- 9 minutes ago
Ever wondered what turns an average putter into a great one? In this video, putting performance coach, AimPoint specialist and Cobra/Puma ambassador Jamie Donaldson runs through the 8 things all good putters do to help you become a master on the greens!
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00:02Hold more putts, shoot lower scores. It really is as simple as that. So in this video, we've
00:07teamed up with Cobra Golf and putting specialist Jamie Donaldson to bring you the eight things
00:12all good putters do. We're going to show you how to strike your putts correctly,
00:16read greens properly, but more importantly, match up the correct line and pace so you can become
00:21a master on the greens. We're here at the amazing Tavistock Short Game Area at Wobo and Golf Club.
00:26Let's get into it.
00:33One thing that all good putters do is hit the ball out the center of the putter face and this
00:38is your
00:38sweet spot. So this drill is going to help you get more balls coming out of the sweet sort of
00:43your
00:43putter. And what I've got, I've got two T-pegs just the width of my putter head here and obviously
00:48the
00:49ball is going to sit right in the middle of these two and I'm going to set up and with
00:53just enough
00:54room to get my putter through, I can really work on controlling that sweet spot. So I know that if
01:01I
01:01hit the T-peg nearer to me, the putter is too close and if I hit the T-peg further
01:06away from me,
01:07the putter has got away from me. So managing the sweet spot with two T-pegs. Also, we can look
01:13at
01:13our angle of attack. Having your ball position too far forward is going to cause the club to come up
01:18and
01:18left and that's really going to impact the quality of your strikes. If our ball position is too far
01:24backwards, we get very steep and the putter is moving away from you. So there is no perfect ball
01:30position, but you'll find some of the best players in the world go from center of the stance to just
01:35forward. Now, Cobra's descending loft technology is going to help you if your angle of attacks are poor.
01:41They go from four to three to two to one degrees and this is going to really help to save
01:47you
01:47sometimes if your angle attack is out of kilt. But if you keep an eye on your ball position,
01:52keep a consistent ball position and one that works for you, you're going to putt a lot better.
02:02Another thing that all good putters do is control their stroke lengths and their tempo and for this
02:08drill you're going to need a ruler, some golf balls and markers at 10, 20 and 30 feet. And what
02:15we want
02:16to do is to work out what kind of stroke length you're using for 10 foot and then how to
02:20lengthen
02:21it for 20 and 30. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hit a 10 foot putt.
02:32Okay, so at the corner
02:33of my eye I could see that that stroke length was 12 inches long. So I'm just going to pop
02:38a marker
02:38into there. Now the way this works is your putter has 12 inches to travel back to impact and the
02:45time
02:46you do this will affect how far the ball rolls. So my forward time was very much field-based and
02:53I want
02:54you to find out what your field-based forward time is. But once we know what our stroke length is
02:59for
03:0010 foot, we can add 50% for 20 foot and then another 50% will take us to the
03:0730 foot mark.
03:09And now I'm going to play these three putts. I'm going to start with the 10 footer again. I'm just
03:14going to get a feel for my stroke length and that all-important forward time. And if I hit my
03:20putt...
03:24Okay, so that's a perfect match. All I'm going to do now is lengthen my backswing but keep that same
03:31forward time. Okay, now I've got the feel I can step in and play. So this is our 20 footer.
03:45And then we lengthen it to the 30 footer. And this always feels really long to me. So don't be
03:52surprised if this backswing feels much longer than what you're using. But the important thing is once
03:57I've got my stroke length figured out, I've got to play my forward action in the same time as the
04:02others. So let's take us to 30 feet now. Okay, so that's a great way of you controlling your swing
04:16length and your forward time. And this is a great warm-up drill before you play golf. And remember,
04:22green speeds change. So you've got to do something different when you're playing on different speed
04:26greens. So we're controlling the strike, we're in charge of our ball position, and we've got a way
04:36of practicing speed control on a regular area on the golf course. But you're also going to be faced
04:42with steep up and downhill putts. And what good putters do is they adjust their stroke length and
04:48their tempo to suit what they're faced. Right here, I've got a very steep downhill putt and I'd like to
04:54take you through my process for dealing with this. So I'm going to change my stroke length first of all,
05:00it has to be shorter. We can't use our normal length backswing, but also I can change my tempo.
