Well, here we are in November and even though there is more golf to be played the handicap season is over. If finished the year at 4.2 a little up from my recent low of 3.9. I did have a few extenuating circumstances, getting a flu bug in the second week of October that laid me up for a week. Over all my golf game was at least stable this last month. In this blog it is time to reveal the new and rather bizarre putting method I use that turned around this golf season and helped reverse an eighteen month slump.
The date was June 28th, and place was Hartman’s golf course in Harmony, Pa. I had played the first 6 holes terribly, as you will soon find out, and heading toward an index of 7, at the end of the month. On the sixth hole a 500 yard par 5, I had about an 8 foot putt to salvage a par. I came up and out of the putt, which always results in a push, and of course I missed the putt. The next hole is a 340 par 4 that is quite narrow. I hit a good drive, but left my sand wedge about 40 feet short of the hole. It was at that moment, I decided to putt by coming out of the putt on purpose. In other words rather than try to keep my body still, I would move my body forward with the forward stroke and come up a little bit. I even played for the push of the putt. Well, low and behold, I made the 40 foot putt. Probably a coincidence, and mostly luck, but the darn thing went in. I did not get to try the method on the next hole, because from 116 yards I holed a gap wedge for an eagle 2. On 9 I hit a wedge about 10 feet and made that putt for another birdie. Despite those last 3 hole heroics, I still only shot 40 on the front. I continued the improved putting and my play improved to shoot a 77 and the next 7 out of 9 rounds I broke 80, including a 74 and 75 which were my low rounds of the year, up to that time. I continued to tweak the method, by not playing for the push any more, as I was hitting the putts on line and not really pushing them anymore. I just allow my body to move forward with the downswing of the putt. Now I still have some bad days on the green every now and again, but my putting has improved 200% and is the major reason my handicap almost came down 3 strokes in the last 3 months. There have been some other things that I have changed that have helped my game but the new putting method is mostly responsible. I am still doing some tweaking with the method but it has held up well in some pressure situations.
Do I recommend this putting method. Absolutely not. What I do advocate is to forget about all the so called putting rules or fundamentals and find away to get the ball into the hole, not matter what that method is. The one and only fundamental in putting is to get the ball into the hole. Since I have adopted this “method” I have holed more putts in the last 3 and half months than I have in the last 3 years. My stroke is smooth and free and I roll the ball very true. So figure it out and start making putts. In the next few blogs I will discuss other things that have gotten my game back on track.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 