Drill Bits: Masters Edition

The putting instructor to 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson has a tip for you, too.

Indeed, for the latest entry in our Drill Bits series, PutterZone.com turned to Pat O’Brien, instructor to Zach Johnson as well as Vaughn Taylor. Who better to consult on the eve of the 2008 Masters?

Drill Bits is currently focusing on “silent killers,” the sneakiest ailments that can wreak havoc on your putting game. One such ailment is poor posture, and O’Brien is at the forefront of preaching proper posture as essential to successful putting.

Over time, it’s easy for any golfer to start falling prey to hunching over the ball when putting, lurching from the waist instead bending at the hips—a posture issue exacerbated by the fact that so many of us spend countless hours hunched over a computer keyboard or steering wheel. This can unwittingly cramp your putting style, causing undiagnosed performance issues and considerable frustration.

For this reason, O’Brien recommends that you learn to bend crisply from the hips, not the waist, to achieve a more athletic putting posture. When we queried him on the subject, he responded:

“Posture to me is one of the key elements to consistent putting. When your lead arm is hanging freely from your side, you can make a natural, arcing stroke. The simplest way to get there is to stand tall and relaxed. Let your hands tell your body where to go—the further they travel, the more you will feel a slight bend from your hips. Picture yourself shaking hands with a small child—your hands tell your body where to go, not vice versa. This is the correct sequence to achieve that athletic but relaxed posture that you see with great putters like Tiger Woods, Vaughn Taylor and Zach Johnson.”

Note that the hip bend recommended by O’Brien isn’t extreme, but rather a slight, comfortable tilt.

In addition to being a teaching professional, O’Brien is also a consultant to SeeMore Putter Company, which recently released a DVD titled Pat O’Brien on Putting. The DVD offers O’Brien’s insights into grip, alignment and setup as well as posture. It can be purchased on SeeMore's web site, where you can also view in-depth articles featuring O'Brien's methods.

P.S. Click here to enter PutterZone.com’s exclusive drawing to win a $325 SeeMore mFGP putter. Click here to read PutterZone.com's earlier interview with Pat O’Brien.

Drill Bits: Your Game's Silent Killers

Like the human body, your putting game can suffer from a variety of silent killers that erode performance and elevate scores.

These silent killers are the little things that can creep into your game unnoticed, at the risk of becoming habitual, not unlike hypertension or high cholesterol.

For the next three weeks, PutterZone.com’s Drill Bits series will focus on some of the sneakiest ailments, starting with putter deceleration…

As teaching professional Ed Weathers once wrote in Golf Digest: “The most common putting mistake I see the average club player make is this: Taking the putter blade back too far and then decelerating coming into the ball.”

It’s very easy to fall prey to deceleration, especially on shorter putts. Have you ever missed an easy four-foot putt and wondered what the heck just happened? Most likely, deceleration happened. When you decelerate your putter into impact, you randomize your results. Your tempo becomes jerky or yippy, distorting your angle of impact.

Deceleration is an easy habit to form, but also an easy habit to break. Awareness is a big first step. A good next step is to simply practice some four-foot putts and drills from the vantage of this awareness.

Establish the true distance you need to take the putter head back in order to make a smooth, natural acceleration into the ball, and for the ball to firmly reach the cup (it doesn’t take much from four feet!). Then, place another ball just beyond that distance point, and make some more practice putts without touching that second ball with the back of your putter.

This simple drill will help you synchronize your takeaway with the length of your putt while imparting the sensation of smooth acceleration into the ball.

Drill Bits: Sink Putts with Good Posture

Keeping your chin up is not only a good life strategy, it’s also helpful on the putting green. In fact, good posture as well as a positive mental attitude will aid your ability to sink those crucial putts.

Posture is often overlooked in putting, perhaps because the act of putting can look cramped and unnatural. Many golfers grew up watching Jack Nicklaus hunched over the ball, left foot splayed open, elbows tight against his body. No one would argue with the results, but it never looked terribly comfortable.

