, he talks through a putting drill he does with his Tour clients that helps them clear their heads and free up their stroke.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's the Son of Butcher podcast. I'm your host Claude
harmon solo episode of the pod this week and wanted
to talk about putting. I think it's a very very
important part of the game. But I also think it's
a part of the game that at times is seen
as incredibly complex, and it is. It is a complex
skill set. I've had Phil Kenyon on the pod before.
If you haven't listened to that one, go check it out.
(00:23):
I think fills one of the best in the game
and in putting. He works with some of the best
players in the game, and he is a master, in
my opinion, as an instructor as a coach at making
players better at putting. But I just wanted to give
a really simple brief observation on Yes, what I know
is a complex problem, but I've had some success recently
(00:43):
with some players in getting them to think about it differently.
And the thought process is, ask yourself when you're putting,
are you trying to make putts or are you trying
to not miss putts? And I'm talking putts from any
distance five feet, ten feet, fifteen, five, thirty thirty five
doesn't matter. I asked my dad, Butch Armon. I asked
(01:05):
him once what type of putter he was when he
played the tour, and he said he felt two things
held him back from having a better PJ Tour career.
His attitude his temper, which he said got the better
of him. He said he struggled to control that like
a lot of players do. And he said putting. He
didn't feel like he was a great putter and felt
like if he could have made more putts, he would
have had a better career. That is something that I
(01:25):
hear from a lot of players, from the average recreational golfer,
two players trying to play at the competitive level. I
need to put better. And I asked my dad once.
We were talking about putting, and my dad when he
worked with Tiger Woods, they used to have this this
game that they would play on the night or the
late afternoon of every major. So on Wednesday afternoon, wherever
(01:45):
they were, they would have a putting contest. Augusta, the
US Open, the PGA, the British And this is kind
of peak tiger Woods, right two thousand Tiger, you know,
the Tiger Slam, all the tournaments he was winning, all
the putts that he was making. I think Tiger Woods
is probably one of the best pressure putters of all time.
In the same vein of Jack Nicholas, it seemed like
Tiger and Jack made all the putts they needed to
(02:07):
make at the times they needed to make them. The
puts for Paul, the puts for birdies, and we've seen
that from Tiger's career. So Tiger and my dad would
have a putting contest. And my dad has a very
very old school kind of risty stroke, you know, tons
of weight on his left leg, a lot of forward press.
He played on greens growing up in you know, the
fifties and the sixties that weren't the greens that we
(02:30):
have now, so you had to hit the ball. And
his stroke has a lot of hit. It has kind
of a lot of what we would call pop to it.
We put them on, you know, we put a line
on the ball, get him to try and roll the
ball straight. He can't do that. I've had him on
Sam before. Consistency is off the charts, but the stroke
is not something that would be technically perfect. The putter
(02:52):
that he uses, he's always used a bullseye type putter,
and he had Scottie Cameron make him a bulls eye
type putter, so he also likes his putters to be very,
very heavy. But he's a very good putter, has been
his whole career. And I watched a lot of these
putting competitions with Tiger and my dad at Major's, and
I watched Tiger beat my dad. Yeah, a lot of times.
But I watched my dad beat Tiger in a make
(03:14):
him putt game to where the only job was to
make it, so if you made it, you were one up.
If you didn't make it, you're even. And I'd watch
my dad sometimes run the table on Tiger and Tiger
but always said, man, I don't know how you're beating
me with that shitty putting stroke. And my dad would say, well,
you're three down. So I asked him once I was
talking to him about putting. I was on putting Green
and asking him, you know, what do you think about
when you're putting? And he looked at me with a
(03:36):
strange look, kind of stations like I don't understand the question.
I was like what, and he's like, what do you
mean what I think about when I'm putting? And I said, yeah,
what do you think about when you're putting? And he
said making it. What else are you thinking about? And
I was like, yeah, no obviously, and he goes, no, no, no,
are you thinking about something else other than making it?
So I had a player recently come in plays on
the PGA Tour and said he was struggling with his game.
(03:58):
You know, he'd missed you know, number of fo in
a row, and you know, I said, listen, what are
the strengths of your game right now? What are the weaknesses?
And he said, well, putting's definitely a weakness. I said,
in what way? He said, well, I just don't feel
like I can make a lot of pots. We talked
about his full swing, We talked about a number of things,
and so did some work on us full swing. And
I said, well, let's go over to the putting green
and I want to sell you what's going on with
your stroke And he said, well, I just don't make
a lot of pots. And so the natural tendency when
(04:21):
someone tells you as an instructor, I don't make a
lot of pots, he is, Okay, I've got an indoor
putter studio where I can go get him on you know,
four cameras and we see how the ball's rolling and
hook him up to Sam and you know, we've got
the technology, put him on force plates, figure out where
his weight's at, is he moving around, is he not
moving around, what's the stroke doing, what's the aim doing.
You know, we can tear this whole thing apart through technology.
