Let's say you are a 19 handicap and you set a goal of becoming a 9 handicap by the end of the season (a very lofty goal, but possible). In my earlier newsletters on Statistical Analysis of an Average Golfer, for all levels of players, the most signficant way to lower scores is by improving the short game. Recall that:

Compared to overall average golfer statistics, you need to improve by:

† increasing GIR from 3 to 8 (267% increase)
† increasing Iron Accuracy from 20 to 53% (265% increase)
† reducing Putts per Round from 35.0 to 31.7 (9.5% decrease)
† reducing Pitch/Chip/Sand from 15.6 to 9.8 (37% decrease)

Your ball striking and thus swing would need to improve immensely to reach your goal. Imagine how much less improvement is necessary with the short game to realize lower scores. I recommend you buying Dave Pelz's book to help out.

As some objectives to achieve this goal, I would highly recommend the 19 handicap putting some things in place to improve the short game such as:

† arranging some lessons from a local professional
† setting aside an hour each second day to work on the short game
† purchasing some books on the short game to help out with practice
† utilizing more of my golf site and tips to improve
† it might be that the short game is the only focus of improvement

For improvement to take place, of course, one needs to set aside ample time to practice and play. The 19 handicap won't improve much if all he/she does is play a round of golf 3 times each week. When top professionals make significant changes to their games, they often play less and practice more. It's difficult to work on improvement of various aspects of the game on the course because the sole goal there is score.

This section of the site is about improving your putting, which is as outlined above the most effective way of lowering your score. Even if you're a scratch player shooting par, almost half of your strokes are putts.

To improve your putting, you can improve in one or more of the following areas:

1. Stroke Mechanics: There are some fundamentals essential to good putting.

2. Feel: No matter how flawless your stroke, you must develop good kinesthetic feel to stroke putts the correct distance.

3. Reading Greens: With a sound stroke and great feel, you still need to be able to read how much a putt will break.

The first two areas require athletic moves that can be improved upon through practice (some tips on those later). But, the third area, reading greens, can be improved upon by anyone. That's what I'll focus on teaching you now.

By analyzing how a ball is affected by the slope of the green and by the frictional resistance of the grass, I have determined how the plumb bob distance (between shaft and hole) is related to the amount of break. Most of the breaking occurs in the last few feet of roll. A typical 20 foot putt which breaks slightly because of a small slope would look like:

     Most putts are under-read by golfers, even the professionals. I have developed a method to read putts using a plumb bob. Many would argue that plumb bobbing can only tell you which way a putt breaks, but not the amount. I was one of those people. But after analyzing the physics and mathematics of a breaking putt, I have determined a fairly simple procedure of taking what is learned from plumb-bobbing, and calculating the amount of break, which depends on the speed of the green and the length of the putt.

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as an example, let's say that the upper shaft is aligned 2 inches left of the left edge of the hole. Since the hole is about 4 inches in diameter (thus the edge of the hole is 2 inches from the hole's center) the shaft is about 2 + 2 = 4 inches from the middle of the hole. When plumb bobbing, this does not mean that the putt breaks 4 inches. It actually breaks more.