Today, however, more and more teaching professionals advocate an athletic mindset when it comes to putting, inclusive of good posture—bend at the hips, not at the waist; keep your spine straight when bending, not rounded; keep your chin off your chest.

Good posture in general will help you strike a proper putting posture, which is why the following stretch from Golf Rx: A 15-Minute-A-Day Core Program for More Yards and Less Pain can help you find the cup:

“Hold a club over your head with both arms extended wide. Bend to one side as far as your range of motion will allow, making sure to keep both elbows straight and your head centered, or equidistant from both arms. Hold for a count of five deep breaths in and out, and then return to the starting position. Repeat on the other side. You’ll feel a good stretch in your obliques, and you’ll also reap the benefits of improved posture.”

Golf Rx was authored by Vijay Vad, M.D., a sports medicine specialist and the official physician for the PGA Tour. Billed as “the first golf fitness book based on a clinical study of PGA Tour professionals,” the book not only includes a series of helpful stretches, but also mind-body tips, nutritional advice and more. The paperback version ($16) will be released on March 13.

The above excerpt is reprinted with permission from Gotham Books, a division of the Penguin Group, copyright © 2007 by Vijay Vad, M.D.

Drill Bits: The Curious Way to Sink Putts

Misreading the break is a quick way to break your heart on the putting green.

Indeed, no matter how solid your setup and your stroke, if you don’t adequately ascertain the break, your ball will sail wide and your score will grow.

Reading greens is an acquired skill that improves with experience. The good news is that this skill is easily acquired for those who make an effort to be attentive and aware of their putting environment.

In his excellent intuition-based book Extraordinary Putting, top instructor Fred Shoemaker makes the following observation: “Great green readers are like cats watching a gopher hole. They are alert, awake, fascinated. They watch everybody’s chip, everybody’s putt. They even look at how balls roll on the green from 100 yards. They see it all…They have an ongoing curiosity about what’s happening.”

Here’s one drill that Mr. Shoemaker recommends for heightening your curiosity and awareness on the green:

“Go to the practice green and find putts that have varying amounts of break. Instead of putting, first simply roll balls toward the holes with your hand. Watch the entire length of the break. When you are aware of the quality of attention needed to see accurately, start putting and notice if the quality of your attention—your seeing—changes with the putter in hand. This exercise is an opportunity to train yourself to see the break without the filter of expectation, judgment or hope.”

The above drill was reprinted with the express permission of Fred Shoemaker and Jo Hardy, the authors of Extraordinary Putting. Mr. Shoemaker is the proprietor of Extraordinary Golf, a golf school that “trains the student to be the source of their development.” Extraordinary Golf is based in Carmel Valley and Palm Springs.

Drill Bits: The CD Solution

Proper alignment is essential to successful putting, and it’s not just a matter of where your putter is pointed, but also how your body, extremities and eyes relate to the target.

You want the putter face to be perfectly square, or perpendicular, to the target line, which is the intended path of ball travel.

As for your body, you want your torso, shoulders, legs, feet and forearms to remain in line with the target line. If your shoulders are turned left or right of the target line, or if one foot is ahead of the other in relation to the target line, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Ironically, one facet of alignment that is easy to overlook is eye alignment. You can have everything else in line with the target, but if your head is slightly cocked to the left or right when you address the ball, your eyes may sabotage your stroke.

In his excellent instructional DVD called The Putting Arc Stroke, teaching professional and Putting Arc co-inventor V.J. Trolio offers a simple tip for checking your eye alignment.

Find an old compact disc with a clear reflective surface, then draw a straight line through the middle of it with a Sharpie pen. Place the CD on the ground with the Sharpie line pointing directly toward a chosen target, and address the hole in center of the disc as you would your ball. When you do this, you will see your face reflected in the CD, and you will be able easily to confirm that your eyes are in line, or out of line, with the target line.

For a proper setup, Trolio also recommends that your eyes be either directly over the ball—in which case, the line on the CD will intersect both eyes in your reflection—or an even inch or two inside the ball, where they will be reflected in the bottom half of the CD closest to your feet.