(04:44):
But what I wanted to do was to see if
he was a bad putter. So I took two balls
and I walked four steps away from roughly around twelve
fifteen feet to start. I think it was left to
right with some downhill in it. And I said, all right,
you've got two balls, and the goal is to make
the pot. That's it. The only goal is to make
(05:05):
the pott. You have two chances, and if you make it,
make one of the two, you take another step back,
so you'd be five steps away to start out. If
you miss, you stay where you are. So first pott
I think he hold. Walk back to five feet the
next pot, and I think just burn the edge or
lipped out, and they hold the next one. So then
we walked back to Now we started at four steps away,
(05:26):
we went to five, got to six, he made another one,
got to seven steps away from the hole. Hit two
really good potts. But missed those. So it took a
step back and everything. But he started laughing and he
was like, wow, I never see myself make this amount
of potts. I said, I thought you told me you
were a bad putter, and he laughed and I laughed.
And my point behind that is I think a lot
of players are just trying to not miss potts. So
(05:49):
when I regonally put the balls down for this player
and I said, listen, you've get two balls. The object
from twelve to fifteen feet is out of these two
balls is to make it. So he had a line
on the ball. So we had three lines on the ball,
you know that a lot of people draw, so that
he could kind of get that kind of you know,
tire look to where he can see how the ball
is rolling. So he went to line that up, started
to do his aim point and I said, no, no, no,
(06:10):
don't line the putts up. Just stand up to it.
No practice strokes. Take one look at the hole, look
back at the ball, and put so to try and
get him to turn his brain off and to take
the time gap and make it much much smaller so
that he didn't have a lot of time to think.
And I think as soon as we took the time
away from him to where he was going to gather
(06:31):
all this information, and as soon as we made the outcome,
just make the pot, I think it really shifted the
focus and the strokes started to look a lot freer.
He started to take way less time and his putts, says,
my dad has said, great putters, their putts always have
the go in look, meaning when you play with a
(06:52):
really good putter, like if we go out and we
walk around a practice round with Cam Smith, you know,
I think it's one of the best pure putters I've
ever seen. Cam's putts always look like they're going in.
Ricky Fowler h when Ricky was in his prime as
one of the best putters on the PGA Tour, his
balls always look like they had the go in look.
And I remember I was at the Austin Golf Club.
(07:14):
I worked there for a year in two thousand and five,
and it was Ben Crunchaw's home course, not the Austin
Country Club where they've played the WGC, but Austin Country Club.
And I was talking to Ben about putting and he
said to me, listen, if your putts always have the
right speed, how far away from the hole. Are you
ever really going to be And he said he feels
like most people just fall in love with the line,
(07:34):
you know, they fall in love with getting the break,
getting the perfect line, and then sometimes forget to hit
the pott. So once we got this player kind of
turning his brain off and just thinking about putting, he
started to make a lot of putts and he said
that he rarely thinks about making potts he's And when
I asked him, I said, listen, when you do a point, listen.
(07:55):
Lucas Glover talked about a point. Colin Marikal talked about
this is not a commonversation of the validities of whether
am point works or it doesn't. I think for some
players it works, and I think it sometimes it does,
and if it does, for you use it. I think
you can use aim point in a way that doesn't
take a long time, that you don't have to be slow.
But my point behind all of this is this player
(08:16):
who told me he was a really bad putter and
who was trying to play golf per a living, wasn't
trying to make putts. He was just trying to not
three putt. So when I asked him, what are you
doing with the aim point, with the line on the ball,
with the multiple lines on the ball, with lining it up,
with going and going through your whole routine, all the
practice strokes, how slow everything is, and then you're not
(08:37):
making pots. What are you doing? Why are you going
through that process? And he said, well, I want to
make sure I get all the information so that I
don't miss anything that could help me from not missing it.
And I just said, no, I understand all that, but
why not shift the focus After you do all that,
after you do all your mechanical stroke work, after you
(08:58):
do all your you know, green reading, you're in information gathering.
Why not then say, okay, I've prepared for the test,
let me go take the test. And when you pot,
there's two outcomes. The ball's either going to go in
or the ball isn't going to go in. And in
talking to my dad, when he was like, listen, why
would you waste any time on trying to not miss it?
(09:18):
Shouldn't your focus be one hundred percent on doing everything
you possibly do to make it? And so I just
think so many players are struggling with putting, They're struggling
with speed, they're struggling with distance control, They're struggling with
a lot of things. But I think there are a
lot of people listening and a lot of people that
I see putting that they're not trying to make putts.
They're just trying to not miss putts. And I think
(09:39):
the headspace that you get into as a player if
all you're trying to do is to not do something,
there's no positive feedback you're building with yourself. There's no
trust that you're building with yourself. So don't be afraid
to yes, work your mechanics. I've always thought that as instructors,
we've kind of worked putting backwards, right. You know, even
with beginning golfers, we work on trying to build the
(10:01):
stroke first, and to try and make the stroke from
three feet five feet, t's in the ground, chalk lines,
all these you know, putting templates, gates, you know, all
of the stuff that we do to try and make
sure that we could control how the ball is rolling
and to make sure that the ball is rolling the
(10:23):
correct way. Right in air quotes, the correct way, there
isn't a correct way. So as I said to this player,
I said, listen, there are so many different ways you
can make putts right. There's so many different speeds that
you can make putts. And then we did this drill
to where we got on some crazy slopes right, some
insane left to right slopes, some insane right to less ups.
