Putting: The Great Leveler

 

One of the best things about golf is that there are so many different ways to be a good player. You can be a long driver, an accurate iron player, or a wizard with your wedges, but there is one thing that everyone has to do, and that’s putt. Unless you exclusively play TopGolf or only hit balls on the range, everyone has to putt to get the ball in the hole. That is why, I think, putting is the great leveler of golf. If you can’t get the ball in the hole, you won’t be a good player. 

This reality should be on the mind of every golfer when they step up to the tee. It doesn’t matter if they drive the ball 30 yards past everyone in the group, if they can’t make a 5-footer, then it’s gonna be a long day for them and they probably won’t shoot a great score. On the flip side, the player who may be shorter off the tee, but who throws darts all day long won’t really have an advantage if he can’t make his 5-footers. Do you get my point? 

Everyone is going to have strengths and weaknesses in their golf game. That’s the nature of golf. No one masters every aspect of the game, even if they are decent at everything. You have to lean on your strengths to be able to play well, but the one thing that everyone has to get good at to shoot a good score is putting. I’ve played with guys before who just chalk it up to ability and disregard putting. They’ll say things like, “Well, I’m just not a good putter,” or “Ahh, I’ll just never figure it out” as a way of saying that they really don’t want to spend the time to get good at putting, they’d rather focus on what they’re good at, even if it means their game as a whole suffers. 

So then, what does this mean? Yeah, it’s great to know that putting is a leveler and it puts everyone on the same playing field, but what do we do with that info? Well, I think the thing you should do is emphasize practicing your putting. It doesn’t matter how far you drive the ball or how close you hit your irons if you can be confident in your ability to get the ball into the hole once you get on the green. That means you need to build that confidence, and that only comes with time and practice. I’d recommend going out to the local course and only taking your putter and a handful of balls and literally just hitting putts for hours at a time. I know, I know, that isn’t practical for everyone. Maybe for you, it makes more sense to just hit putts in your living room, or your office. It doesn’t really matter when or where, the most important thing is just that you spend more of your practice time with a putter in your hand. Then, when you get out on the course, no matter what your other strengths or weaknesses are, you will know that you can get the ball into the hole with confidence.