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Do you hear yourself?

Posted in: USA Northwest

Nathan Smith Professional Champion
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I was playing with my cousin and a couple of his friends. I noticed one of them had a weird putting routine. Since i know the guy, and haven't played with him before i let him know that his practice strokes looked nothing like is actual stroke(he asked pre-round for me to help him), and his reply was "I don't use my practice strokes to feel the speed or get an idea of the putt but to keep the putter close to the ground, the guy proceeds to hit every putt 4 feet short or 5 feet long, and missed inconsistently(pushing and pulling)." I told him that it helps substantially to practice the stroke you want to make with the actual putt. He asked for my help but wouldn't accept my advice, that made no sense. Now I know i'm not the best green reader in the world but I always practice the putt i want to hit, and usually hit it(if only i could read greens a little better).
Racer888 Legend
# 1 7/21/2012 6:05:48 AM
not much point in practicing if you are not going to use the same stroke, set up and swing.
Mark Simmons Legend
# 2 7/21/2012 9:07:41 AM
I for one will hardly ever try to change ANYTHING during a round. (Exception is when some error creeps in that isn't 'normal' for me and I can easily make the correction.) I never try something new mid-round. Lots of people are like that. So just because he didn't change mid-round doesn't necessarily say he didn't take your advice. Or he could be one of these hard heads that has a big fat filter that almost nothing gets through called his EGO.
Don Freeman Professional Champion
# 3 7/21/2012 1:14:25 PM
not much point in practicing if you are not going to use the same stroke, set up and swing. For the most part, but not always true. Many pros you will see as they practice stroke for a 3 footer, they will swing the putter as hard as they would for a 40 footer. Then they gently tap the 3 footer in. The hard stroke is to get some muscle memory of a good shoulder movement that will translate into the easy short putt. It works.
cogolfer1 LowIndex
# 4 7/21/2012 1:36:35 PM
I've never been a fan of practice putting strokes unless my ball is up against a longer cut of grass, or I have a putt from a different zip code. I feel like I have always been able to judge extremely well what the break of a putt is and how hard I need to hit it on that line. But no, for those that use putting strokes, there's no use doing ones that are much less shorter or longer than what you'll actually end up taking. That's like practicing a flop shot when you're actually going to chip.

Nathan Smith

Professional Champion

Go to Last Reply

308 Views 4 Replies 2 Likes

I was playing with my cousin and a couple of his friends. I noticed one of them had a weird putting routine. Since i know the guy, and haven't played with him before i let him know that his practice strokes looked nothing like is actual stroke(he asked pre-round for me to help him), and his reply was "I don't use my practice strokes to feel the speed or get an idea of the putt but to keep the putter close to the ground, the guy proceeds to hit every putt 4 feet short or 5 feet long, and missed inconsistently(pushing and pulling)." I told him that it helps substantially to practice the stroke you want to make with the actual putt. He asked for my help but wouldn't accept my advice, that made no sense. Now I know i'm not the best green reader in the world but I always practice the putt i want to hit, and usually hit it(if only i could read greens a little better).

Racer888

Legend

# 1 7/21/2012 6:05:48 AM

not much point in practicing if you are not going to use the same stroke, set up and swing.

Mark Simmons

Legend

# 2 7/21/2012 9:07:41 AM

I for one will hardly ever try to change ANYTHING during a round. (Exception is when some error creeps in that isn't 'normal' for me and I can easily make the correction.) I never try something new mid-round. Lots of people are like that.

So just because he didn't change mid-round doesn't necessarily say he didn't take your advice.

Or he could be one of these hard heads that has a big fat filter that almost nothing gets through called his EGO.

Don Freeman

Professional Champion

# 3 7/21/2012 1:14:25 PM

not much point in practicing if you are not going to use the same stroke, set up and swing.

For the most part, but not always true. Many pros you will see as they practice stroke for a 3 footer, they will swing the putter as hard as they would for a 40 footer. Then they gently tap the 3 footer in. The hard stroke is to get some muscle memory of a good shoulder movement that will translate into the easy short putt. It works.

cogolfer1

LowIndex

# 4 7/21/2012 1:36:35 PM

I've never been a fan of practice putting strokes unless my ball is up against a longer cut of grass, or I have a putt from a different zip code. I feel like I have always been able to judge extremely well what the break of a putt is and how hard I need to hit it on that line.

But no, for those that use putting strokes, there's no use doing ones that are much less shorter or longer than what you'll actually end up taking. That's like practicing a flop shot when you're actually going to chip.

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