(10:45):
We had some where we were putting basically as much
downhill as we can. And again we started off four
steps away from the hole. You had two opportunities to
make it. And watching this player go from someone who
was self confessed a bad putter, who didn't like his stroke,
who said he didn't make any putts, to giving him
very very difficult putting tasks, and the goal being all
(11:08):
you're trying to do is make it. And I think
what I was trying to do is to get the
stroke to be a little bit freer, but to also
help this player just turn his brain off and just
pot react. What you see, if we gave you a
ball from thirty feet and told you to roll two
balls underhanded on the ground, I mean, and just said, hey,
roll them to the hole. I would just roll the
(11:31):
first one, and then I'd react to what the first
one did, and then I'd ad just off the second one.
I wouldn't really think about my arm. I wouldn't really
think about the motion of my arm. I wouldn't think
about where I was holding the ball, whether it's a
lot in my thumb or my index finger. And I
wouldn't think about my release point or any of that.
I wouldn't think about how I was standing or where
my arm position was. I would just roll the balls
(11:53):
towards the hole. I would react. And so I think
most players when they put poorly, they have a bunch
of three putts, have you know, thirty three thirty four pots,
and they put poorly, the first thing they do is
come back to the putting green and set up drills
and work on mechanics. And so I think in the
past we've tried to have players have perfect strokes and
then work on speed and green reading and feel and
(12:16):
touch secondly, and to be honest, a lot of times
you don't even work on it because you're spending so
much time in mechanics. So this goes back to the
constant theme that I'm talking about on the pod is
the technique part in the execution part. The three DP
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asked Brad Faxon. We're with the Open Championship one year
(12:58):
in the early two thousands, and facts, great putter. That's
kind of what he's known for, you know, helps Ry
McElroy with his putting. And so I asked him we
were out of major. I said, listen, what do you
think about? Same question I asked my dad, what do
you think about when you're putting? And he said, well,
what I try and do is after I gather all
the information, right after I do my green reading and
(13:19):
kind of figure out what I'm going to do and
figure out what the game plan, how the putt is breaking,
whether it's uphill downhill. He said, once I get over
the pot, if I find myself starting to think about
my stroke or my brain starting to turn on, I
kind of back off, step out and start over again.
Because when I'm standing over a putt, I just kind
(13:40):
of want to be blank and not thinking about anything.
And so I think if you're struggling with putting, if
you're struggling with speed, and you're struggling with three putts,
I think this is a really good drill to just
get you out of Okay. The object is I'm just
trying to make it okay. From you know, you could
do this in even numbers ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty
twenty five, thirty three five. So start at ten feet,
(14:03):
you get two opportunities to make it. If you make it,
you go back to fifteen feet. If you miss one
of the two at fifteen feet, you go back to ten.
And then you just keep trying to see how far
away from the hole you can be. And I just
am fascinated that all of a sudden, the balls start
to get to the hole in putting. And this is
going to sound very very basic, but if the ball
doesn't get to the hole, it never has a chance
(14:24):
to go in. That might sound like an incredibly simplistic,
kind of cliche type statement, but if you think about it,
if you've got a twenty foot pot and the ball
doesn't get past the hole, it doesn't get over the
front edge of where the cup is. If you don't
have enough speed for that to happen, it's very hard
for the ball to go in. So when I was
(14:45):
in Singapore a couple of weeks ago and DJ played
really well, we were out on the golf course practicing.
You know, during the practice round, I was taking an
alignment stick on whatever putt that he had and just saying, Okay,
I'm going to take the alignments that can place at
one step behind the hole. So that's kind of, you know,
I'm sure people have heard that's kind of the safe zone,
but I said, you've got to get the balls to
(15:06):
the hole. So you don't want to be reckless. You
don't want to be hitting putts super super hard, but
there is a makespeed that putts have when you make them.
I always think that most players, you can kind of
see how much, especially on tour, you can see how
much they stay in their posture putting wise, you can
kind of tell if they think they've made it or not.
So if Roy mcroy's got a twenty footer and he
(15:29):
kind of puts it and he kind of stays crouched
over stays in his posture and stuff, he's probably gonna
have a pretty good chance to make it if he
puts it in halfway, he stands up and out of it,
or starts walking he knows he hasn't right. So that
again is to me, part of the go in look
of what putts look like when they're going in. So
I think shifting the focus away from technique. Yeah, work
on your technique, work on your stroke, you know, work
(15:51):
on all of the things that are available in putting.
Right now, there are so many different tools, putting mirrors, gates,
you know, template O Kenyon has his that a lot
of players use. I think all of that is incredibly important.
