Speaker 1: For members only. Golf Smarter number three hundred and eighty three,
Speaker 1: published on May seven, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 2: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our
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Speaker 2: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: You can make every put if your definition of making
Speaker 3: a putt is getting it started just the way you
Speaker 3: want it, and if you do, that's all you can control.
Speaker 3: After that, all you can do to root for it.
Speaker 3: It's like a relay race. Fred. In a relay race,
Speaker 3: what is your job? You have a two person race,
Speaker 3: and you go first. Your first job is to run
Speaker 3: your leg of the race the best you can. That's
Speaker 3: your stroke in putting. Once the putter head gets to
Speaker 3: the ball, that's the same thing as your hand off
Speaker 3: of the baton. After you've handed off the baton, that's
Speaker 3: your transfer of energy from the potter head to the ball.
Speaker 3: All you want to focus on is making a good handoff.
Speaker 3: What happens if you're looking at the finish line. While
Speaker 3: you're trying to hand off the baton, it's gonna be
Speaker 3: a bad handoff. Maybe you'll drop it. And what if
Speaker 3: you don't trust the person and you don't let go
Speaker 3: after you hand off the baton, you keep running along
Speaker 3: with them and hold the baton. That's not gonna help them.
Speaker 3: If you hand off the baton but you don't trust
Speaker 3: them and you give them a shove towards the finish line,
Speaker 3: that's not going to help them either. The off that's
Speaker 3: exactly your partner in this relay races the ball. All
Speaker 3: you want to do is make a good handoff and
Speaker 3: get it started. After that, it's the ball's job to
Speaker 3: find the hole.
Speaker 1: That's the secret to it in Golf's game within the game.
Speaker 1: Part two with Doctor Joseph Parent.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Golf Smarter for members only, Doctor Joe.
Speaker 3: Hi, Fred, great to be with you again and again.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the additional time that you're providing for us,
Speaker 1: all because you have an Eastern wisdom about you that
Speaker 1: we like to bring with us to the golf course
Speaker 1: every time. Thank you, that was not patronizing. I really
Speaker 1: believe that.
Speaker 3: Well, we've been doing this for a long time and
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have as do. I all right, this new
Speaker 1: book really really good. You know, if I can just
Speaker 1: do a podcast on putting every single week, I would
Speaker 1: because I find it to be so important. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's got to be right because even on the scorecard
Speaker 1: they give you two strokes, you know, for.
Speaker 3: True, that's true when you think of what the you
Speaker 3: know what par is, it's how many shots.
Speaker 1: It's thirty six shots on the course and thirty six
Speaker 1: on the putting green.
Speaker 3: How many shots it would typically take to get to
Speaker 3: the green plus two for putting right, So that's half
Speaker 3: year round, right exactly.
Speaker 1: So you know, but because of my attention issues, I
Speaker 1: couldn't do a podcast on putting every week. I got
Speaker 1: to vary the topics or I'd go out of my mind.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Well, there's a lot, there's you know, there's a
Speaker 3: lot more to golf to it than than just putting.
Speaker 3: But but it really is where the mental game comes
Speaker 3: in the most. And that's what I end up working
Speaker 3: with students the most on is short gaming putting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean we've had people from U and
Speaker 1: I've I've always wanted to get You mentioned doctor Craig's
Speaker 1: Craig Farnsworth because I just recently we did a show
Speaker 1: on Lakina the JD the general manager there, he was
Speaker 1: on the show. I played around down there, and I
Speaker 1: would love to get doctor Craig on. And we have
Speaker 1: We've talked about aim point, We've we have Jeff Mangum.
Speaker 1: So we talk a lot about putting because it is
Speaker 1: so critically important and I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that more I see more people struggling with than anything
Speaker 1: is reading the greens. Do you hold the putter in
Speaker 1: front of your and try to make it, you know,
Speaker 1: a plumb bob line, or do you you crawl around
Speaker 1: on the ground and you know, do these bizarre positions
Speaker 1: and reading the greens is is probably harder than stroking
Speaker 1: the ball.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I have a particular approach to reading
Speaker 3: greens that I think is very very helpful. And then
Speaker 3: then I have something in the in my routine that
Speaker 3: lets people get better at reading greens as they play.
