00:03Hi, I'm Katie Dawkins. I am an advanced PGA professional and I'm here today at West Hill
00:09Golf Club on the beautiful greens that they have here to help you work out how to better judge
00:14distance on the green. So how do I get this ball close to that hole? If you could guarantee that
00:21you never took any more than two putts on every single green, my goodness, how many shots would
00:26you save every round? I would say a lot of golfers are creeping into that double figures mark. So if
00:32putting is going to save you lots of shots and especially getting that first putt close, then why
00:37is it that people turn up for lessons and want to go on the range? Everyone needs to put a
00:41little bit
00:41more time into working on their putting game. Here are a couple of tips just to help you with that
00:46judging of distance on the greens. So how do I get a ball from about here on the edge of
00:51the green
00:51to there? One of the easiest ways to get feel for how much stroke to give it would be to
00:56roll it
00:57there. So if I am going to roll a ball to that flag, say it was for a million pounds
01:02prize money,
01:03I'm not going to stand here and give it a thumb like this with my arm. I'm not going to
01:07give it
01:07quite a jerky sort of shot. Yet this is how some people putt. Some people will stand here and smack
01:14the ball to get it close to the hole. It's very hard to know how much hit to give it.
01:19You're better off
01:20taking the hit out and working on different length strokes for different length putts. A really great
01:26way, especially if you have a demon hole on the course that really bugs you, perhaps you three
01:30or four putted, heaven forbid, the last time you played it. But a really good way is to stand on
01:35that green out on the course when no one else is around, roll a few balls to that hole from
01:40different
01:40spots on the green. What you'll find from that is you start to get a bit of an idea of
01:55how much swing
01:55with the arm to give it, then drop a ball down there and have a putt from that same spot.
02:01What
02:01that's going to do is it's going to start to give you a nice amount of feel for how much
02:06stroke you need
02:07for that particular length putt. It'll also give you a feel for how the up slopes and the down slopes
02:12and how the conditions are going to affect you that day. If you are going to play a different course
02:18and you're on the putting green, for example, a really good drill will be to stand there and have
02:23in your head almost like a metronome, a rhythm, a one, two, a tick, tock. So if you're standing over
02:30the shot, it's tick, tock, tick, tock. If it's a little putt, it's little tick, tock. And if it's a
02:37big putt, it's a bigger tick, tock. But the rhythm stays the same. That way you're working on length of
02:44stroke to determine the distance your ball goes. As with when I roll a ball with my arm, there's always
02:50a little bit more follow through than there is backswing. So bear that in mind, it's a smooth
02:55acceleration and give it a go. So this is a part of the game that players just don't practice enough.
03:00So all you need to do is go out and work out how you control distance. There's no textbook way
03:07of
03:07doing this. It's just down to practice and putting some time in. You put some work in on the greens
03:11and your game will thank you for it.
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