21 Handicapper - Avg. score around 98 - Avg putts per round 43!

[Stug]

Hi all.

I'm better than this! Honestly.

I strike the ball pretty well, hit 7-8+ GIR most rounds.

Last week shot a 97 with 6 two putts and 12 three putts!

Only broke 90 twice last year.

I do practise my short game and my putting BUT I'm shocking.

HELP!

Any ideas, anyone solved this problem?

Thanks

Stug

[Back 9 Bandit]

practice, practice  and practice again!!! Been there my friend. I will probably practice short game (chip and put) for 20-25 hours a week after work. That will lower your score by far. Work from green to tee.

[Shindig]

I have a lot of questions for you. Let's see where the problem lies. What's the story on your missed putts? Are you hitting these GIR at 50' from the pin? If so, a 3-putt isn't unexpected for any given one. How good are you at short putts, inside 3'? How is your speed control on putts? How often do you miss by more than 10% long or short, relative to the length of the putt? How are you at green reading? Have you taken an AimPoint seminar? When you practice putting, what do you do to practice? When you DON'T hit GIR, what's the story on those holes? Because there's definitely something weird going on here, because my average score and handicap are well below yours, and I've had very few rounds where I've hit 7+ GIR.

[march11934]

Shindig brings up a lot of good points. Another thing to consider is how contoured are the greens you are putting on?? Have you tried a few different courses and have the same problems from course to course?

[scottcarmich]

My average score is MUCH higher than this, but I chalk it up to not playing golf nearly as often as I'd like. In fact, today was the first day since September 2014 that I have even played. You may need to start recording more info (besides your score) so that AFTER the game, you can start seeing if there are patterns.

For example, I do this, and later type everything into a spreadsheet. At this point I have enough data over months and months to see obvious problem areas on certain holes, while putting, while driving, etc.

It's kinduva pain, but it's helpful...and allows you to think about your game even after the round is over.

[boogielicious]

  Stug said:

Hi all.

I'm better than this! Honestly.

I strike the ball pretty well, hit 7-8+ GIR most rounds.

Last week shot a 97 with 6 two putts and 12 three putts!

Only broke 90 twice last year.

I do practise my short game and my putting BUT I'm shocking.

HELP!

Any ideas, anyone solved this problem?

Thanks

Stug

Check out this thread.  The keys to good putting.

[Lihu]

  Stug said:

Hi all.

I'm better than this! Honestly.

I strike the ball pretty well, hit 7-8+ GIR most rounds.

Last week shot a 97 with 6 two putts and 12 three putts!

Only broke 90 twice last year.

I do practise my short game and my putting BUT I'm shocking.

Stug

The only thing I can state is that you don't strike the ball well enough. It's a blanket statement for all of us bogey golfers.

I hit about the same number of greens as you do (1-2 less), and my game sucks on some days and once in a blue moon comes together when I hit closer to the pins.

  Shindig said:

What's the story on your missed putts? Are you hitting these GIR at 50' from the pin? If so, a 3-putt isn't unexpected for any given one.

Pretty much the only way I can see this happening. Otherwise, I don't see how he could have the skill to hit 7+ greens per round only to putt so badly. Basically, no one on this site putts worse than me. . .

[saevel25]

  Stug said:

Hi all.

I'm better than this! Honestly.

I strike the ball pretty well, hit 7-8+ GIR most rounds.

Last week shot a 97 with 6 two putts and 12 three putts!

Only broke 90 twice last year.

I do practise my short game and my putting BUT I'm shocking.

HELP!

Any ideas, anyone solved this problem?

Thanks

Stug

With 7-8 GIR you should be a low to mid 80's shooter.

Usually with 3 putting it is distance control. With distance control it is usually poor mechanics and/or poorly fitted putter. Posted above, but read through this thread here.