Speaker 3: I think that's the really special thing that I offer. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but the starting perspective is I like to quote Jack
Speaker 3: Nicholas who said, I start reading the green from fifty
Speaker 3: yards away, and that is looking at the overall lay
Speaker 3: of the land. I start even sooner than that. I
Speaker 3: start before I go out for the round. If it's
Speaker 3: a new course, I go to the pro shop and
Speaker 3: I ask somebody there is there any Is there any
Speaker 3: direction that almost all the greens in the course tend
Speaker 3: to break towards. For example, out in you were talking
Speaker 3: about Lakinta out in the Coachelli Valley with palm desert
Speaker 3: and palm springs, everything breaks towards the east. They say
Speaker 3: towards India, which is the farthest east town in the valley,
Speaker 3: but it's actually breaking towards the salt and sea, this
Speaker 3: very low body of water out east of the valley.
Speaker 3: When you go to Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades
Speaker 3: where they have the Los Angeles Open, everything breaks towards
Speaker 3: the sixth green and the seventh tee, that corner of
Speaker 3: the golf course away from the clubhouse, which is way
Speaker 3: up on a hill. So you want to know the
Speaker 3: overall lay of the land and any particular major direction
Speaker 3: that the course. We just were at the Masters. Every
Speaker 3: putt breaks towards Ray's Creek at the Masters. And if
Speaker 3: you know that it helps. It makes a difference in
Speaker 3: how you read the putts. So you start before you
Speaker 3: even get on the course. So what's the overall landscape?
Speaker 3: Are there mountains in one direction? Is the ocean in
Speaker 3: one direction? Then you come in closer, and then you say, okay,
Speaker 3: for this particular green, where is the high point around
Speaker 3: the green? Is there? You know? Is there a creek nearby?
Speaker 3: Is there a pond to one side? And look around
Speaker 3: the edge of the green where there are bunkers. Golf
Speaker 3: course designers don't They don't want the water to run
Speaker 3: through a bunker when it's draining off the green, So
Speaker 3: the drain place will be a place away from the bunkers.
Speaker 3: And not only that, wherever you have a bunker, people
Speaker 3: have been hitting sand out onto the green, so they've
Speaker 3: essentially been top dressing it every day. And the level
Speaker 3: of the green near the bunkers gets a little bit higher,
Speaker 3: So know that balls are going to break a little
Speaker 3: bit away from the bunkers. So this way you go
Speaker 3: from outside to end and then you get and then
Speaker 3: you start looking at the area around your putt. But
Speaker 3: you take all these other factors into account.
Speaker 1: First, how often when you have gone into the pro
Speaker 1: shop and asked them about the general direction of where
Speaker 1: balls will will break towards. Have they ever said the
Speaker 1: sprinkler drain the drainage? I mean because when I've I've
Speaker 1: talked to golf course architects and asked him about that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and they said, it's always gonna there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as a flat green because it's gotta
Speaker 1: it's got a drain and it's gonna drain too, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, do they do they make the drainage in
Speaker 1: that same direction?
Speaker 3: Is oh? Not necessarily not. It doesn't necessarily match the
Speaker 3: overall Yeah, slope of the of the golf course. Every holes,
Speaker 3: every hole is different in that way. So so the
Speaker 3: way that it's designed, it doesn't necessarily match. But you
Speaker 3: have to take all these factors. It's almost like vectors
Speaker 3: or arrows that you say, well, i've got some of
Speaker 3: it going in that direction, and then there's this counter
Speaker 3: force going in this direction. Oh, you know, I think
Speaker 3: they even out and it's really going to be straight.
Speaker 3: So you can work with that. But the most important
Speaker 3: thing is once you've read the green, and once you've
Speaker 3: read your putt, you make a commitment to get it
Speaker 3: started on the line that you saw. And if you
Speaker 3: roll it on the line and it doesn't do what
Speaker 3: you thought, this is where learning can come in. And
Speaker 3: this is what I teach in the book How to
Speaker 3: Make Every Putt. I talk about the post shot routine,
Speaker 3: which is if after your putt, you made your putt,
Speaker 3: it got started and going okay, this should turn out
Speaker 3: really well, and then it turns either in the opposite direction,
Speaker 3: or it doesn't move the way you thought it would,
Speaker 3: or it goes way past where you thought or way
Speaker 3: short of where you thought. Then you say, huh, okay,
Speaker 3: I hit the putt that I thought was going to
Speaker 3: get to the hole, but it went a different direction.
