Golf Putting Tips for Novices
Advice and tips for golf beginners on the putting green. Learning how to master the putt is a must if you’re a novice golfer looking to improve your golf game.
When it comes to putting I expect that every man who reads this will feel that here at least I am going to touch upon a subject which he is as well qualified to solve for himself as any one.
I believe I have missed more foot and two foot putts than any living man who has played golf the same length of time, and what I have to say about this stroke is based upon more careful and general experience than any one I have met thus far.
I have little doubt that my views may not parallel those of many good putters, but I know that the plan I pursued so persistently for eight years was the reason for my erratic putting.
Right at the start I state flatly that putting is not a matter of nerve or will power at all, although I know that this opinion is directly contrary to the views I hear most often. Bitter experience has been my teacher and I purpose to stick to my opinions. I changed in a year and a half from a most erratic putter to a very consistent putter and I know the reason why.
If nerve or will power would have holed putts for me I should never have missed a putt. I simply worked from a false theory. I have putted as well in critical matches as I ever putted in my life, and I have putted as abominably in a friendly round as I ever did in a critical match. I did what I have preached against so much, and that is “stiffened” my muscles. I made the game hard for myself.
My theory was to reduce the art of putting to an exact science by some method of controlling the club which would make it impossible to go wrong. The club would have to go that way, and it was a physical impossibility for it to go any other way than that which I intended. I putted the two extremes all the years I tried that idea; brilliantly at times and horribly at other times; worse than a man who never played the game before in his life.
