Fred Fruisen, Auckland Golf Coach

Short putts terrify many golfers. This is one of the main reasons, “the gimme” as become so common. Most casual golfers aren’t required by their equally scared playing partners to hole out their short putts. By the way everyone, no where in the rules of golf is the concept of a “Gimme” ever mentioned. Yes, in a match play format you can concede a putt or hole, but how many of you are playing match play? This is a sore subject with me because I am a golf purest and the entire object of the game of golf is to get the ball in the hole! When I hear someone say, “pick it up, that’s good.” I have to bite my tongue. It drives me absolutely crazy! Getting the ball in the general area of the hole is not good enough! In the rules of golf it clearly states, “In stroke play the hole is complete once the ball has been holed.” That means the ball comes to rest in the bottom of the cup.

I hear all the reasons and excuses as to why people play, “gimmes”. Sorry, none of them are legit. “But it speeds up play.” “They would have made it anyway,”… blah, blah, blah. Sorry, it all amounts to one thing… you’re cheating.

This will give you a good explanation why you shoot far worse scores in tournaments than you do day in and day out. It’s because you don’t get any practice making short putts while playing under pressure. How different would your score be if you putted all the short ones? A good putters score wouldn’t change but a bad putters score would be very different.

Forgive me, I’m trying not to get to preachy, but the reward for all the hard work it took to get your ball so close to the hole is to hear the wonderful sound of the ball rattling around the bottom of the cup. Also, making the close ones are a demonstration of ones skill, nerve and focus. “How many times have you seen a major championship decided by a player making or missing a 3-foot putt? How about EVERY ONE!”

I get it though. Once confidence that you can make a short putt is gone, fear is the next emotion that dominates the mind. A mind full of doubt is obviously terrifying and most times ends in embarrassment. Because when standing over a short putt with little confidence, you know and your playing partners know you’re probably going to miss it, and sometimes you’ll miss the following putt also resulting in you raking up the ball with your putter and walking quickly off the green mumbling insults at yourself.

So, lets make more short putts. Try this easy drill:

Get a bunch of balls and put a tee in the ground about 3-4 feet away from the hole. This way you can practice the same putt over and over to develop muscle memory and confidence.

Once over the ball and you feel you are aligned properly, close your left eye (if you are a right-handed golfer) and keep it closed while you stroke the putt. The reason you do this and I believe a big reason some people miss short putts is that it takes away peripheral vision. I believe strongly that seeing the hole out of the corner of ones eye is the distraction that prevents golfers from being able to focus on making a quality stroke. I have found that if I take peripheral vision away, a golfer can completely focus on watching the putter come through the stroke on a quality path and focusing completely on seeing the putter contact the ball without ones attention wandering or trying to guide the ball to the hole. As Gary Player would say, “you should LISTEN for the ball to go in the cup.”

I believe that in golf you can’t be scared of something you can’t see. If you can’t see the hole it will free you up. I’ve introduced this drill to hundreds of golfers. Some even do it while they play. This drill will help golfers focus on putting a nice roll on the ball, learn to keep the hands moving through the stroke, keep the head steady, and more importantly, calm the mind.

So, NO MORE GIMMIES!” Putt them all!

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Fred Fruisen is the author and illustrator of punchline‘s new book, 50 Reasons to Hate Golf and Why You Should NEVER Stop Playing! Click here to order your copy today!