P.S. This alignment drill is easily performed on your living room carpet, but remember to wear shoes when practicing your putting indoors, as you want to replicate the height at which you normally putt.

Drill Bits: Take A Fighting Stance

Putting may be a gentle sport, but it requires a fighting stance.

This concept is something a golf teacher told PutterZone.com many moons ago, reflecting an emphasis on balance that is today reinforced by many leading instructors, including Hank Haney (a.k.a. Tiger Woods’ instructor).

The fact is that a lot of golfers sit back on their heels when putting. Others lean on their toes. Some place more weight on their right foot, some on their left. One way or the other, the result is a physical imbalance that limits your putting potential. It’s very easy to overlook these little tendencies that cause foundational imbalance, especially when so much focus is on the putting stroke itself.

So the next time you’re standing over a putt, imagine yourself taking a fighting stance. If you had to defend your ground for whatever reason, what would be your best posture? A balanced posture, of course, with your weight evenly distributed and feet evenly planted, favoring neither your heels nor your toes, and your knees slightly flexed.

This simple mental exercise will help you establish a foundational balance, freeing the rest of your body to execute the mechanics of the proper putting stroke.

Drill Bits is PutterZone.com’s regular series of simple tips and drills that aim to raise your game. Click here for past Drill Bits.

Drill It & Kill It: Lose Your Grip

Sometimes you need to lose your grip in order to get a grip.

Indeed, the next time you are addressing a crucial putt, pause for a moment and consider your grip pressure—an underrated facet of putting that can get easily lost amid more obvious concerns, such as alignment, distance control and stroke mechanics. Chances are, you will be gripping the putter much harder than necessary, and quite possibly to the detriment of your performance.

In his magnificently thoughtful book Zen Putting: Mastering The Mental Game on The Greens, Dr. Joe Parent explains the consequences of excessive grip pressure while prescribing a simple remedy:

“When the pressure is on, our fingers tighten like a fist and transform our soft hold on the putter into a strangling grip. Softly holding the putter means the fingers aren’t doing much; when they get involved in grasping the putter more tightly, the fingers become troublemakers. The key point here is that the wrists get blamed, but it’s the fingers that are causing the problems. The muscles around the wrists themselves initiate very little movement. The fingers lead the action, and the wrists follow the fingers….Use your awareness to notice situations in which your grip pressure tightens. When you feel that happening, counter it by imagining that a feeling of softness and ease is flowing down each of your arms and into your hands and fingers, almost like something liquid.”

Dr. Parent boils it down to the following: “Try putting with a range of different grip pressures to find the softest pressure you can use and still feel in control of the putter. Practice maintaining that grip pressure throughout your stroke You’ll soon develop a better feel for pace and a more consistent stroke.”

The above excerpts are reprinted with permission from Gotham Books, a division of the Penguin Group, copyright © 2007 by Dr. Joseph Parent.

Drill It and Kill It: Find Your Sweet Spot

Think about this for a second: “The putt is the only shot we hit under the added pressure of being expected to make the shot.”

This keen observation comes from Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson, authors of the new book The Game Before the Game, as well as the earlier smash hit Every Shot Must Have a Purpose. The authors are top golf teachers who have instructed Annika Sorenstam, Grace Park and other LPGA Tour stars. The Game Before the Game outlines the “perfect 30-minute practice” and “breaks down the wall between practice and play, making practice as fun as golf itself.”

In the chapter entitled “Putt with a plan,” Marriott and Nilsson discuss ways to deal with that added pressure of making the shot, and provide numerous exercises to improve feel and consistency.

Following is one little gem from the putting chapter: “A lot of missed putts occur because poor contact is made with the ball. Here’s an exercise that will help you make solid contact more often: Put two rubber bands on the putter face only far enough apart for the ball to be struck there. Putt different putts and get a feel for how to find the sweet spot.”

The above excerpt is reprinted with permission from Gotham Books, a division of the Penguin Group, copyright © 2007 by Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson. Stay tuned here at PutterZone.com for more insights into The Game Before the game.