Speaker 3: Didn't I see about the slope or the grain or
Speaker 3: the direction of the break or what did I see
Speaker 3: that wasn't there? And I have what's called I have
Speaker 3: you be what's called the objective detective. So you drop
Speaker 3: your emotion about having missed the putt and you say, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm over that. Now what can I learn from this? Okay?
Speaker 3: I thought it was going to keep breaking and it
Speaker 3: straightened out. Okay, I see, So that means the fall
Speaker 3: line was kind of in this direction. I need to
Speaker 3: remember that, so that I just put to the fall line.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's going to break across the fall line.
Speaker 3: And I talk about that in a chapter called Rivers
Speaker 3: and Fountains that talks about the pattern of how putts
Speaker 3: break uphill and downhill.
Speaker 1: Excellent is that one of the chapters that has a
Speaker 1: QR code that we can see a video as well.
Speaker 3: That is in how to make every put in the
Speaker 3: section on reading Green is a chapter called Rivers and Fountains,
Speaker 3: and there is a QR square or code that you
Speaker 3: can scan in to your device or smartphone and it'll
Speaker 3: take you to a video that I demonstrate, and you'll
Speaker 3: see a downhill putt that is cur curving, curving and
Speaker 3: then straightens out and doesn't keep curving, which is what
Speaker 3: downhillputs tend to do. Once they like a river, once
Speaker 3: it finds its fall line straight down towards the ocean,
Speaker 3: it just goes straight. And then uphill putts they might
Speaker 3: go straight, but like a fountain, the water in a
Speaker 3: fountain wants to turn around and go back to the
Speaker 3: earth any direction it can. Uphill puts straight, straight, straight,
Speaker 3: and just before they get to the hole, they break
Speaker 3: across and curve away in front, so you need to
Speaker 3: be able to recognize that pattern and read the green
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 1: Well, let's stay on that. Section two. Those are the
Speaker 1: bread from the new book How to Make Every put
Speaker 1: by Doctor Joseph Parrot, and it starts with the secret
Speaker 1: to reading greens, the lay of the land, take the
Speaker 1: high road. You talk about putting a scorecard over half
Speaker 1: the hole.
Speaker 3: That's right now.
Speaker 1: That that intrigued me. I've never heard of that before.
Speaker 1: Give me the details on that one, because I thought
Speaker 1: that was really fascinating.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, you know, if you're looking at the whole
Speaker 3: golf hole, you don't get to focus on the high
Speaker 3: side quite so much. So let's say you have a
Speaker 3: right to left breaking putt and you're gonna put it
Speaker 3: up the hill and it's going to come back down
Speaker 3: and go in the right side of the hole. That's
Speaker 3: the place you want to be looking at for your read.
Speaker 3: So you cover the bottom half of the hole with
Speaker 3: a scorecard.
Speaker 1: You say, I need to define bottom here are you talking.
Speaker 3: About edge of the lower the edge of the scorecard.
Speaker 3: I'll try to describe it as I do in the book.
Speaker 3: The edge of the scorecard points straight across the center
Speaker 3: of the hole and points straight at your ball. Okay,
Speaker 3: so if it was a dead straight putt, you would
Speaker 3: hit right. The ball would hit right at the place
Speaker 3: where the scorecard is at the front edge of the hole.
Speaker 3: But you're looking at breaking putts, so the high side
Speaker 3: will be open, the low side closed by the scorecard.
Speaker 1: And the advantage of this.
Speaker 3: The advantage of it is you see yourself trying to
Speaker 3: put it in the high side, the effective center of
Speaker 3: the hole shifts up to the high side of the hole,
Speaker 3: and you say, that's where I want the ball, crossing
Speaker 3: the edge up there, and that gives you more room.
Speaker 3: And you know, Bobby Jones talked about this nearly one
Speaker 3: hundred years ago. He says, you know, a ball turning
Speaker 3: towards the hole is much more likely to go in,
Speaker 3: and that means coming from the high side, then a
Speaker 3: ball turning away from the hole. And once it turns
Speaker 3: away from the hole and rolls down the low side,
Speaker 3: every inch it rolls it takes it farther from the hole.