But I think if you're going to do that type
of work, and however much time you're going to put
into that type of mechanical work, you should put in
(16:13):
the same time and just turn your brain off and
just go to a putting grain and say, okay, it's
playground and I'm just going to try and play, just
going to try and pot as opposed to go and
work on one specific task from five feet right. And
that definitely has value, But you then have to get
out of that and say, okay, let me go test
(16:35):
the work that I've done on my stroke and see
if I can make any pots, and see if I
can control my speed, and see if I can control
what I'm seeing. I think a good rule of thumb
when you get up to every pot that you have
before you market. Okay, let's say you've hit an eight
iron to twenty five feet, walk up to the ball,
stand behind it. So stand directly behind the line that
(16:57):
you're gonna put and ask yourself two questions. The first
question is is this uphill or downhill? Do I see
it uphill? Does your first impression of this put do
you think it's uphill or downhill? And then ask yourself
do you think this putt is left to right or
right to left? So before you do anything, ask yourself
those two questions. Get your first kind of reaction. Your
(17:19):
first instinct is it uphill, downhill, right to left, left
to right. Then go gather the information if you want
to do whatever you want to do aime point, go
stand on it whatever, figure out all that stuff. Hopefully
you should come back after doing all the information gathering,
all the data collection, and you thought it was downhill,
and hopefully it's downhill, and you thought it was left
(17:40):
to right and it was left right. Now how much
downhill and how much left to right or right to
left or uphill that's a different question. But I think
so many players are losing their instincts and their reaction
as a player, as an athlete, as a human being,
and they're just waiting to try and gather all of
this information, and then once the information tells them something,
(18:03):
then they're going to try and make a stroke to
where they're just trying to not hit a bad putt.
They're just trying not to run it too far past.
They're just trying to tritckle it down there, and there's
no thought process into trying to make it. I'm not
telling you to be reckless, right, There's a big difference
between recklessly putting going at crazy speeds. But if you
are struggling with putting, shifting the focus to okay, what
(18:26):
can I do to try and make this pot as
opposed to what can I do to try and make
sure I don't miss this pot? I think that is
two very very different things. So in DJ's case, DJA
at times can struggle to get the ball to the hole.
So in practice rounds, you know, we were putting a
alignment stick behind the hole and saying, listen, you've got
to get the ball to the hole. And there were
(18:47):
a couple of times where he made a couple putts
that would have gone maybe five feet past, but they didn't.
They hit the hole. And so the reaction was, Wow,
that would have gone too far past. But my answer
to that was, yeah, but it didn't. It went why
in the middle of the hole. So if that's putt
for Birdie, Yeah, if you missed it, maybe it would
have gone five feet past, but you didn't. You made it.
(19:07):
And so taking that focus and having the concept of
a make speed what am I trying to do to
make this putt? Can really help just it can help
you play and putt better. It can definitely free your
putting stroke up. It can get you a little bit
less tentative. And most of the three putts that I
see in watching recreational golfers you know that I work with,
(19:31):
and watching players that I work with, you know that
are trying to play, and watching pro ams and watching
you know, great players putt. So many times people just
don't get the ball to the hole. So from twenty
five feet they come up five feet short. That means
it never had a chance to go. In so simple,
simple game that you can play. Walk four steps away
(19:53):
from the hole, put two balls down, do it uphill,
do it downhill, do it right to left, do it
left to right, and you're trying to see how many
of the two you're trying to make them right. If
you make them, take a step back, if you miss,
come a step forward. But turning the brain off and
getting this idea of trying to make putts can do
a lot for your confidence, for your speed control, for
(20:13):
your distance control, and it can do a lot for
trying to free up your stroke. It's not technique. It's
in the execution room. It's in the execution button. If
you need your stroke. If you're doing this and you're
hitting balls massively offline, you know if they've got a
lot of cut spin. If you're not hitting something, then
go set up some drills and work on your stroke mechanics.
(20:35):
But after you've done that, get out of that and
go just try and putt and uphills, downhills, right to left,
left to right. But trying to make pots from forty
feet Go put some forty footers and the only thing
you're trying to do from forty feet is make it.
And getting into that mindset I think is hugely powerful.
(20:55):
I think it's getting into a really positive mindset. And
when you've got a pot for Birdie. I mean, if
you look at the stats on the PGA Tour, players
make more par putts, it seems like from ten feet
sometimes than they do for Bertie. Why because the player
doesn't want to make a bogie. So why are people
(21:16):
more aggressive on bogie putts than they are on birdie putts.
It doesn't make any logical sense, right, You're trying to
make both of them, and a birdie putt should be
an opportunity for you to take a stroke off your score.
But you talk to players, you talk to the reaction.
You see guys make a fifteen footer and sometimes they
don't even acknowledge it. They make a fifteen footer for bogie,
(21:39):
fifteen foot for double, you know, for par or fifteen
foot for bogie did not make a double. The reaction
is way different. They're much more amped up about making
a fifteen foot putt for par than they are missing
one from fifteen feet for Bertie. So just something I
wanted to talk about listen. As I said earlier, putting
is a complex part of the game, right. There are
(22:00):
a lot of things that go into it. But one
of the things that you can do if you are
struggling with putting, get out of your head, just go
pot free, the stroke up, just try and make potts.
