KEEP IT MOVING!
Pace of play is the bane of recreational golf. Nothing throws off your rhythm or can psyche you out more than waiting ages for a slow group treating every putt like its for $100k. Or waiting an eternity for a playing partner who feels the need to lie on the ground and spend a minute agonizing over a 2 foot putt.
Think about this, if a foursome takes a full minute per player to just make one putt each on every green, that’s an hour and 12 minutes! You can see how things can get out of hand.
Of course if you are visiting this site you understand that putting should be taken seriously. On an average course putting makes up half of par so we are not encouraging a cavalier attitude towards putting. What we are saying though is that spending ages over the ball is not only bad for everyone else, it could be detrimental to your putting game in general.
First of all you can end up with a kind of “paralysis by analysis”. We all know that a significant part of putting is mental. So overthinking your putts, especially over the ball can easily cause you to get “yippy” and indecisive.
Reading greens is vital and it works hand in hand with the “feel” aspect of putting. Its the marriage of these two things that makes putting such an art in the first place. But If you are bent over the ball for more than say 15 seconds (which feels like a long time if you count it out) still analyzing the green in your head rather than focusing on the task, there’s a pretty big chance your stroke will be affected.
Im sure you would agree that there are few things in golf more laughable than someone standing for centuries hunched over the ball analyzing and re-analyzing, only to have it go 6 feet right of the hole.
Don’t be that person, be confident and be decisive.
Becoming a green reading scholar is a goal that all golfers should have. But methodically reading putts doesn’t mean you have to be slow.
The best in the game only take on average around 30 seconds to putt, some are much faster, and the very slowest average 40 seconds which is still well under a minute. Remember these are people putting for a living!
So can you read putts well and still keep things moving? Of course you can.
Here are a few tips:
Start reading your putts before you ever reach the green
As you stroll up this is the perfect chance to get some real perspective on the overall structure, layout and slope of the green. Its amazing how many of us miss this opportunity to do this kind of recon.
Use your waiting time effectively
On the green, without disturbing others, use your time between shots to do your reading. If you want to kneel, or lay down or stand on one leg while looking through a rangefinder, that is the best time to do it.
Have your putting routine dialed in
If you have practiced and built a solid routine and you have your plan of attack or whatever you want dialed in. It’s time to brush away the other thoughts. Go through your routine and commit. Hockey players pass small pucks to other players while moving at high speed and other players trying to actively take the puck. They do this with little thought and yet are extremely accurate. Why? because there’s no time. So this isn’t something impossible for us, humans do this all the time in other sports. The problem is that golf allows you the time. So you can choose to use this time to either psyche yourself out. Or your can use it to calm yourself down and make good decisions.
Pick up when appropriate
This of course is totally dependent on the situation, but its important to remember the majority of us are not putting for a trophy or for tens of thousands of dollars. All we need to do is be more aware of what’s happening around us. Consider the situation and people we are with, and then act accordingly. But if you are taking our advice and not wasting unnecessary time, then you should have ample time left over to buckle down and putt everything out.
But in the end, hopefully after focusing your efforts and forging yourself into the putting virtuoso you were meant to be you’ll be spending your time jarring putts rather than taking too much time overanalyzing them.