Speaker 3: So if you roll a couple of puts at the
Speaker 3: same pace, and one curls around the hole above it
Speaker 3: on the high side, and one misses the hole below it.
Speaker 3: The putt that misses the hole below the hole is
Speaker 3: going to roll a whole lot farther away. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's why they call the high side the pro side
Speaker 3: and the low side of the hole the amateur side. Sure,
Speaker 3: there's a reason for it. It's better try to play
Speaker 3: as much break as you possibly can and still have
Speaker 3: the ball trickle in just into the top side of
Speaker 3: the hole, the high side of the hole.
Speaker 1: How do we amateurs misread it in the sense of
Speaker 1: not giving it enough break?
Speaker 3: Well, almost always that's the most common thing. And I
Speaker 3: think that the way they describe putts on TV actually
Speaker 3: is misguiding. And they say, I think it's just going
Speaker 3: to you know, it's one cup out or two balls
Speaker 3: out to the right. It's really usually much much more
Speaker 3: than that, but that's how they describe it. I was
Speaker 3: once at the Masters coaching VJ and we were standing
Speaker 3: on the green and he was putting this on the
Speaker 3: practice screen on a very severely sloping part, and I
Speaker 3: said to his caddy, you need to tell him to
Speaker 3: aim at this spot because that's really how much break
Speaker 3: is going to happen here. And he says, there is
Speaker 3: no way that I'm going to tell VJ that there's
Speaker 3: two and a half feet of break on a four
Speaker 3: foot putt, But there was. It was really true. Wow,
Speaker 3: I said, then just tell him to play enough break
Speaker 3: for it to fall in the absolute top of the hole.
Speaker 3: And that worked for him.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 3: So what happens for amateurs is they aim, you know,
Speaker 3: one or two balls to the right of the hole,
Speaker 3: but then when they make their stroke, they push the
Speaker 3: putt out towards the break or pull it across and
Speaker 3: give it more break, and then they think they did
Speaker 3: it right, and that's just going to be very inconsistent.
Speaker 3: What I would like you to do is read plenty
Speaker 3: of break and hit a straight putt right at the
Speaker 3: point where you know that you're aiming for that amount
Speaker 3: of break. Then if you've played too much break, it's
Speaker 3: easier to gear down than it is to aim higher. Yes,
Speaker 3: so that's one of the exercises I give. I say,
Speaker 3: aim way up high, aim for tons of break, and
Speaker 3: see that it only gets within a foot of the hole.
Speaker 3: Then gear it down a couple of inches. See where
Speaker 3: that ends up. And that'll help you see how much
Speaker 3: break you can play and still get to the hole
Speaker 3: and that's the ideal amount that you one.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is just a personal preference
Speaker 1: thing or it's something that should be taught this way.
Speaker 1: It's just an individual When I when I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the line, uh unputting and someone says, yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: like one one cup to the right, you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't aim it for that spot.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: At the whole what I try to visualize is the
Speaker 1: entire line. And we talked about this earlier, the entire
Speaker 1: line that the ball will roll on, and I look
Speaker 1: for the apex. I look for the point where I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be the highest spot and then it's gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, then start going back towards the hole. So
Speaker 1: I kind of putt to that way, to that direction.
Speaker 3: I think that that's good. Uh. One of the dangers
Speaker 3: of that is if you if the apex is near you,
Speaker 3: you may not hit it hard enough. So again, you
Speaker 3: do want to see the whole thing. You don't need
Speaker 3: to see you see, you don't need to see the
Speaker 3: apex particularly. You can see that, but that's part of
Speaker 3: the whole path that the putt's going to take, the
Speaker 3: whole line that it's going to roll on And the
Speaker 3: most important thing you want to say is well, for
Speaker 3: it to get up to that apex where what direction
Speaker 3: does it need to start in? You might not be
Speaker 3: aiming straight at that apex point because it may break
Speaker 3: a little bit before it gets to that high point.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean if it's going to round off,
Speaker 1: it's definitely not exact. I can't go right to it
Speaker 1: a right angle turn.
