It's Really Easy to Putt Better than 99% of Golfers

Do you think putting is a dark art reserved only for maniacs and the best putters on YouTube, like myself? I used to think that too. For 20 years of playing this game, I was a horrific putter, until I decided to just learn how to get that little ball in the hole as simply as possible on the putting greens. And I'm going to show you everything I've learned over the last five years to become the best putter on YouTube, bar none. Believe that. There's not too much mechanics on my channel, but there was a mechanical lesson I had with Eric with some very generic ideas on putting, which actually worked for a lot of golfers. And it changed my putting entirely from last year to now. Matty, we're going to talk about some pure fundamentals, basics that are just completely non-negotiable in my mind. Something that everyone can actually do, master the basics. First things first, I'd like to see your feet. Now there is no exact standard, there's no industry standard, right? As long as you're comfortable, first things first, but generally, smaller width from the inside of your feet, smaller width in your shoulder line. It can be small, it can be... That's pretty comfy for you, yeah? Yeah. Okay, great. Second thing I like to see is, I like to see your eye line a little bit more on top of the ball. So you can, not that way, but I want you more... Also your hips as well. There you go. So look, I feel like there's a more... Like a left dominant? Press. It feels like a left press. 55-60% type of thing? 60-40. Okay, good. Okay, so let me try to line up like that again, and then you want like... Great. So it's both ways, yes. Okay. Right, now you look centered. Hands inside your left thigh, which is fine. A-okay. Now, what I'd like to do from this behind view, I'd like to get the shaft running through your forearm. So what you can do, in your particular case, is get your hands feeling like it's a little lower. Yeah, perfect. Oh, lower? There you go. Okay. Now that matches your forearm, if this was your complete setup. Feeling real, I would have done that. Yeah. If you had asked me to run the shaft through my arm. Okay. Now that runs through your forearm. There you go. Now we didn't... Wow. Look, we didn't even talk about aiming or anything yet. But I'm just going to get you set up properly first. So I want to just run through those three things, and I'm just going to keep adding little bits and pieces, right? Okay. So feet shoulder width apart, you've got that sorted. Let's get the pressure right, or the balance correct. So just a little bit more left. There you go. And just one second, let me just check your arm line. Okay, hands a little bit lower. There you go. Go for it. So I just want to give you what I call width of stance, where your pressure and balance is. Just get your eye line, your center points over the golf ball a little bit better. Once that's there, you will find that it's a bit more stable. Like you can't move as much because you almost feel like you're a little bit locked in. You're almost like anchored in a bit. So I want that shaft to run through the forearms. The shaft angle to run through the forearms. You'll see it on video. Okay. What would be normal for you? Normal. Yeah, see that's upright. That's way too upright for me. There you go. And then you're going to start to feel, you're going to start to feel, in my opinion, you're going to feel like you can center the strike, the putter face. Yeah, 100%. That's 100% better strike. I'm going to tell you something that sounds so obvious, yet I didn't think about it. And when I heard it, it changed my entire view of putting. Putting is merely two aspects. You have line and you have speed. If you can match those two things up, you make more putts. And if you can get both of them somewhat correct in a certain range, you're going to leave yourself much shorter putts, less three putts. Because the line you chose was actually chosen in your brain in combination with the speed. So your brain has a built-in stimp meter. Some people may say they don't because they hit the ball far past the hole, leave it short. But your brain really does have an instinct for the putts. So the instinct, when you look at a putt, tells you right to left. That line you see is based on a speed in your brain. But that's why, potentially, you hit the ball too far past the cup because the line you picked wasn't enough. So your brain knows you haven't taken enough line, so it's going to hit the ball firmer to make sure that line works, get you close to the hole. Now, if you pick the correct line in the beginning, and this is how you learn, if you're hitting it past the hole a lot and you're getting it near the cup but it's going way past, what you have to do is start taking a bit more break and then see how your body adjusts when you take more break. Because it's all tied together, these two things, line and speed. So if I take this line, my body will know the speed necessary to make the ball take that line. But if I take even more line, do you see now I hit it softer because my brain knows that's so far out to the right that I have to hit it soft to give it time to take that break? And then we still end up two feet short. One of the best things you can do to eliminate the line from your mind and to make sure that you line up correctly is to buy a stencil and put either three lines, sometimes your eyes gel more with having three lines showing you where to go, or one solid line to line your putter line up to. When you align your ball to the line you've chosen, you have to practice this on the practice screen because what you'll notice out on the course is that you can get very frustrated when even one dimple movement left and right can affect the line you're going on very big time. So if you practice this on the practice screen, you can do micro movements, slowly get it right. So when you're on the course, it's very quick. You're not wasting time when you play. What you're going to find is that you're going to line this up correctly and you stand behind the ball and it looks perfect. But once you stand over the ball, you're going to find that your head is not going to agree and your eyes are not going to agree with where that ball's actually lined up to, thinking it's lined up wrong. But you know you've done it