05:07And what I'm going to do is I'm going to take even longer to get back to impact. I'm going
05:12to shorten
05:12my backswing and I'm going to slow down my forward time. What I'm doing is I'm just going to move
05:18it
05:18around till it feels correct for this putt. Once I'm happy with my two changes, I can then go ahead
05:25and play. Let's just do that again. I'm going to work out how long I should swing it, what sort
05:31of
05:31forward time is appropriate. Now I've got that feel, I can set up and play my putt.
05:43And there we go. That's a putt that would scare a lot of people. I finished about 14 inches past,
05:49which is ideal. But what I haven't done is left myself with a horrible second putt. When you're
05:55putting uphill, you could swing it longer and quicker. Obviously it all depends on how steep is
06:01the green and the speed of it, but that's what I want you to go and find out what works
06:06best for you.
06:07Change your stroke length, change your tempo, get some control on these up and downhill putts.
06:18One thing that all good putters do is they get their face square to their start line. And they
06:24make sure they do this in several ways. And we'll look at some more in the next couple of videos.
06:30But what you could do is use the technology that's been built into the putters to help you do this.
06:35And we need to get our face square to our line. And the putter face is pretty much 93%
06:41in charge of where the ball finishes. Now you'll notice that when you look at Cobra's range of
06:46putters, you have long solid lines, dots, dots and lines, three lines. You have some putters that
06:54have no markings on at all. And different people are going to be able to square up different putters.
06:59And you've got to find the one that suits you best. Now it's important to mention that one degree
07:05outer impact will get you hitting the edge of the hole at five feet. So at five foot, if you're
07:11one
07:12degree out, there's a good chance of you missing. And if I set up square to this putt here, and
07:18I'm just
07:18going to open my face just a tiny amount. Now I'm going to play the putt. Okay, and that's hit
07:27the
07:27right edge, definitely at least a degree open that one. And now we'll play at this putt. I'm going to
07:33set up aiming well, and I'm just going to change that putter face just a fraction. There we go,
07:42hit the left side. So it's very important for us to get that putter face absolutely square at impact.
07:50So I'm aiming square, I'm going to keep it square. There we go, middle of the cup. Keep watching,
07:58because that was me aiming naturally, but we're going to look into using a line on the ball,
08:03or even picking a spot on the green to help you square up that face. Another thing good putters do,
08:15and you'll have seen this on television, is they help themselves aim. And that might be by using a
08:20line on the ball or picking a spot, which is just in front of the ball they're going to play.
08:25So I'm
08:26going to show you two ways of helping you aim. Now it's important to remember that when we use a
08:31line
08:32on the ball, when you address it, it probably won't look good. So if you do use a line on
08:37the ball,
08:37you've got to trust it. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to come down here, I'm going
08:42to line up
08:42the ball that I've already put my line on. I'm going to take a step back, and I'm going to
08:50use
08:50the shaft just to check if my alignment's good. If I'm not happy, I can just tweak that ball,
08:55but I'm happy with it where it is. I'm going to come in here. I've got a nice long line
09:01on
09:02the back of my putter here, which matches the golf ball. So I'm going to match these two up
09:06and play my putt. And it's important when you're set up to these balls that you don't worry about
09:13does it look correct. The reason you're using a line is because you can't aim without one.
09:18So we've matched the two up,
09:22and there we go. But some people don't want to use a line on a ball. They're going to be
09:26the guys
09:27that pick a spot between the ball and the hole. So if I take a step back again and use
09:33the shaft here,
09:36I can put a marker on the floor, which is about 10 inches in front of the ball. It's important
09:43not
09:43to have this later on in the putt because that putt's going to be breaking. In fact, the ball starts
09:48breaking pretty quickly. So make sure that your spot is no more than 10 inches in front of you.