And I'm pretty confident if the goal is to try
and make pots, and the drill is to try and
make pots, and you're someone that doesn't make a lot
(22:21):
of potts, I think it's pretty simple. If you're not
making a lot of putts, focus on trying to make
a lot of putts. So Butch comes to you almost
every week. We will definitely see you next week. Rate review,
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
It's the Son of Butcher podcast. I'm your host Claude
harmon solo episode of the pod this week and wanted
to talk about putting. I think it's a very very
important part of the game. But I also think it's
a part of the game that at times is seen
as incredibly complex, and it is. It is a complex
skill set. I've had Phil Kenyon on the pod before.
If you haven't listened to that one, go check it out.
(00:23):
I think fills one of the best in the game
and in putting. He works with some of the best
players in the game, and he is a master, in
my opinion, as an instructor as a coach at making
players better at putting. But I just wanted to give
a really simple brief observation on Yes, what I know
is a complex problem, but I've had some success recently
(00:43):
with some players in getting them to think about it differently.
And the thought process is, ask yourself when you're putting,
are you trying to make putts or are you trying
to not miss putts? And I'm talking putts from any
distance five feet, ten feet, fifteen, five, thirty thirty five
doesn't matter. I asked my dad, Butch Armon. I asked
(01:05):
him once what type of putter he was when he
played the tour, and he said he felt two things
held him back from having a better PJ Tour career.
His attitude his temper, which he said got the better
of him. He said he struggled to control that like
a lot of players do. And he said putting. He
didn't feel like he was a great putter and felt
like if he could have made more putts, he would
have had a better career. That is something that I
(01:25):
hear from a lot of players, from the average recreational golfer,
two players trying to play at the competitive level. I
need to put better. And I asked my dad once.
We were talking about putting, and my dad when he
worked with Tiger Woods, they used to have this this
game that they would play on the night or the
late afternoon of every major. So on Wednesday afternoon, wherever
(01:45):
they were, they would have a putting contest. Augusta, the
US Open, the PGA, the British And this is kind
of peak tiger Woods, right two thousand Tiger, you know,
the Tiger Slam, all the tournaments he was winning, all
the putts that he was making. I think Tiger Woods
is probably one of the best pressure putters of all time.
In the same vein of Jack Nicholas, it seemed like
Tiger and Jack made all the putts they needed to
(02:07):
make at the times they needed to make them. The
puts for Paul, the puts for birdies, and we've seen
that from Tiger's career. So Tiger and my dad would
have a putting contest. And my dad has a very
very old school kind of risty stroke, you know, tons
of weight on his left leg, a lot of forward press.
He played on greens growing up in you know, the
fifties and the sixties that weren't the greens that we
(02:30):
have now, so you had to hit the ball. And
his stroke has a lot of hit. It has kind
of a lot of what we would call pop to it.
We put them on, you know, we put a line
on the ball, get him to try and roll the
ball straight. He can't do that. I've had him on
Sam before. Consistency is off the charts, but the stroke
is not something that would be technically perfect. The putter
(02:52):
that he uses, he's always used a bullseye type putter,
and he had Scottie Cameron make him a bulls eye
type putter, so he also likes his putters to be very,
very heavy. But he's a very good putter, has been
his whole career. And I watched a lot of these
putting competitions with Tiger and my dad at Major's, and
I watched Tiger beat my dad. Yeah, a lot of times.
But I watched my dad beat Tiger in a make
(03:14):
him putt game to where the only job was to
make it, so if you made it, you were one up.
If you didn't make it, you're even. And I'd watch
my dad sometimes run the table on Tiger and Tiger
but always said, man, I don't know how you're beating
me with that shitty putting stroke. And my dad would say, well,
you're three down. So I asked him once I was
talking to him about putting. I was on putting Green
and asking him, you know, what do you think about
when you're putting? And he looked at me with a
(03:36):
strange look, kind of stations like I don't understand the question.
I was like what, and he's like, what do you
mean what I think about when I'm putting? And I said, yeah,
what do you think about when you're putting? And he
said making it. What else are you thinking about? And
I was like, yeah, no obviously, and he goes, no, no, no,
are you thinking about something else other than making it?
So I had a player recently come in plays on
the PGA Tour and said he was struggling with his game.
(03:58):
You know, he'd missed you know, number of fo in
a row, and you know, I said, listen, what are
the strengths of your game right now? What are the weaknesses?
And he said, well, putting's definitely a weakness. I said,
in what way? He said, well, I just don't feel
like I can make a lot of pots. We talked
about his full swing, We talked about a number of things,
and so did some work on us full swing. And
I said, well, let's go over to the putting green
and I want to sell you what's going on with
your stroke And he said, well, I just don't make
a lot of pots. And so the natural tendency when
(04:21):
someone tells you as an instructor, I don't make a
lot of pots, he is, Okay, I've got an indoor
putter studio where I can go get him on you know,
four cameras and we see how the ball's rolling and
hook him up to Sam and you know, we've got
the technology, put him on force plates, figure out where
his weight's at, is he moving around, is he not
moving around, what's the stroke doing, what's the aim doing.
You know, we can tear this whole thing apart through technology.
