GOLF
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OKAY, it's time to recap.
Followers of this column will now have a process when putting, hold your chest straight ahead and hold the follow-through for a count of three.
Keeping your chest straight ahead is to avoid moving toward the target as you hit the ball, when the shoulders tend to go left and so will the ball unless some compensatory moves are employed.
Holding the follow-through is a great tool as it allows you to check that you have kept the hands, arms and putter all as one.
We have also done some work on judging distance, finding a rhythm that is natural for us and always employing the same speed of swing and the only variable being the amount of backswing we make which sends the ball differing distances.
Some practice from short range has given us a good idea of our "safe" distance, the length of putt that we are near certain to hole which gives us freedom to hit our first putt that far past the hole.
This gives us a chance to hole the first putt, knowing that we can hole the one back.
We are also able to vaguely read the putt by looking halfway and then left and right of that spot to ascertain which side is highest and we know that the putt will turn from the high side.
I have suggested that, generally, club golfers don't allow enough break, so my advice was to have a guess and then add a bit, watch what happens and learn by it.
From last week, we are now picking a spot that we want to start our ball towards and committing to that spot even if it looks a little different when we get over the putt to hit it - back yourself and again learn by what goes right or wrong.
One way that we get a free read is when our first putt (or chip) goes past the hole.
Always watch what it does as it will of course follow the same contours as you are about to take on with the return putt.
If the putt breaks a little to the right when slowing down going past the hole then you know the return putt will break a little left (the reverse) and you can aim accordingly.
It won't be exact, but will give you a bit of an idea.
Just a reminder - the reason good players only need to hit a couple of putts on the putting green and can then go out and putt well on any golf course is because of the amount of internal data they have to draw on through an inconceivable amount of practice on every conceivable surface.
Most club golfers don't have that database built up so your best guess will do, then learn from every putt.
Before long your "autopilot" will start to take over and you too will be able to react to all the variables without having to think.
That'll do for putting for now - going to get back into the golf swing a bit next week.
I kept that intentionally simple before and although a good golf swing should be simple, you need to know why and how, otherwise any intelligent person will instinctively complicate it.
Late golfer Ben Hogan was quoted to have said "reverse every natural instinct, and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing".
If you can stay with me over the next few weeks, we will definitely turn some lights on.
Refer to last week's article by clicking here.
* 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