The entire concept of golf is quite simple: Get the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible. Seems pretty easy. When you at look and how you are supposed to play the game as a scratch player in relation to par is easy to understand. On a regulation par 72 golf course, you are supposed to hit all 14 fairways, hit all 18 greens, and have 36 putts. That essentially is what the game is about. Obviously that is almost impossible to do. You hit bad shots, you hit good shots. You hit some fairways and you miss some fairways. You hit some greens, and you miss some greens. You make some putts and you miss some putts. That is golf.
But you need to look at the game in different sections. There is the tee game, the iron game, and the short game. The short game is broken down in to three different aspects: chipping, pitching, and putting. Looking at the scorecard, you are supposed to have 36 putts per round. That is half of the strokes according to par. Yet, people don’t focus on putting as much as they should. Why? Because putting is not that much fun to practice and it’s not as impressive to make an eight-foot putt as it is to hit a 300 yard drive.
But, the easier way to take strokes off of your score is to not only improve your short game, but to really focus on improving your putting. Keep in mind, as you already know this, a one-foot putt counts the same as a 300 yard drive. The scorecard doesn’t differentiate each shot. It just reflects the total number of strokes it took to get the ball from the tee box in to the hole on the green.
Hopefully you have played in some type of scramble format tournament. For those who are unfamiliar with this format, scrambles are a fun tournament to play where everyone hits a tee shot. The group then selects the tee shot that they would prefer to hit the next shot from. All players then hit from that spot and repeat the process throughout the entire hole until the ball is finally holed.
Now, if you are paired with people who you have never played with or met, there is about a 99% chance that someone in your group will try to identify who the best player is. “Who’s the A player in the group”? Whoever that person is inevitably gets the next question……. “Are you going to drive every green for us”?
What’s the question they should be asking? “Who’s going to make all the putts for us?” But it’s not asked because nobody cares about who can make the five foot putt consistently. They care about who can hit it the furthest because that is fun to watch and it much more impressive.
What’s the point here? Putting is the most overlooked aspect of the game by the weekend golfer. It’s often overlooked by decent players. It’s sometimes overlooked by really good players. It’s rarely overlooked by professionals.
Lets take a quick look at Tiger Woods. Describing Tiger Woods’ golf game from 1999-2009 is tough to put in to words. Was he a good ball striker? Yes. But he hit it all over the planet at times. He made some of the most incredible recovery shots you will ever see. He would hit in places you didn’t know existed on the golf course and hit a recovery shot on the green that was unbelievable. There are entire highlight reals on YouTube of his best recovery shots.
Really what made him standout was his putting. Tiger never, repeat, never missed a putt in a crucial moment during that time frame. Rarely, again, rarely did he miss putts inside 10 feet. Hands down, the best clutch putter to ever play the game. The list is a mile long of putts he made on the 18th hole to win. He did it at Bayhill several times. He made clutch putt after clutch putt. A few that come to mind outside of Bayhill. The putts he made against Bob May in the 2000 PGA Championship. The putt he made to get in to a playoff with Rocce Mediate at the 2008 U.S. Open.
PGA of America made a list of the top 10 most clutch putts of all time. Guess what? Tiger is on there three times. Of all the putts made in the game of golf and all the tournaments ever played, Tiger Woods has 30% of the top 10 most clutch putts of all time.
Look at Players on the PGA Tour who are exceptional ball strikers that are below average in putting. The first person on the list is Adam Scott. One of the best ball strikers on the planet, yet finds it very difficult to get the ball in the hole. Rory McIlroy has been held back by his putting the last couple of years. Sergio Garcia struggled for several years before switching to claw grip. Dustin Johnson has his inconsistencies. Henrik Stenson is always regarded as one the best strikers on the planet but his putting holds him back at times. Lucas Glover had the yips a few years ago.
These are some of the best ball strikers on the planet. This is also not the say that these players don’t focus on their putting. The point is you can be a great ball striker, but you still need to be able to put the ball in the hole at the end of the day.
This post is to simply to get you think about how important putting is in the game of golf. The scorecard according to par says it is 50% of your strokes. You potentially hit 14 drivers per round. You hit roughly 22 irons per round. You hit 36 putts per round. But when many people practice, they hit more drivers. They hit more irons. They hit very few putts.