(04:44):
But what I wanted to do was to see if
he was a bad putter. So I took two balls
and I walked four steps away from roughly around twelve
fifteen feet to start. I think it was left to
right with some downhill in it. And I said, all right,
you've got two balls, and the goal is to make
the pot. That's it. The only goal is to make
(05:05):
the pott. You have two chances, and if you make it,
make one of the two, you take another step back,
so you'd be five steps away to start out. If
you miss, you stay where you are. So first pott
I think he hold. Walk back to five feet the
next pot, and I think just burn the edge or
lipped out, and they hold the next one. So then
we walked back to Now we started at four steps away,
(05:26):
we went to five, got to six, he made another one,
got to seven steps away from the hole. Hit two
really good potts. But missed those. So it took a
step back and everything. But he started laughing and he
was like, wow, I never see myself make this amount
of potts. I said, I thought you told me you
were a bad putter, and he laughed and I laughed.
And my point behind that is I think a lot
of players are just trying to not miss potts. So
(05:49):
when I regonally put the balls down for this player
and I said, listen, you've get two balls. The object
from twelve to fifteen feet is out of these two
balls is to make it. So he had a line
on the ball. So we had three lines on the ball,
you know that a lot of people draw, so that
he could kind of get that kind of you know,
tire look to where he can see how the ball
is rolling. So he went to line that up, started
to do his aim point and I said, no, no, no,
(06:10):
don't line the putts up. Just stand up to it.
No practice strokes. Take one look at the hole, look
back at the ball, and put so to try and
get him to turn his brain off and to take
the time gap and make it much much smaller so
that he didn't have a lot of time to think.
And I think as soon as we took the time
away from him to where he was going to gather
(06:31):
all this information, and as soon as we made the outcome,
just make the pot, I think it really shifted the
focus and the strokes started to look a lot freer.
He started to take way less time and his putts, says,
my dad has said, great putters, their putts always have
the go in look, meaning when you play with a
(06:52):
really good putter, like if we go out and we
walk around a practice round with Cam Smith, you know,
I think it's one of the best pure putters I've
ever seen. Cam's putts always look like they're going in.
Ricky Fowler h when Ricky was in his prime as
one of the best putters on the PGA Tour, his
balls always look like they had the go in look.
And I remember I was at the Austin Golf Club.
(07:14):
I worked there for a year in two thousand and five,
and it was Ben Crunchaw's home course, not the Austin
Country Club where they've played the WGC, but Austin Country Club.
And I was talking to Ben about putting and he
said to me, listen, if your putts always have the
right speed, how far away from the hole. Are you
ever really going to be And he said he feels
like most people just fall in love with the line,
(07:34):
you know, they fall in love with getting the break,
getting the perfect line, and then sometimes forget to hit
the pott. So once we got this player kind of
turning his brain off and just thinking about putting, he
started to make a lot of putts and he said
that he rarely thinks about making potts he's And when
I asked him, I said, listen, when you do a point, listen.
(07:55):
Lucas Glover talked about a point. Colin Marikal talked about
this is not a commonversation of the validities of whether
am point works or it doesn't. I think for some
players it works, and I think it sometimes it does,
and if it does, for you use it. I think
you can use aim point in a way that doesn't
take a long time, that you don't have to be slow.
But my point behind all of this is this player
(08:16):
who told me he was a really bad putter and
who was trying to play golf per a living, wasn't
trying to make putts. He was just trying to not
three putt. So when I asked him, what are you
doing with the aim point, with the line on the ball,
with the multiple lines on the ball, with lining it up,
with going and going through your whole routine, all the
practice strokes, how slow everything is, and then you're not
(08:37):
making pots. What are you doing? Why are you going
through that process? And he said, well, I want to
make sure I get all the information so that I
don't miss anything that could help me from not missing it.
And I just said, no, I understand all that, but
why not shift the focus After you do all that,
after you do all your mechanical stroke work, after you
(08:58):
do all your you know, green reading, you're in information gathering.
Why not then say, okay, I've prepared for the test,
let me go take the test. And when you pot,
there's two outcomes. The ball's either going to go in
or the ball isn't going to go in. And in
talking to my dad, when he was like, listen, why
would you waste any time on trying to not miss it?
(09:18):
Shouldn't your focus be one hundred percent on doing everything
you possibly do to make it? And so I just
think so many players are struggling with putting, They're struggling
with speed, they're struggling with distance control, They're struggling with
a lot of things. But I think there are a
lot of people listening and a lot of people that
I see putting that they're not trying to make putts.
They're just trying to not miss putts. And I think
(09:39):
the headspace that you get into as a player if
all you're trying to do is to not do something,
there's no positive feedback you're building with yourself. There's no
trust that you're building with yourself. So don't be afraid
to yes, work your mechanics. I've always thought that as instructors,
we've kind of worked putting backwards, right. You know, even
with beginning golfers, we work on trying to build the
(10:01):
stroke first, and to try and make the stroke from
three feet five feet, t's in the ground, chalk lines,
all these you know, putting templates, gates, you know, all
of the stuff that we do to try and make
sure that we could control how the ball is rolling
and to make sure that the ball is rolling the
(10:23):
correct way. Right in air quotes, the correct way, there
isn't a correct way. So as I said to this player,
I said, listen, there are so many different ways you
can make putts right. There's so many different speeds that
you can make putts. And then we did this drill
to where we got on some crazy slopes right, some
insane left to right slopes, some insane right to less ups.