Drill It and Kill It: Narrow Your Focus

In order to raise your golf game, sometimes you need to narrow your focus—especially when it comes to putting.

Today’s drill comes courtesy of Stan Utley, who has been declared the “hottest instructor in golf” by Sports Illustrated. He works with Peter Jacobsen, Rocco Mediate, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Craig Stadler and other touring pros. Stan himself is a PGA Tour professional who has won more than $1 million while setting records for fewest putts per round. In his book The Art of Putting, he features the following drill designed to narrow your focus:

“Stick a couple of tees lightly in the grass a half inch inside each edge of the cup. Essentially, you’re creating a set of mini-goalposts to hit putts through. I like to put the tees in and set up for a six- or seven-footer without any break, and practice just rolling putts through the goal posts. It sounds simple, but when you try it, you’ll notice how much more acutely you focus. Instead of picking a nebulous, large target, you’re almost picking blades of grass to roll the ball over…It makes putting into the standard holes seem easy in comparison.”

The above drill is reprinted with permission from Gotham Books, a division of the Penguin Group, and is copyright © 2006 by Stan Utley. Stay tuned for PutterZone.com’s review of Stan Utley’s The Art of Putting.

Drill It and Kill It: Find Your Tempo

Marius Filmalter was kind enough to share the following putting drill exclusively with PutterZone.com readers, in which he stresses the importance of tempo and balance in the putting stroke. Marius is a professional golfer, professional golf instructor, author and inventor. He is regarded in PGA Tour circles as a short game guru, and he currently works with dozens of pros, including Brad Faxon, Sean O’Hair, Chad Campbell and Mark O’Meara. He is also the inventor of Tomi, an innovative new product that measures the critical parameters of the putting stroke.

“I think that the most underrated thing in putting is rhythm, or tempo. While practicing on the putting green, just count—one, two—as you conduct your stroke. On one, start the club, and on two, hit the ball. This helps you get a pendulum movement going through the stroke. Most poor putters have a short backstroke and long follow-through, which inevitably creates problems. Practicing a rhythmical stroke, like a pendulum, can make a big difference.”

Thank you, Marius. Click here to read PutterZone.com’s earlier Insider Interview with Marius Filmalter.

Drill It & Kill It: Find Your Core Putt

Some days the putting greens feel like quicksand. Other days, they feel like greased lightning. So if you’re serious about starting your round off right, then you should set aside some pre-round work on the practice putting green. But before you start gunning straight for the holes, you might instead take the following advice from top putting instructor Geoff Mangum, in which he recommends calibrating your “core” putt for optimal distance control:

“At the beginning of the round, instead of trying to get the ‘hit’ just right to fit the green speed, first calibrate your usual putting tempo and stroke to the day's green speed by using the same size backstroke and tempo to roll several balls all the same distance. Whatever the green speed at the time, the distance these balls roll will register as your basic or ‘core’ putt. This allows you to use an instinctive, no-hit stroke for superb distance control for the rest of the day, effortlessly varying longer or shorter putts through the knowledge of your core distance.”

Thanks to Geoff for personally sharing this drill with PutterZone.com! Click here to view Geoff’s comprehensive web site and here to read PutterZone.com’s recent interview with him.

Drill It and Kill It: Fix Your Yips

Todd Sones is a Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher and founder of Impact Golf, one of the nation’s leading golf schools. He is also the founder of Coutour Golf, which specializes in high-quality, custom-fit milled putters. Todd was kind enough to share the following drill exclusively with PutterZone.com readers, in which he reveals a “fundamental” secret about the yips—and some steps you can take to cure them:

"For the most part, the golf industry has tagged the yips as mental. I believe there are two types of yips: a fundamental yip as well as a mental yip. As a teacher I also believe in cause and effect. If you want to resolve a problem fix the cause, don’t waste time and effort trying to Band-Aid the effect.