Give this one a read as well,

As for the putter, it is tough to say. I would take some pennies and tap them to your putter and see if a heavier putter would benefit you. You can also tape some to the grip end to mimic some counter weighting. Try this out in different combinations to see if one really helps out. Getting a properly weighted putter for your swing can instantly change your putting.

If you find that you need a heavier putter and some counterbalance it might be worth checking out Edel putters.

[danL]

I only average 5 greens or so per round but my biggest problem that led to 3 putts was distance control. Since I've gotten my distance under control the 3 putts are far less common. Even if I read the break wrong and end up a foot left of the hole, I'm still only a foot away for a tap in because my distance was right.

[No Mulligans]

I'm the opposite.  A 20 HI but a crappy ball striker.  I'm better with my lob wedge and putter than my ball striking.  From 40 yards and in my lob wedge gets me inside 15 feet most of the time.  I'm mostly less than 2 putts per hole, on average I'm at 32 putts per round.

For putting, one of the things that helped me is tempo.  I putt with the same tempo regardless of distance, I count to myself "one onethousand two onethousand", hitting the ball on the two.  Consistent tempo, just longer swings for longer distances.

Then again, maybe you're just playing on really tough greens.

[The Recreational Golfer]

Have you had a putting lesson?

Forget tips. Forget trying to figure it out on your own. Get some lessons!

[rkim291968]

Are you counting putts started from outside of green?   If you are not counting it, the number is indeed bad.  If you are counting it, how many of those 41 putts fall into that category?

[natureboy]

  Stug said:

Hi all.

I'm better than this! Honestly.

I strike the ball pretty well, hit 7-8+ GIR most rounds.

Last week shot a 97 with 6 two putts and 12 three putts!

Only broke 90 twice last year.

I do practise my short game and my putting BUT I'm shocking.

HELP!

Any ideas, anyone solved this problem?

Thanks

Stug

For one, you might play an easier course or move up a set of tees.

Your average score is quite high for your handicap, which indicates the course rating is in the realm of 74-75. Moving up a set of tees should make your approach shots on the GIR a bit closer to the hole (and your misses less far), which would likely help reduce 3-putts. I am a better ballstriker than putter too, but you are almost off the scale in 3-putt percentage. Highest I've every been is 33%, but I expect my course rating is much lower than yours.

Do you play at Oakmont or some place where they pride themselves on maintaining 15+ stimp greens? Even so, the putting would be your relative weakness and a technique lesson to make sure you aren't doing anything funky and a playing lesson for insight on tough greens might help. If greens are very fast a heavier putter may help too.

  No Mulligans said:

I'm the opposite.  A 20 HI but a crappy ball striker.  I'm better with my lob wedge and putter than my ball striking.  From 40 yards and in my lob wedge gets me inside 15 feet most of the time.  I'm mostly less than 2 putts per hole, on average I'm at 32 putts per round.

For putting, one of the things that helped me is tempo.  I putt with the same tempo regardless of distance, I count to myself "one onethousand two onethousand", hitting the ball on the two.  Consistent tempo, just longer swings for longer distances.

Then again, maybe you're just playing on really tough greens.

I suspect the last. If you hit the ball on the 'two', what's the extra 'onethousand' for?

[Stug]

Thanks everyone.

I'm off to work so can't give details and answer some of your questions now.

BUT... played yesterday shot 102 with 49 putts!

Yes i only count putts on the green. Hit 6 GIR striking the ball pretty well.

[No Mulligans]

  natureboy said:

For one, you might play an easier course or move up a set of tees.

Your average score is quite high for your handicap, which indicates the course rating is in the realm of 74-75. Moving up a set of tees should make your approach shots on the GIR a bit closer to the hole (and your misses less far), which would likely help reduce 3-putts. I am a better ballstriker than putter too, but you are almost off the scale in 3-putt percentage. Highest I've every been is 33%, but I expect my course rating is much lower than yours.

Do you play at Oakmont or some place where they pride themselves on maintaining 15+ stimp greens? Even so, the putting would be your relative weakness and a technique lesson to make sure you aren't doing anything funky and a playing lesson for insight on tough greens might help. If greens are very fast a heavier putter may help too.