Speaker 3: It is not so. And you may be actually aiming
Speaker 3: further out than that apex point. But you want to
Speaker 3: see the whole path and then see what the first
Speaker 3: foot of the role is and set your putter face
Speaker 3: perpendicularly to that first foot, and then you roll a
Speaker 3: straight putt in that direction. The only question is how
Speaker 3: big a stroke you make. But you make the same
Speaker 3: stroke every time, and you roll it where the putterface
Speaker 3: is pointing every single time, no pushing, no pulling ever.
Speaker 1: In your eyes directly you will? What about your eyes?
Speaker 1: Let let me let you answer the question instead of
Speaker 1: trying to lead you with it. Your eyes.
Speaker 3: Tell where you can tell where your eyes are just
Speaker 3: by you know, take your putter stance and then then
Speaker 3: use two fingers to hold the tip of your putter
Speaker 3: and look down the shaft and see where it's pointing.
Speaker 3: Is it pointing straight at your at at the ball
Speaker 3: or are you most most putters, most golfers are way inside.
Speaker 3: In other words, their eyes aren't directly over the ball.
Speaker 3: They're they're away from the ball. Uh, and they're reaching
Speaker 3: out with the putter. Now, what I found is it
Speaker 3: creates an optical illusion. You have less angles if your
Speaker 3: eyes are right over the ball, So it creates an
Speaker 3: optical illusion. And players tend to aim farther away from
Speaker 3: If you're a right handed golfer, they tend to aim
Speaker 3: to the right the further away they are from the ball.
Speaker 3: So you need to you need to have your eyes
Speaker 3: at least near the ball or hang or straight over
Speaker 3: it in your position. And then the other aspect is
Speaker 3: if your eyes are slightly behind the ball, in other words,
Speaker 3: away from the hole, it's easier to look down the line.
Speaker 3: If your head gets ahead of the ball and your
Speaker 3: head is between the ball and the hole, you're kind
Speaker 3: of looking back down towards the ball and then over
Speaker 3: towards the hole, then back down towards the ball. Get
Speaker 3: in there behind it a little bit and you'll be
Speaker 3: looking down the line and see the ball as well
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Better and your eyes during the stroke. I know that
Speaker 1: I tend to have a tendency to like as soon
Speaker 1: as the ball. As soon as I make contact with
Speaker 1: the ball, my head starts to turn towards the hole,
Speaker 1: and that kind of strews me up.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to take I'm going to go out
Speaker 3: on a limb, hear Fred, and I'm going to guess
Speaker 3: that it starts to move even before you hit the ball.
Speaker 1: That's quite possible, I don't know.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to go out on a limb and
Speaker 3: guess that it tends to move slightly before you hit
Speaker 3: the ball. And that's because we have a human tendency
Speaker 3: to anticipate. We anticipate what's going to happen, and we
Speaker 3: want to see what's going to happen, so we tend
Speaker 3: to move ahead of time. What I'd like you to
Speaker 3: do is I don't like to say keep your head still.
Speaker 3: That's a little too frozen. I want to say, keep
Speaker 3: your head steady and keep your whole posture until you
Speaker 3: hold your finish. And then one of the chapters I
Speaker 3: have that's the end of the routine is then turn
Speaker 3: your head to track rather than lifting your head up
Speaker 3: and lifting your whole body up to turn and look.
Speaker 3: So if you leave your body where it is and
Speaker 3: just swivel your head on your neck, then it doesn't
Speaker 3: move you out of position. But if you lift your
Speaker 3: whole body up, and it's what's called coming up out
Speaker 3: of the pot, that's going to affect your stroke. So
Speaker 3: keep your body steady, keep your head steady until you
Speaker 3: hold the finish of your stroke. Then turn your head
Speaker 3: to look.
Speaker 1: What about looking at and looking at the ball versus
Speaker 1: looking at the hole while you're putting.
Speaker 3: While you're putting, some people have done that. They try
Speaker 3: They tried putting looking at the hole, because it's the
Speaker 3: same principle that I talked about in the previous podcast.
Speaker 3: When you're throwing, when you're playing catch with somebody, you
Speaker 3: don't look at the ground. You look at you look
Speaker 3: at their hand or the glove.