correctly before you set up the shot. What you have to do is line your putter up to the line and then if your head and brain are not aligning with the line you put there and it's disagreeing, you have to move your head and eyes until it looks correct because it is correct. The only thing getting in the way is your brain and your eyes. So move them to agree with it. This is going to help you to use the line on your ball much more effectively if you get confused when you stand over the ball. A lot of people hear Tiger Woods talking about a picture and putting to a picture. It means different things to different people. To me that picture is me seeing the due line or the video game line and then also seeing a little video play of how the putt's going to go into the hole. And then I try to play to that video game or that video I've created in my brain. Whatever your way of doing it is, I mean that's the way you're going to do it because it's so personal. So we we take our first instinct. We imagine the entrance of the hole according to the way the break's going to be. The entrance to the hole is like 45 degrees on the right here, even maybe 90 degrees. But we're going uphill so not much break and then it's on a plateau and then it's a side hill. So I have to see the video of it happening and imagine it happening. I can't just hit a ball. I have to look at it and go okay it's going to get up to that divot or that pitch mark up there and it's going to die about there. It's going to start moving 90 degrees to the left. So I have to find the pace that's going to get it up to the just past that that pitch mark and then allow it to just die into the cup over the pitch mark and now it's moving sideways. So that's the picture I envisioned but obviously and I've executed it perfectly which I'm very proud of but maybe it's a little bit less break. That's inside that line now it should move right to left right into the jaw. This is how I started making more putts. I start seeing a picture and a video. Let's call it a video and I try to hit the ball along that video line that I've replayed in my mind until it comes into existence like I did on the second one and hold the putt. This is a drill that I used to do when I was younger and I found it unbelievably good. One for confidence, seeing the ball go in. It's so easy to line up. So every time I had alignment problems I would always do baby putts like one foot putts and I would do hundreds of them and it's a massive confidence booster very very good for alignment and it's just good to see the ball and hear the ball see and hear the ball go in the hole. So I never used to practice three or four five six footers. If I got this right and I felt really good with my aiming I could see the line because it's so close you can almost see the line at exactly where you're aiming it. I found this was my most effective training aid. Maybe you guys can try it at home. Just one foot putts. I just want you to focus on your putter line and where you want the ball to like to go in and all you're just trying to do is just see that ball go in and in and I really think it's psychological. It's just seeing it, hearing it, seeing it, hearing it. You know this this comes down to what I said to you know earlier which was everything is aim based. So for me what's really important is if you can aim well the whole thing just flows. I guarantee you after 20 or 30 even 50 of these you go back to three feet you can see the lines completely different. It's so much clearer seeing where the putter is actually aiming. So look if you aim a one footer wrong you're in trouble for your two, three, four, five footers. Now these short putts the reason that I make them so much nowadays and I never used to I used to miss a lot of them was purely visualization based on the ability to want to make a putt. You have to want to make the putt. If you don't want to you're going to do what I did and I used to create images in my mind walking up to a ball whether it's for birdie or bogey or par. I would create a movie in my mind of that ball just taking too much break and missing or lipping out and then I have to come and tap it in again all running through my imagination. Your brain is going to take that movie and it's going to make it happen as much as it's going to take a movie that you imagine something good and make that happen. You have an equal shot of both things happening so pick the positive one. Pick the one where you see the ball going in the cup and you feel the feeling of it going in. You see the ball going into the cup you hear it and you imagine yourself picking the ball up out of the cup. You have to want to make putts. You have to look at a hole and see where the ball is going to hit and find out how you're going to get your ball there. You're not thinking about missing. The day you think about missing putts is the same as a Formula One driver thinking what if. What if I hit that corner too fast and I don't see my family again. That's the end of their career. Give yourself a fist pump before you hit the putt. Come on! If you go outside of 10 feet we want distance control only and the best way to do that is not to do it to a hole because you won't make them. Remember outside of that 15 feet you're looking at making one out of 10. So you want to putt to a tee in the ground and stop the ball as close as you can to the tee. Your number one goal is just to get it anywhere within a few inches of those tees and that's going to serve you very very well in the future. You can do these uphill. You can do them downhill. You can do side hill just to the tees outside of 10 feet. You're going to be absolutely money and as you practice more and more you're going to get confidence and all you're going to see on the golf course is you're going to see this tiny little target here and the smaller your miss is to the small target the smaller the miss is to the bigger target which is the hole and in practice that's what you start to envision in play. So if you have these small tees here, tiny targets like this, you're going to start seeing those when you have your long putts. You're going to start seeing your imaginary tees and then more putts are going to start dropping, less three putts. If you practice putting to make putts, practice putts that you're going to make so you can ingrain the sound