I suspect the last. If you hit the ball on the 'two', what's the extra 'onethousand' for?

I count to myself "one onethousand two onethousand"... I start my back swing on the 'one', I hit the ball on the two.  It's like a pendulum/metronome, with the one and the two being at the bottom of the swing.  The extra 'onethousand'?, I try to have my follow through be the same distance as my back swing, it helps me do that.

[dkolo]

  Stug said:

Hi all.

I'm better than this! Honestly.

I strike the ball pretty well, hit 7-8+ GIR most rounds.

Last week shot a 97 with 6 two putts and 12 three putts!

Only broke 90 twice last year.

I do practise my short game and my putting BUT I'm shocking.

HELP!

Any ideas, anyone solved this problem?

Thanks

Stug

  boogielicious said:

Check out this thread.  The keys to good putting.

So, I played my first round after a long layoff this weekend and had similar problems. I'm a 22 cap (this round bumped me from 22.1 to 22.8, grrr, haha), and I had 41 putts. I'll put up the Game Golf soon once I get a few bugs straightened out with their support, but I had a third of my greens with three putts. Horrendous. And unusual. But let me take you through my thought process for how I'm going to try to fix it. The three keys that @boogielicious cites in the thread he provided are an awesome checklist for what you need for good putting, and it's how I'm going to approach fixing it in practice. In no particular order:

Speed: With two exceptions (one being just a brain fart when I was focusing on line too much and the other being a green whose speed was totally out of line with others because it was just sanded before we teed off on that hole), my speeds were really satisfactory. I wasn't leaving the ball more than 3-4 feet after my first putt (and I was lag putting all day because my tee shots were leaving me bad approaches). So for speed, I'm not really worried.

Bead: Did I start the ball on line? Yeah. I can't think of one putt that I missed because I mishit it off line. I'd practiced putting on straight, flat surfaces all winter and I'm confident in getting the putt going straight.

Read: This was a disaster. Every time I missed it was because the putt wound up breaking completely differently from how I expected it to go. And it was egregious and embarrassing. Part of it was not hitting any putts on slopes for a while and the other was rushing my reads because the three guys I was paired with were super slow and I was trying to hole out too quickly. I didn't stop and think through my reads as well as I should have. Granted, when you're essentially reading the putts as breaking uphill, it's not just rushing, but I didn't have time to mentally digest my mistakes to learn from them. I'm going to go to a practice green at a nearby course and roll balls (not even putt at first) on slanted down and uphills to build into my brain what the ball should do. Basically, a remedial dummy version of Aimpoint or something similar. My 3 putts were happening because of my reading the second putt as outside edge when they should've been inside edge, etc. It was just a failure on my part but it's something I think I can fix and get down to my more normal low-30s for putts.

So my advice is figure out what you're doing wrong and work on that exclusively. Don't just go hit putts. Work on the specific issues individually. I'm not going to go hit a bunch of 20 footers or a bunch of straight 5 footers because lagging and hitting putts on line aren't my biggest problem. It's figuring out the line, even just getting into the vicinity of being correct. Just knowing a putt would go right instead of left, for instance, would've saved me half a dozen putts. That's going to be my focus and so whatever specific issue or issue you have should be your focus. Good luck!

[Stug]

Hi all

Really grateful for all your helpful advice I will look at it all.

Here's a copy of my last round.

It's soooooo tough hitting a great 7 iron 160 yds into the heart of a green and deep down knowing you can add 3 or 4 shots onto where you are now. No positive thoughts, never think HEY a birdie chance ,I think "with a bit of luck I might make a bogey".

I really sucks.

1st column PAR second colomn score and third column putts.

Edit: working on this.

[Stug]

Bought a decent putting mat. Going to switch to left hand low. Concentrate on my hitting the ball consistently straight and true. THEN going to worry about reading greens etc. Steve