(10:45):
We had some where we were putting basically as much
downhill as we can. And again we started off four
steps away from the hole. You had two opportunities to
make it. And watching this player go from someone who
was self confessed a bad putter, who didn't like his stroke,
who said he didn't make any putts, to giving him
very very difficult putting tasks, and the goal being all
(11:08):
you're trying to do is make it. And I think
what I was trying to do is to get the
stroke to be a little bit freer, but to also
help this player just turn his brain off and just
pot react. What you see, if we gave you a
ball from thirty feet and told you to roll two
balls underhanded on the ground, I mean, and just said, hey,
roll them to the hole. I would just roll the
(11:31):
first one, and then I'd react to what the first
one did, and then I'd ad just off the second one.
I wouldn't really think about my arm. I wouldn't really
think about the motion of my arm. I wouldn't think
about where I was holding the ball, whether it's a
lot in my thumb or my index finger. And I
wouldn't think about my release point or any of that.
I wouldn't think about how I was standing or where
my arm position was. I would just roll the balls
(11:53):
towards the hole. I would react. And so I think
most players when they put poorly, they have a bunch
of three putts, have you know, thirty three thirty four pots,
and they put poorly, the first thing they do is
come back to the putting green and set up drills
and work on mechanics. And so I think in the
past we've tried to have players have perfect strokes and
then work on speed and green reading and feel and
(12:16):
touch secondly, and to be honest, a lot of times
you don't even work on it because you're spending so
much time in mechanics. So this goes back to the
constant theme that I'm talking about on the pod is
the technique part in the execution part. The three DP
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asked Brad Faxon. We're with the Open Championship one year
(12:58):
in the early two thousands, and facts, great putter. That's
kind of what he's known for, you know, helps Ry
McElroy with his putting. And so I asked him we
were out of major. I said, listen, what do you
think about? Same question I asked my dad, what do
you think about when you're putting? And he said, well,
what I try and do is after I gather all
the information, right after I do my green reading and
(13:19):
kind of figure out what I'm going to do and
figure out what the game plan, how the putt is breaking,
whether it's uphill downhill. He said, once I get over
the pot, if I find myself starting to think about
my stroke or my brain starting to turn on, I
kind of back off, step out and start over again.
Because when I'm standing over a putt, I just kind
(13:40):
of want to be blank and not thinking about anything.
And so I think if you're struggling with putting, if
you're struggling with speed, and you're struggling with three putts,
I think this is a really good drill to just
get you out of Okay. The object is I'm just
trying to make it okay. From you know, you could
do this in even numbers ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty
twenty five, thirty three five. So start at ten feet,
(14:03):
you get two opportunities to make it. If you make it,
you go back to fifteen feet. If you miss one
of the two at fifteen feet, you go back to ten.
And then you just keep trying to see how far
away from the hole you can be. And I just
am fascinated that all of a sudden, the balls start
to get to the hole in putting. And this is
going to sound very very basic, but if the ball
doesn't get to the hole, it never has a chance
(14:24):
to go in. That might sound like an incredibly simplistic,
kind of cliche type statement, but if you think about it,
if you've got a twenty foot pot and the ball
doesn't get past the hole, it doesn't get over the
front edge of where the cup is. If you don't
have enough speed for that to happen, it's very hard
for the ball to go in. So when I was
(14:45):
in Singapore a couple of weeks ago and DJ played
really well, we were out on the golf course practicing.
You know, during the practice round, I was taking an
alignment stick on whatever putt that he had and just saying, Okay,
I'm going to take the alignments that can place at
one step behind the hole. So that's kind of, you know,
I'm sure people have heard that's kind of the safe zone,
but I said, you've got to get the balls to
(15:06):
the hole. So you don't want to be reckless. You
don't want to be hitting putts super super hard, but
there is a makespeed that putts have when you make them.
I always think that most players, you can kind of
see how much, especially on tour, you can see how
much they stay in their posture putting wise, you can
kind of tell if they think they've made it or not.
So if Roy mcroy's got a twenty footer and he
(15:29):
kind of puts it and he kind of stays crouched
over stays in his posture and stuff, he's probably gonna
have a pretty good chance to make it if he
puts it in halfway, he stands up and out of it,
or starts walking he knows he hasn't right. So that
again is to me, part of the go in look
of what putts look like when they're going in. So
I think shifting the focus away from technique. Yeah, work
on your technique, work on your stroke, you know, work
(15:51):
on all of the things that are available in putting.
Right now, there are so many different tools, putting mirrors, gates,
you know, template O Kenyon has his that a lot
of players use. I think all of that is incredibly important.
