Making
the Putt

Making the Putt compared to Holing the Putt may just seem like a play on words, but it is not. It is a completely different mind-set.

It is an attitude, or philosophical approach, that will keep your emotions in balance, especially when your putting game is letting you down.

If you allow yourself to get angry when you miss a putt, you prejudice any chance of getting your game back on track.

It is too easy to start believing that everything is going against you, and it is just not your day.

Certainly you should always putt with the full intention of getting the ball in the hole.

To do otherwise is to give way to negative thinking that will steadily erode your confidence on the green. But you need to temper your ambition with realism.

There is a host of statistics that show how many putts tour professionals sink from various distances.

Their chance of success diminishes as the distance from the hole increases.

In spite of their ability and the time they spend practising, they still miss short makeable putts as certain factors influencing the roll of the ball are outside their control.

The important point is that even though you don't hole the putt, you can still make it.

Definitely Made It

This should be your goal for every putt. To be able to say:

I may not have holed the putt, but I definitely made it.

So what does making a putt involve? It is placing your focus on the actual process of putting, and not on measuring your success only on the outcome of the putt.

Take the following situation. You are faced with a four-foot putt. You go through your pre-putt routine, set up correctly and put a pure stroke on the ball. However, the ball misses. Did you succeed or did you fail?

How you answer this question will ultimately determine how good a putter you become.

If you measure yourself only on the outcome, you will blow hot and cold every time you step on the putting green.

To putt well consistently requires you to develop a repetitive process so that your approach to each putt is exactly the same. By following a routine you increase the chances of not only making more putts, but also holing more putts.

So the next time you play, don't judge yourself only on the number of putts you took. Measure yourself on how well you executed each putt.

If you did your best every time, you can ask no more of yourself. Learn to enjoy the feeling of making the putt - following your plan so to speak - irrespective of whether you holed it or not.

Learn also to manage your expectations according to your skill level and the time you devote to practising your putting in order to improve.

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