Speaker 1: Right when you're shooting free When you're shooting a basketball,
Speaker 1: you're looking at the rim. You're not looking at the ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you imagine a basketball player takes a good
Speaker 3: long look at the rim, bounces the ball twice, then
Speaker 3: looks down at the ground. And then shoots while they're
Speaker 3: looking at the ground. Pretty ridiculous, huh, right, that, but
Speaker 3: that's what we do when we're putting. So what I
Speaker 3: found is that we can look at the hole and
Speaker 3: ball at the same time. And here's how you do it.
Speaker 3: There are two kinds of visual inputs to your brain.
Speaker 3: One is the visual input from your eyes what you're
Speaker 3: looking at right now. So for example, you're sitting in
Speaker 3: the studio looking at your computer right correct, Okay, Now
Speaker 3: I want you to picture yourself on the green the
Speaker 3: last time you were playing getting ready to roll the
Speaker 3: put You have yourself pictured. Yes, okay, you didn't have
Speaker 3: to close your eyes to do that. But what was
Speaker 3: in the forefront of your mind? Was it the computer anymore?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, but you didn't. You didn't lose track of where
Speaker 3: you were. See, it's like daydreaming. You you had. Your
Speaker 3: memory was the other source of input, visual input into
Speaker 3: your brain. So here's what we're going to do. We're
Speaker 3: going to use that so that we can look at
Speaker 3: the hole and the ball at the same time after
Speaker 3: you take your address. This is part of in the
Speaker 3: section called the best putting Routine Ever. Excuse my modesty,
Speaker 3: but I believe that that it's true. The best putting
Speaker 3: routine ever, that part of that routine is, after you've
Speaker 3: taken your address, you take a good long look and
Speaker 3: imprint the picture of the of your putt, the distance
Speaker 3: to the hole, how uphill or downhill it is. You
Speaker 3: look at the whole thing for two or three seconds.
Speaker 3: I like to have a ton of players to look
Speaker 3: for three seconds at that and imprint that image in
Speaker 3: your mind. When you look back down to the ball,
Speaker 3: take half a second to bring that image to mind,
Speaker 3: to switch foreground and background so that you're using your
Speaker 3: memory as and you put into your memory of that
Speaker 3: image of that picture, and you roll it into the picture.
Speaker 3: So you're looking toward the ball, but you're seeing the
Speaker 3: hole at the same time, in the same way that
Speaker 3: you were just looking toward your computer, but you were
Speaker 3: seeing the green that you were putting on. I like it.
Speaker 3: It works.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I like this a lot. I like that.
Speaker 3: I can. I can.
Speaker 1: I was visualizing doing it while you were saying it.
Speaker 3: I like that. And that chapter has a QR code
Speaker 3: at the end. You can scan and it'll show you.
Speaker 3: It'll show you the exercise of me standing with a
Speaker 3: ball in my hand looking down at a ball on
Speaker 3: the ground, I look over at the hole for a
Speaker 3: few seconds, I look back down to the ball of
Speaker 3: the ground, and then I throw the ball while I'm
Speaker 3: imagining and remembering the distance to the hole. Of course,
Speaker 3: we used the cut where it went in and then
Speaker 3: and then I look back down to the ball and
Speaker 3: I do the same thing with the putter and it
Speaker 3: does go in. That that's that's one cut. So that
Speaker 3: worked pretty well.
Speaker 1: And how many times did you have to do that
Speaker 1: shoot until when the ball went in?
Speaker 3: Well, I had to do a few throws. But after
Speaker 3: I hold it, then I only did one putt and
Speaker 3: it went in.
Speaker 1: It works, So yeah, you opened the Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the best putting routine ever. We've built it up quite
Speaker 1: a while. Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Okay. The first step is reading the green and once
Speaker 3: you've done that, making a commitment to your read. You
Speaker 3: take your practice strokes and you make a commitment to
Speaker 3: making the same stroke that you would And I've talked
Speaker 3: about this before, as if you were putting to nowhere.
