Golf Tips to Help You Improve Lag Putt Percentages

Probably one of the most important golf tips we can offer on Golf for Beginners has to do with putting.

Dave Pelz said that the "make percentage" of PGA Tour players averages just over twenty-nine putts per round compared with twenty to thirty handicappers who average a staggering thirty-five and more putts per round! Knowing this one simple stat makes you really want to work on your short game.

Golfers know that it is extremely important NOT to choke on those easy three-footers, but it is crucial to learn the art of lag putting to get the average player into the "circle of trust".

Move that little white ball safely into the hole in the least number of strokes and your score will drop.

In his recent Golf Digest article, "4 Shots You Need to Win at Augusta (and Anywhere)", Brooks Koepka notes that a "tricky lag" was needed during The Masters in order to compensate for the speed and swing on the greens although the short putts were equally as treacherous.

"Nowhere else do you see four-footers that break three cups. You have to hit the short ones with authority, but to even get those, your lag putting needs to be dialed in," noted Koepka.

This week, Golf for Beginners has put together a few easy golf tips and drills to avoid posting those nasty three-putts to your scorecard. If, as Pelz states, "PGA Tour pros three-putt an average of 2.4 times—per event," you can imagine how many strokes the average player is throwing away!

- If you are the type of golfer who always seems to lag the ball short of the hole, Dave Pelz suggests putting with a chipping stroke. "Add a little wrist hinge both back and through. Again, this will help you avoid hitting the ball too softly and coming up short."

- Bradenton Country Club’s Head Pro, Brian Lake, says that "feel" is overrated. "You’ll learn distance control faster, applying science."

"If you play just by feel, it takes you three times longer to finally teach your brain what those distances are,”  Lake states. The science behind the tip is, for every one inch you swing your putter behind and forward of the ball, the ball is going to roll approximately one foot. If you swing your putter two inches back then two inches forward, the ball should travel approximately two feet, and so on.

Golf for Beginners certainly doesn't want to overwhelm players so, since these two tips are easy to remember, try them the next time you practice your putting and let us know how these putting drills worked for you in our golf blog comments section below or on Twitter @Golf4Beginners.

Golf Tips To Help With Your Long Putts

Guest columnist and Director of Golf Instruction at the beautifully elegant Club at Mediterra, Adam Bazalgette, shares with readers of the Golf for Beginners blog why lag putting is the secret to a low handicap.

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Long putting, or lag putting as it is often called, is a key to good scoring in golf.

 On the PGA Tour, the players make an average of just fifty percent of their putts from eight feet, which means that the everyday golfer will do well to make fifty percent of their six-foot putts! The current strokes-gained putting leader? Bryce Molder! These may seem like low averages, but there is a lot that can go wrong on a short putt; spike marks and other imperfections on the green, a slight misread, a lip out, etc.

When putting from, say, more than twenty-five feet, you will find it is very easy to misjudge the distance by six feet or more, whereas it is unlikely that you will miss left or right by more than a couple of feet. This is why distance control is so important.

 The two biggest components in good distance control are good visualization, or green reading, and proper rhythm in the stroke. Both require practice to become reliable.

Simply watching a lot of putts roll (practice) will help you read greens and become a good visualizer of putts. A test of your visualization skills is that once a long putt is a third of the way to the hole you should be able to estimate pretty accurately whether it is going long, short, or about the right distance.

Only when a golfer can fairly accurately see the ball rolling in their mind at the correct speed across the green BEFORE they step over the putt can they expect to be able to feel the desired stroke.

Regarding rhythm, there are a few objectives to understand:

• In a pendulum, the length of the backstroke and through stroke are the same; this is due to gravity.
• It is also true that in a pendulum maximum speed is reached at the very bottom of the arc. However, most people don't realize that at the bottom of the arc there is NO acceleration, it has reached maximum speed.

The middle of the arc is, therefore, right where we want to make contact with the golf ball in our stroke, the point with the most speed and the least "Hit" or acceleration. I strongly recommend that you practice this at times without aiming at a hole, just focusing on your motion.

A great drill is to place two tees in the green, say three feet apart (vary this drill), and hit some putts placing the ball right in between the tees, and slightly to the side of them in order to allow you to hit a putt. Don't over-control the putter with your hands, but feel the pendulum rhythm of your stroke until the putter head goes evenly from tee to tee and you can roll several balls the same distance. Once this becomes natural you are on your way to better putting!

One final point, the time each stroke takes (think of a metronome) should always be the same. This means that the putter will have to be swung faster throughout the motion (not just in the forward swing) on longer putts than shorter putts. The rhythm, such as tick-tock, will then always be a constant.

Best of luck with this...now go practice!

 About the Author: 

Adam Bazalgette grew up in London, England, where he took up golf. He has been teaching golf full-time since 1992.  
Adam worked for David Leadbetter in Orlando and in 1994 was promoted to the Academy Director at the Leadbetter’s Naples facility.  

Adam currently is the director of golf instruction at The Club at Mediterra in Naples Florida and has held this position for the last six years.  Make sure to visit his site at http://adambgolf.com for private lessons if your going to be in the Naples Florida area!

Say hi to Adam Bazalgette on Twitter and like on Facebook!   



AND...Voice your opinion on Twitter @Golf4Beginners and friend on Facebook!

photo credit: activerain.com, Adam Bazalgette

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Is Michelle wie delusional, lag putt debate and how to hit fairway woods from different lies

Click here to listen.


As Lorena Ochoa's star rises and her mental game grows stronger, Michele Wie's game continues to decline. The problem is that Michelle does not notice that she is on this slippery slope. She actually believes that her game is better than it really is! For example, when Wie missed the cut this week at the Safeway Classic, she actually thought that she was playing well and didn't really understand how her score didn't reflect her ability. As Michelle queried, "I felt like I didn't shoot this bad. But, like I say, the score didn't show how I played today."

Is Wie deluding herself into believing that she is still very much "in the game" or is she just putting up a facade for the cameras?

Can it really be just a single year since Michelle Wie admirably challenged the ladies on tour, finishing among the top five in three major events? Is this the same teenager who thumbed her nose up at the LPGA, believing that her future would be better served playing against the men on the PGA Tour? I'm not really sure if the LPGA would even want her to sign up at this point in her career!

Even websites devoted to Michelle Wie have stopped her promotion. There hasn't been an entry on Wieblogging.com since May (nothing to write about?) and although hometown newspapers like The Honolulu Adviser and websites like MissMichelleWie.comstrive to show Wie in the best possible light, it is becoming evident that there is little good news left to print about her golf game.

This week on Golf for Beginners, we discuss Michelle Wie's latest missed cut at the Safeway Classic and also offer a number of great golf tips from tee to green. Our disccusion on the lag putt should not be missed!

Congratulations to both Lorena Ochoa for her third win in a row and to Steve Stricker for his success at the Barclays! Here is a link to ease any confusion about the FedEx Cup.

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