Geoff
I'm a big fan of Phil Mickelson and happy for him that he won the recent PGA Championship; however, I'm not a big fan of his relatively new putting regimen...such as, when he stands to the side of his ball, almost perpendicular to his actual line of putt, and makes a practice stroke! I don't know, Pelz may have put him on to that technique so that he doesn't concentrate/stress so much looking at his actual line...the technique just doesn't fly with me. I just think he's already a very good putter and could win without using that 'funky' method! I would appreciate your thoughts on his new style?
Regards,
Larry
www.theputtingedge.com

Dear Larry,

Phil's circle-drill prctice stroke before the real putt is a gimmick taught him by Jackie Burke Jr. of Houston. The idea is to practice putts at 3-4 feet in a circle in massive numbers and then on the course to treat a short putt just like one in the circle during practice -- that is, to protect the golfer against stress by treating the putt as just another putt. Hence, the golfer on the course pretends that a short putt is just one of the circle balls, makes a pretend putt from a position preceding the real ball in the circle, and then just steps in to the real ball like one in an endless series of routine sinks and make a stress-free, normal-routine stroke.

I've never heard that Pelz has anything to do with this drill in practice or on the course.

There is a big problem with the way Mickelson seems to use this drill, indicating that he doesn't understand something pretty important. At the US Open at Shinnecock Hills in 2004, when Phil 3-putted the 17th using this technique, he appeared to make the practice stroke from 11 o'clock (on the left-to-right breaking side of the 6-12 "fall line" thru the cup) and then made his real attempt with the ball at the 1 o'clock position (on the right-to-left breaking side of the fall line). The ball missed to the left of the hole, indicating he expected it to break the same as the practice putt from 11 o'clock but it broke the opposite way. This is very likely due to two things: 1) Phil practices the circle drill on relatively flat areas of the green, and 2) he generally does not seem to know about how the fall line divides breaks into different directions. If so, then applying the circle technique to tilted surface without also carefully respecting the fall line leads to gaffs like the 17th at Shinnecock Hills.

More generally, using a gimmick to deal with "stress" is in a sense an admisson that you NEED the gimmick because you don't have the "stuff" to putt without the gimmick. I prefer to deal with the issue straight up.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 1,120,000 visits and growing strong ...

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Greensboro NC 27401
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Hi Geoff

Ive been playing a lot of tournament golf lately and have been thinking about my putting routine and how to get the putt off without undue stress and tension. I guess the routine is a rather personal thing and relates to ones natural cadence of movement but what do you prescribe?

My routine, for what its worth, includes a few right hand only wafts of the putter from behind the ball and then I get over the ball take a couple of looks and let it go without taking any practice strokes beside the ball.
I started doing this to avoid my tendancy of critiqueing my practice strokes. So far, to my surprise this method hasnt effected my distance control. But I am wondering if something like Tigers routine might be better-two quick practice strokes and into it without time to second guess.

On full shots I feel as though the routine envolves keeping some part of the body moving till the club is finally taken away. A sort of running start on the takeaway that reduces stress and second guessing. How can I best achieve something like this when putting without comprimising line or distance control.

Regards
James

Dear James,

In my view, the best defense against second guessing the aim of the putter (which is also the "line" of the putt) is careful, accurate aiming to begin with plus the realization that aiming is a staged process that results in only one aim, while a second guess of aim is obviously NOT based on any process. Hence, one should never acknowledge an "aim" second guess as meaningful for reaction -- just ignore it totally unless you recycle the whole aiming process.

The best defense against second guessing the distance or touch for the stroke is a reliance upon tempo plus targeting for the size of the stroke (and hence the putter head speed at impact). If there is a second guessing about touch, then you can simply relook along the line (with visualization) to recapture a sense of the appropriate touch. This leaves the aim unaltered.

In my view, there is no such thing as second guessing the stroke movement pattern itself -- every putt rolls the ball straight the way the putter face is aimed with solid impact and good tempo. There may be a discomfort in the setup for some reason, but even so, the making of the stroke can still be performed accurately out of the normal positioning at setup, or can be made with slight mid-stroke corrrections after detecting problems in the backstroke or early in the downstroke.

The common problem for most golfers really seems to stem from not completing the aiming and accepting the aim as the best you can do before moving to the stroke itself. Because of this, aiming continues or smears over into the making of the stroke. Reacting to a second guess at this time is often done without the golfer clearly knowing what is prompting the urge to do something different at the last minute -- aim, touch / distance, stroke.

Many instructors speak about "committing" to a line, but this is an odd way of thinking about it. The aiming is a process of reading the putt, selecting a start line for the putt, and aiming the putter accurately on that line. The steps in the performance of this process have to be done carefully and accurately in order to aim correctly on the chosen line. The process results in only a single aim of the putter, and a single line -- so there is NO alternative aim to consider. The notion of "committing" to a line necessarily implies that there is some other line that might be chosen instead, but there is not any such alternative. Hence, talking of "committing' to the line doesn't make any sense -- you MUST commit because it's the ONLY aim available.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 1,120,000 visits and growing strong ...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC 27401
336.790.8176 home

Geoff
Beautifully put...exactly my thoughts and your analysis is perfect! I'm glad we're in agreement. Even though I don't agree with Phil's putting routine, I always say to stay with your technique if it's working for you and you're one-putting consistently, so I'm thinking he'll be using that practice stroke for a while. I also had forgotten it was Jackie Burke Jr. that put Phil on to this technique, but I'm sure you've mentioned that before on your forum...it all sounds too familiar. Thanks again for the terrific analysis!
Regards,
Larry
www.theputtingedge.com