WHEN putting, hold your chest straight ahead and hold the follow-through.
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Remember to stay accountable for that ahead of the result.
Over excitement or anxiety about the result will make you target orientated.
It will make it very difficult for you to stay interested enough in the ball until you've made contact with it - probably the most critical element of a golf swing of any sort.
Armed with a process and having done some practice with varying length swings in order to get a feel as to how far your golf ball rolls with those differing length swings, we now need to have an educated guess as to where to aim and how long a swing to make for any given length of putt.
Firstly, we need to ascertain what length of putt is a 95 per cent definite.
Is that a putt of a foot, two feet, three feet or more?
The reason we need to establish that is because it will really help your first putt if you know you can run it three feet past and still be confident of holing the return.
If your secure distance is only a foot, then you must be a little more conservative with your approach putt.
In order to do this, take six balls and put them all around a hole that is on a slight slope - all about a foot from the hole so you have six putts of a foot in length from all differing directions.
Take each putt as if it matters - read it and then hole each one on turn.
If you miss one, just repeat the exercise.
If you hole all six, then do the same from 18 inches.
Repeat until you find the length of putt that you rarely miss.
Now in rolling your first putt from now on (until your skill level improves and your 'safe' distance becomes longer, say two feet), you should intend to run your ball 18 inches past the hole as this gives you a chance of holing the first putt and you are near sure of holing the return.
English golf commentator Peter Alliss has a saying, "never in the history of the game has the hole come towards the ball", which is another way of saying "never up, never in".
Generally the faster a green is (downhill putts will have a similar effect), the more a putt will break as it is travelling slower throughout its duration and gravity can have more effect.
Generally club golfers don't allow enough break.
Put those two things together and when you read a putt and have your best guess as to what it might do, add a bit. Once a ball goes past the hole on the low side, it can roll away a fair bit.
On the high side, it is always coming back to the hole when it is running out of pace.
Just to touch on reading a green - a simple start is to stand behind your ball or marker and if you are able, get down on your haunches - you don't need to do the Superman stance as golfer Camillo Villegas does.
If you are unable to bend at all, then you can do it standing up.
Looking at the putting green between you and the hole, divide the putt in two and look at a point at about half way.
Now look three feet to the left of that point and then three feet to the right and back and forwards a few times until you 'see' which side is highest.
If you are not sure, then putt straight at the hole.
If you think it's a small amount, aim at that edge of the hole.
If it's clearly more then have a guess at how much then add a bit as above.
Ten minutes a day, keeping your process, rolling balls differing distances to differing targets, seeing what they do, will all help build your internal database - once you build that then some things will start to take care of themselves subconsciously - a happy place.
• Tony White is the golf operations manager at Gibraltar Country Club, Bowral.
He can be contacted on 4862 8615 or you can visit www.gibraltarbowral.com.au