A yip is the result of fear. Fear is the anticipation of an undesirable result. The fear that results in yips is fear of missing the putt. It’s embarrassing and no one wants to look like a fool by missing a putt they should have made.

The difference between a fundamental yip and a mental yip is that the fundamental yip is caused in your fundamentals while a mental yip is caused in your mind. If you’ve completed your back stroke and the putterhead is in the wrong place, meaning the path is off or the face is misaligned, your subconscious can be acutely aware that you have a problem and that you are most likely about to miss the putt. On the forward stroke you are forced to interrupt (yips) the natural path the putter is swinging on in an effort to get the ball moving toward the hole.

To fix a fundamental yip, check your set-up. Is your putter face aligned properly, are your shoulders square, is your grip correct? Does your putter fit? It is difficult to know if you are in the correct set up position because you can not see yourself. A good putting lesson from a qualified professional can make a huge difference in your score. The bottom line is don’t just assume that putting is between the ears, as it’s often between the face of the putter and the ball."

P.S. Click here to read PutterZone.com’s earlier Insider Interview with Todd Sones.

Drill It and Kill It

Today's featured drill comes courtesy of Tom Conway, a PGA Life Member. After operating golf courses and teaching for many years, Tom embarked on a new "course" as an independent golf equipment representative. PutterZone.com is grateful to Tom for contributing the following advice on remaining “fundamentally natural” on the putting green—and knowing when to seek qualified help if you’ve hit the wall:

“Most golfers would enjoy a lower score on their card. With all the advice offered, you’d think it would be easy. However, all that advice just might be the problem. Well, not necessarily the advice, but the understanding of the advice. I know that a good share of my fellow PGA members are very capable instructors, so I would first suggest taking a lesson from a PGA professional. If self help is your thing, however, then I would make sure you understand that the putting area of the game is no different from the full swing. It boils down to fundamentals, fundamentals, and slatnemadnuf (fundamentals forward and backward!). In a nutshell, your thoughts, position, alignment and stroke should be fundamentally natural, relaxed, efficient, functional, simple, stress free and therefore confident. You should see improvement. If you don’t, then you need an additional pair of eyes, ears and thoughts. Sometimes being alone equals a four-putt. See a PGA professional.”

Drill It and Kill It: The Natural Touch

The following drill was provided to PutterZone.com by Pat O’Brien, putting instructor to 2007 Masters Champion Zach Johnson and other PGA Tour players. This drill reflects Pat’s emphasis on keeping things natural to achieve the ideal setup. Many of us tend to think too hard when it comes to putting, and the next thing we know, we’re in some sort of contortionist pose as we try to remember everything we’ve read in the golf magazines about grip, stroke, eye position, posture and aim. Well, next time you’re on the green, take a page from Pat O’Brien and keep it natural. Here’s what he says:

“Putting is a simple motion made complicated by a poor setup. As soon as some people put a putter in their hands, they go into a crouched position, and they get weird angles in their arms. The solution is to just be more natural. Stand up tall, bend a little bit from your waist and let your arms hang. Now, put your hands together and get a good sense of what that feels like. Your arms swing freely, and your forearms rotate naturally. It’s really that simple. Just stand up nice and tall, and free your arms, and let the putter swing."

Click here to read our recent exclusive interview with Pat O’Brien.

Drill It and Kill It

Today's featured drill comes courtesy of Tom Conway, a PGA Life Member. After operating golf courses and teaching for many years, Tom embarked on a new "course" as an independent golf equipment representative. In his search for better teaching tools for pros to use and sell, Tom has picked up several practice aids that benefit all golfers in their venture to conquer the game. PutterZone.com is grateful to Tom for contributing the following exclusive tips on how to avoid cheating yourself on the putting green:

"Over the years, I've watched golfers 'practice' their putting. In my opinion, if you're going to throw some balls down in an effort to improve, the first game plan is to try to make every putt you stand over. Too many times I've watched golfers just simply swat at balls with their putter, with absolutely no thought about what each putt is doing, such as: is it short, left or whatever. Also, another thing I hear a lot is 'I'm a good putter' or 'I'm a bad putter.' But when I ask the golfer how many putts they average, the answer is, 'I've never kept track.' For the amateur golfer, anything under 32 putts per 18 holes is very solid. Anything over, get to work. Finally, never leave the practice green on a negative. You want to leave that area feeling that you're putting well. That positive will carry over to the golf course greens."