But I think if you're going to do that type
of work, and however much time you're going to put
into that type of mechanical work, you should put in
(16:13):
the same time and just turn your brain off and
just go to a putting grain and say, okay, it's
playground and I'm just going to try and play, just
going to try and pot as opposed to go and
work on one specific task from five feet right. And
that definitely has value, But you then have to get
out of that and say, okay, let me go test
(16:35):
the work that I've done on my stroke and see
if I can make any pots, and see if I
can control my speed, and see if I can control
what I'm seeing. I think a good rule of thumb
when you get up to every pot that you have
before you market. Okay, let's say you've hit an eight
iron to twenty five feet, walk up to the ball,
stand behind it. So stand directly behind the line that
(16:57):
you're gonna put and ask yourself two questions. The first
question is is this uphill or downhill? Do I see
it uphill? Does your first impression of this put do
you think it's uphill or downhill? And then ask yourself
do you think this putt is left to right or
right to left? So before you do anything, ask yourself
those two questions. Get your first kind of reaction. Your
(17:19):
first instinct is it uphill, downhill, right to left, left
to right. Then go gather the information if you want
to do whatever you want to do aime point, go
stand on it whatever, figure out all that stuff. Hopefully
you should come back after doing all the information gathering,
all the data collection, and you thought it was downhill,
and hopefully it's downhill, and you thought it was left
(17:40):
to right and it was left right. Now how much
downhill and how much left to right or right to
left or uphill that's a different question. But I think
so many players are losing their instincts and their reaction
as a player, as an athlete, as a human being,
and they're just waiting to try and gather all of
this information, and then once the information tells them something,
(18:03):
then they're going to try and make a stroke to
where they're just trying to not hit a bad putt.
They're just trying not to run it too far past.
They're just trying to tritckle it down there, and there's
no thought process into trying to make it. I'm not
telling you to be reckless, right, There's a big difference
between recklessly putting going at crazy speeds. But if you
are struggling with putting, shifting the focus to okay, what
(18:26):
can I do to try and make this pot as
opposed to what can I do to try and make
sure I don't miss this pot? I think that is
two very very different things. So in DJ's case, DJA
at times can struggle to get the ball to the hole.
So in practice rounds, you know, we were putting a
alignment stick behind the hole and saying, listen, you've got
to get the ball to the hole. And there were
(18:47):
a couple of times where he made a couple putts
that would have gone maybe five feet past, but they didn't.
They hit the hole. And so the reaction was, Wow,
that would have gone too far past. But my answer
to that was, yeah, but it didn't. It went why
in the middle of the hole. So if that's putt
for Birdie, Yeah, if you missed it, maybe it would
have gone five feet past, but you didn't. You made it.
(19:07):
And so taking that focus and having the concept of
a make speed what am I trying to do to
make this putt? Can really help just it can help
you play and putt better. It can definitely free your
putting stroke up. It can get you a little bit
less tentative. And most of the three putts that I
see in watching recreational golfers you know that I work with,
(19:31):
and watching players that I work with, you know that
are trying to play, and watching pro ams and watching
you know, great players putt. So many times people just
don't get the ball to the hole. So from twenty
five feet they come up five feet short. That means
it never had a chance to go. In so simple,
simple game that you can play. Walk four steps away
(19:53):
from the hole, put two balls down, do it uphill,
do it downhill, do it right to left, do it
left to right, and you're trying to see how many
of the two you're trying to make them right. If
you make them, take a step back, if you miss,
come a step forward. But turning the brain off and
getting this idea of trying to make putts can do
a lot for your confidence, for your speed control, for
(20:13):
your distance control, and it can do a lot for
trying to free up your stroke. It's not technique. It's
in the execution room. It's in the execution button. If
you need your stroke. If you're doing this and you're
hitting balls massively offline, you know if they've got a
lot of cut spin. If you're not hitting something, then
go set up some drills and work on your stroke mechanics.
(20:35):
But after you've done that, get out of that and
go just try and putt and uphills, downhills, right to left,
left to right. But trying to make pots from forty
feet Go put some forty footers and the only thing
you're trying to do from forty feet is make it.
And getting into that mindset I think is hugely powerful.
(20:55):
I think it's getting into a really positive mindset. And
when you've got a pot for Birdie. I mean, if
you look at the stats on the PGA Tour, players
make more par putts, it seems like from ten feet
sometimes than they do for Bertie. Why because the player
doesn't want to make a bogie. So why are people
(21:16):
more aggressive on bogie putts than they are on birdie putts.
It doesn't make any logical sense, right, You're trying to
make both of them, and a birdie putt should be
an opportunity for you to take a stroke off your score.
But you talk to players, you talk to the reaction.
You see guys make a fifteen footer and sometimes they
don't even acknowledge it. They make a fifteen footer for bogie,
(21:39):
fifteen foot for double, you know, for par or fifteen
foot for bogie did not make a double. The reaction
is way different. They're much more amped up about making
a fifteen foot putt for par than they are missing
one from fifteen feet for Bertie. So just something I
wanted to talk about listen. As I said earlier, putting
is a complex part of the game, right. There are
(22:00):
a lot of things that go into it. But one
of the things that you can do if you are
struggling with putting, get out of your head, just go
pot free, the stroke up, just try and make potts.
And I'm pretty confident if the goal is to try
and make pots, and the drill is to try and
make pots, and you're someone that doesn't make a lot
(22:21):
of potts, I think it's pretty simple. If you're not
making a lot of putts, focus on trying to make
a lot of putts. So Butch comes to you almost
every week. We will definitely see you next week. Rate review,
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