Manny’s putting tips

First part

When you drive your ball on the fairway, you don’t really care by how much you missed the marker position. When your approach shot lands 10 feet from the hole, you still happy. When you miss your putt by 1 inch you feel like dirt…hello? Welcome to the wonderful world of golf!

Your final score: 66…not bad, Manny is only 6 or 7 shots ahead of you (he he) Second round, you score 65 (I give you one stroke!) that was better! Hmm…Manny is now 12 shots ahead…doh! You finish the tournament 30 under and me…60 under. Then you think: This guy is a cheater! You challenge me for an on line match…. lets say nine holes, ok? You choose course and conditions and…you lose the match before the 7^th hole! You try to kill me (of course you can’t!) when you realize that there are other players scoring a few shots better than me (not many, however!) You give up? It’s okay; I understand the feeling since I have been in your situation long enough; too long!

Need a little help? Show me your scorecard, bud. Hmm, lets see…6 birdies, 1 eagle, 1 bogie, 10 pars and, oops! 7 gimmies. If you scored at least four of those, you could have a very nice 59; not enough to beat me under normal conditions but close. Lets take care of some of your missed putts before we concentrate our selves in your approach shots (very important) how many of them were from 20 feet or more? From 15 feet? If you have long putts for birdie 30% of the time (under normal conditions) then you can’t do miracles. I’m sure I could help you to make some of those, but to really improve your scoring average you have to get those shots closer, bud!

Then you have to enjoy putting because is maybe the most exciting part of the game. What would be LinksLS if putting was too easy? Just a boring game! I miss many putts; sometimes-easy ones but I have an average of 20/21 putts per round (I don’t chip on greens). When I started playing this game, my average was 29/30, then it went down to 26/27 and I was stocked there for over a year.

The few putts that make the difference between a great round and an ordinary one, are the addition of two factors: Distance and position (lie, break, slope, inclination, etc).

Distance:

Your swing meter is divided by dots and each dot corresponds to a distance the ball can roll.

In normal-medium greens 8 dots correspond to 20 feet (+-) distance

12 dots = 40 feet

16 dots= 20 yards (or so)

Because, I am not making a chart (I hate putting charts) I will let you try yourself the values between the 8^th, the 12^th and the 16^th dots. In fact, it’s important you get enough practice to be able to hit the dot you evaluate to be the good one without having your eyes stuck to the computer screen!

Now, if you already know this read below, otherwise go practice choosing a course with some flat greens (Old St-Andrews, Phoenix, Harbour Town, etc.) and come back.

How to adjust distance to green speed

We know already our “default” distances but, of course, depending on the green’s speed we have to make some adjustments. Lets see how we can do that without charts but with a little help of maths. Yes my friend, we are not walking in the real course. Only one of our five senses (our sight) is there to help us. Our eyes alone cannot do the work!

If you have a small calculator, go get it, it will help you a lot for the next… 3 months.

Situation:

You have a putt of 25 feet to make. On normal-medium greens, you will hit around 9 dots. How about if the greens are normal-fast?

Well, here is what I do:

I subtract between 10 and 12% to my distance. Lets do it! 25 feet – 10% = 22.5 feet

(If you’re not very good in maths; on your calculator do 25 X 90% or 10/25 x100=2,5 (25-2,5=22.5) It’s easy, you’ll see. Here is the complete table according to this method:

Green speed	Distance calculation
Soft and slow	X 130%
Soft and medium	X 120%
Normal and slow	X 118%
Normal-medium/soft-fast/hard-slow	No change
Normal and fast	X 90%
Hard and medium	X 88%
Hard and fast	X 75% (uphill or flat) X 70% downhill