Nobody
wants to miss a short putt; it's a stroke lost that could have been
saved so easily. Short hitters especially face many putts in that
knee knocking, character-building three to five-foot range because
they often depend on chipping or pitching, then one-putting to make
par. The most agonizing way to miss a close-range putt is to hit
it softly and watch it break below the hole, or worse, hang on the
lip, just short. As of right now, vow you'll never again miss a
five-footer by being tentative. In this range, always be firm.
The
pros take this approach. Watch any tournament on television and
you'll see that, nine times out of ten, they rattle the short ones
in hard rather than trying to slip them over the front edge.
Two
simple guidelines:
1)
Play less break never aim outside either edge (unless there's severe
contour); and
2)
hit everything firm enough to bounce the ball off the back of the
cup.
The
only time you should abandon this aggressive strategy is when the
greens are extremely fast and you risk sending the ball way past.
It's true that once in a while you'll miss with the hard-hitting
approach, but you'll make a lot more short putts by hitting them
firmly than you will by stroking them softly.
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