Drill It and Kill It

Don't you hate it when your putter disobeys and threatens to derail an otherwise solid round? By the 11th hole, you're deep into fix-it mode, but that only seems to make things worse. Then what?

As a recent piece in Golf Magazine noted, "Trying to manipulate your putting stroke during a round can be disastrous." The solution? "Instead, to fix a balky putter on the fly, keep the stroke you're comfortable with and change your ball position." So, if you're pushing your putts, alter your set up "so that the ball is an inch farther forward in your stance than usual. This will help you make contact with the ball as your putter is moving straight down the target line." The reverse is recommended if you're pulling your putts: move the ball an inch back from your usual set up.

I don't think you want to make this a habit, as your putting game should aspire to consistent fundamentals. But if you're wounded out there, this is one Band-Aid that might stop the bleeding.

The above quoted content is copyright 2007 by Golf Magazine. For information and subscriptions, visit www.Golf.com.

Drill It and Kill It

Golf Magazine offers a nifty drill it its latest issue, courtesy of Jim Suttie, director of Suttie Golf Academies. With one dime and a little time, you can cure the "stabbing" motion that results from deceleration at impact. Deceleration undermines the pendulum stroke, causing an open club face that pushes the ball wide of the cup. Following is Mr. Suttie's ten-cent diagnosis:

"One way to tell if you're stabbing at putts is to place a dime on the back of your putter (note: place the coin in the putter cavity behind the face, and in line with the center of the putter) and make your normal stroke. If you're truly stroking your putts, the dime will stay on the putter throughout your stroke, now matter how far back and through you take the putter. If you're stabbing instead of stroking, however, the dime will slide off the back of your club as soon as you transition from the backstroke to the forward stroke."

The above-quoted content is copyright 2007 Golf Magazine. Visit www.golfmagazine.com for information and subscriptions.

Drill It and Kill It

For today’s Drill It and Kill It, you’ll need some duct tape and a paint brush. Tape the paint brush to your putter and…Just kidding. But Athlon Sports apparently wasn’t kidding when they included the paint brush drill as one of their featured drills in their 2007 Golf Annual.

At PutterZone.com, we like to focus on drills that are effective and simple (as opposed to those that require flashlights, bamboo spears or paint brushes). Hence today’s Drill It and Kill It, courtesy of David Leadbetter’s Faults and Fixes. This drill offers a simple focal point that keeps your eye on the ball by keeping your eyes off the ball:

“Many short putts are missed because of peeking. Practice on three-foot putts by placing a small coin under the ball…Then, strike the ball at the hole, and keep your eyes focused on the coin. Don’t look up until you hear the sound of the ball dripping into the cup. Also, knock in some short putts with your eyes closed. This will get you feeling your stroke instead of worrying about the hole.”

The above quoted content is copyright 1993 by David Leadbetter. Click here to order your own copy of David Leadbetter’s Faults and Fixes.

Drill It and Kill It

The following drill comes from Tom Watson’s seminal short-game instruction book Getting Up and Down. Unlike a lot of putting drills, it’s very simple. All you need is your putter and 20 balls. Here it is, in Mr. Watson’s words:

“A good practice routine my father taught me when I started missing short putts is to put twenty balls all around a hole, three feet away, and try to make every one. It's an excellent drill if you pick a hole on a slope, because you'll face every kind of three-footer: uphill, downhill, sidehill left to right, sidehill right to left and all the combinations. Since you have to change position to hit each putt, you're forced to take your setup seriously on every one."

Click here to purchase Tom Watson's Getting Up and Down. The above quoted content is copyright 1983 by Thomas S. Watson and Golf Digest.

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