of the ball hitting the bottom of the cup so it gives you confidence for the future when you go play on the golf course that you are ready for that sound and you're addicted to it. You want to get that ball in the hole. You're practicing. You're seeing a lot of putts go in, not missing a lot of putts. You've got these short two, three, four footers. You're waiting for someone to say that's good. You know what? They're never good. Just practice getting them in the hole. I had this affliction and I would just think it's a given and I would miss these like a hell of a lot when it came to competition or playing against friends for money. You never really, inside three feet, have to go outside of the hole for your break. Remember what we said, your brain has a stint meter so when it sees a line inside left and doesn't quite think so, it hits it a little firmer, hitting it through the break. That's the way I like to do it. First thing, take them seriously. Orient yourself. Pick your line. Commit 100% to your line. We take it seriously. Then when I have these shorter putts, I kind of widen my stance a bit and move the ball more toward the center of the stance. I keep my putter nice and low and I kind of stab them. That's just the feeling I have. If it's real or not, that's a different story, but that's my feel. I widen the stance a little bit, make sure I'm set, which moves the ball back in the stance to the middle. I'm set up perfectly and I stab it, bam it into the hole. If you have a lot of anxiety and you get a little yip in your stroke, you know what? You have a natural stroke. That yip is in your brain watching the putter get to the ball. Give it a little heads up looking at the left edge or whatever your line is and just hit the ball toward where you want it to enter the hole. Look, my head's up the whole time. That can eliminate a lot of your stuff in your head and eventually you come back to just putting normally looking down. You may never come back to that. That's a very effective way to overcome the problems from Bob Rutella's book, Putting Out of Your Mind. The biggest thing I ever learned putting is to go through your process and this is what I think when I'm putting, especially on side hill lies. Side hill lies are very difficult. They snap right to left. They snap left to right. You can't really control anything unless you just put it out there and that's exactly what I think. Give it to the universe. Give it to gravity. Give it to the grass. You've done your best. Just give it away. Let nature take your putt and I know it sounds stupid, but letting go of that result actually has improved my putting one of the biggest ways. Now, I'm going to go a little bit far out to the right here. I'm going to practice my best possible putt here and then I'm going to say to the universe, look, I gave you everything you need. Put the ball in the hole. Just let it go. Let it go. See there, great line, wrong strong. You can do this with any kind of putt. If you're just not feeling sure, do your best. Commit to it and then just say, you know what, I'm giving it to the universe. Like here, I'm going to give this one to the universe again. I just pick my spot, hit it, let it go and it goes in the cup. You've got to let it go. You've done your process. That's all you can control. Now, you boyfriends probably have the same issue I have. Okay, so we take more break, but my brain won't do it and this was my biggest problem, especially on Bermuda Greens, especially quick ones like out in Horizon Hills in Malaysia. I would putt, no matter what I would do, I would never take enough break and my brain couldn't quantify and couldn't comprehend how much break I had to take. So I'd go to the practice green and I would hit putts and they would go like this, well across the front of the green. I could never get it. So what I had to do is put an obstruction in the way of the line I kept choosing. So I had to go around it and train my brain into taking too much break. So let's say my idea of the break is here. I'm going to put a glove, even outside of it, to train my brain to give it even too much break to get over the fact that I've got to put it out there. I've got to put it out there. So I would take this to practice greens and I'll put a bottle, something that stops the ball and I'd have to really train my brain to go around it. See? So even though it misses on the high side, I'm feeling more confidential because if you put on the high side, you feel good. You feel like you're not weak and impotent and it's going across the front of the hole, which is just one of the worst feelings psychologically when you putt. When I was a very bad putter, I was hitting the ball on the toe a lot of the time, leaving very inconsistent results. So what I wanted to do is train myself to understand where the sweet spot actually is. My arrow of parallax and my brain wanted to hit it on the toe for some reason. So what I did is I put elastic bands either side of the sweet spot, initially starting far apart and actually moving them closer and closer, playing rounds like this, social rounds, to try and hit the middle of the face. If you hit a rubber band, the ball's going nowhere. So I would actually putt on the course like this and actually started to realize, damn man, the sweet spot is way closer to the heel than I anticipated. And the strike becomes pure and you make money putts like the greatest putter on YouTube. A habit that's killing your score is not understanding the PGA Tour putting make percentages. This is like 20 feet, 18 feet or so. The number of times a PGA Tour pro is going to make these putts is very, very low. And the point of knowing about the PGA Tour pros is that it just lowers your expectations, less pressure, less negativity about your putting when you miss them. As long as you're two putting anything outside of 10 feet, you are golden. Because from eight feet, pros make 50%. From five feet, they make 80%. From three feet, they make 99%. If you can shoot for those numbers on those three distances, the rest doesn't matter because then you're going to be able to two putt anything and be happy because a pro from 10 feet is going to make maybe four out of 10, maybe three out of 10. You know, if you're expecting yourself to make more 10 footers to play better golf, you're shooting for the wrong fish.