09:54And if I come back here again and just check, yep, I like that. That's exactly where I want to
10:00hit the
10:00putt. I'm just relying on the club face and the markings, sometimes the shape of the putter here
10:06to aim. And I'm going to make sure that I hit my putt over the spot. The picking a spot
10:14technique
10:14works fantastic. Unfortunately, you can only use a marker when you're practicing. And when you're on the
10:20golf course or in a competition, you're going to have to find a blade of grass or a blemish that
10:25you
10:25can use to help you with your aim. Find the one that suits you best and add it into your
10:31pre-putt routine.
10:38Another thing good putters do is they miss their long putts closer. And it's always going to be better
10:45to have an over read. So good players might add something to their long putt reads because they
10:50know that a putt that's coming down from a higher position is going to finish closer. So what I've
10:55done here is I've set up three balls. One of them is a one foot under read. The next ball
11:01up the slope
11:02is the correct read. And then I've added a foot, which gives us a one foot over read. So let's
11:08have a
11:08look and see where these putts finish. And if I play the under read, we can see here that that
11:20ball's
11:20breaking a lot more. And that's left me with quite a tough second putt. That's about a five or a
11:26six
11:26foot putt. And you're always going to feel the need to hit those under reads harder. Your instincts
11:30are going to kick in a bit more. So if you hit a lot of putts way past the hole
11:34on long putts,
11:35that could be something you're doing. Now we're going to play to the correct read.
11:50Okay, that was a good read and a lot of chance of going in. And now we're going to play
11:55the one
11:56foot over read. And it's quite difficult to get people confident with aiming away from the hole,
12:02but it's going to help you miss closer. So let's have a look and see where this over read finishes.
12:15Okay, so we can see from where those golf balls finished that the under read has left me with a
12:20nasty putt. The good read nearly went in, but the over read has also finished very, very close. So you
12:27need to get a bit more comfortable with aiming higher, even higher than you think you need to,
12:31especially on long putts. If you want to get rid of those three putts, finish closer to the hole.
12:41Another thing that good golfers do is they read putts correctly. And one thing you could do to help
12:47you read putts better is to use aim point. And we're feeling the slopes. And as I stand here and
12:54here,
12:55there's a lot of weight on my right foot. So I know this is going to be a quite aggressive
12:59break from
13:00left to right. So I'm just going to adjust my aim accordingly.
13:09Okay, so that putt was breaking left to right. Now if I come into this one,
13:16I can't feel anything. So this is going to be a pretty straight putt. There's not going to be a
13:21lot
13:21of break on this one. Okay, nearly. And the important thing here is I've now got the weight
13:35moving onto my left side. So this is a right to left breaking putt. So I'm going to allow for
13:41a bit of
13:41break. There we go. So just feeling the slope and understanding which way is downhill is going to
13:52help you aim your putts better. If you feel a lot of slope, there's a lot of break. If you
13:57don't feel
13:58much, it's a pretty straight putt. The last thing that good putters do is they understand
14:09that downhill putts break more than uphill putts. So we've got two putts here that are on the same
14:15amount of slope from the same distance. One of them is downhill, one of them is uphill. Now the
14:21reason for this is putts are rolling downhill actually rolls slower. And when they roll for
14:27longer, gravity keeps me more effective and they break more. So we've got the correct read here for
14:33this putt. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a little bit to it. So a
14:38downhill putt
14:39rolls slower, breaks more. I'm just going to aim outside of that marker there.
14:54Okay so there's the downhill putt and you can see that I started that outside of the standard read
14:59for that amount of slope. But what we're going to do now is we're going to go and look at
15:03the uphill
15:04version. So now we have the same length putt but this time it's uphill and we're going across exactly
15:10the same percentage of slope. So we've kept the aim that would be correct but because it's so far
15:16uphill I'm now going to aim inside that marker. So we're aiming about halfway between the hole on the cup.
15:31Okay so we can see that broke a lot less. So if you're putting uphill you're going to have to
15:37reduce the amount of break you allow for because you're hitting the putts firmer. They get there
15:42quicker. So there you have it. Hopefully by incorporating some of the advice from Jamie in
15:47this video you'll start to see your ball disappear far more often on the greens. And if you're
15:51interested in trying some of the Cobra putters out for yourself especially the 3D printed models like
15:56this limited edition Enzo here be sure to check out the Cobra website.
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