Speaker 3: When you warm up on the green, you just roll
Speaker 3: the ball till you feel like it's coming off with
Speaker 3: an end over end, roll right off the sweet spot
Speaker 3: of the putter. That's your stroke. Use that same stroke
Speaker 3: every single time. So you commit to your stroke. Make
Speaker 3: a few practice strokes if you want. You set the
Speaker 3: putter on your line, the putterface perpendicular to your line
Speaker 3: behind the ball, and you make a commitment. You say,
Speaker 3: I'm done with direction. That's the direction. I am rolling
Speaker 3: this ball in with my best stroke. So now you've
Speaker 3: taken care of stroke and direction once. Once you've done
Speaker 3: that in your setup, now you take your good long look.
Speaker 3: This is the really important part. You take a good
Speaker 3: long look at the distance of your put You look
Speaker 3: back down to the ball. You take a third to
Speaker 3: a half a second to bring that image to mind,
Speaker 3: and then immediately you roll the ball into the picture
Speaker 3: using that stroke. What this does is it gets you
Speaker 3: thinking out of thinking about your stroke. You're just reacting
Speaker 3: to a target in the same way that a free
Speaker 3: throw shooter doesn't want to be thinking about their emotion.
Speaker 3: They want to be reacting to the distance to the basket.
Speaker 3: So you're done with stroke, you're done with direction. You
Speaker 3: roll it into the picture for your distance. You hold
Speaker 3: the finish that keeps your body steady so you don't
Speaker 3: come up out of the putt, and if you want
Speaker 3: to look, you turn your head to track. It's called
Speaker 3: turn the track, and you turn your head to track
Speaker 3: without lifting your shoulders up and coming out of your posture.
Speaker 3: That's the ideal routine. And then the last part of
Speaker 3: the best putting routine is learn from it. If it
Speaker 3: went in, congratulate yourself on doing your routine so well
Speaker 3: if it didn't do what you thought it was going
Speaker 3: to do, be the objective detective. Don't get upset, Say
Speaker 3: what did I miss about how I read that putt?
Speaker 3: Because I made the putt, the ball just didn't go
Speaker 3: in the hole, So what did I miss about the read?
Speaker 3: And then you look around and you'll get better at
Speaker 3: reading every time.
Speaker 1: Awesome, And that kind of it brings us back to
Speaker 1: separating outcome from process, which is total doctor Joe.
Speaker 3: Separating outcome from process, that's the whole thing that golfers
Speaker 3: most difficulties come from worrying about how the SHOT's going
Speaker 3: to turn out, and that affects everything that they do.
Speaker 3: When your job is actually just to get the ball started.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter whether it's putting or driving or anything
Speaker 3: in between. You can't determine exactly how the ball is
Speaker 3: going to come out. Your job is there at the ball.
Speaker 3: It's to get it started. Once you get it started,
Speaker 3: that's all you can do. After that, all you can
Speaker 3: do is root for it. So, in the same way
Speaker 3: in putting, how to make every put You can make
Speaker 3: every put if your definition of making a putt is
Speaker 3: getting it started just the way you want it, and
Speaker 3: if you do, that's all you can control. After that,
Speaker 3: all you can do to root for it. It's like
Speaker 3: a relay race, Fred. In a relay race, what is
Speaker 3: your job? Your job? If you have a two person
Speaker 3: race and you go first, your first job is to
Speaker 3: run the race of the race the best you can,
Speaker 3: and that's that's your stroke. In putting, Okay, once the
Speaker 3: putter head gets to the ball, that's the same thing
Speaker 3: as your hand off of the baton. After you've handed
Speaker 3: off the baton, that's your transfer of energy from the
Speaker 3: putter head to the ball. All you want to focus
Speaker 3: on is making a good handoff. What happens if you're
Speaker 3: looking at the finish line while you're trying to hand
Speaker 3: off the baton, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1: You're gonna miss the person you're handing it off to.
Speaker 3: Problem, it's gonna be a bad handoff. Maybe you'll drop it, okay,
Speaker 3: And what if you don't trust the person and you
Speaker 3: don't let go after you hand off the baton, you
Speaker 3: keep running along with them and hold the baton. That's
Speaker 3: not gonna help them. No, if you hand off the
Speaker 3: baton but you don't trust them and you give them
Speaker 3: a shove towards the finish line, that's not gonna help
Speaker 3: them either. That's exactly so you don't want to treat
Speaker 3: your your partner in this relay race is the ball.
Speaker 3: All you want to do is make a good hand
Speaker 3: off and get it started. After that, it's the ball's
Speaker 3: job to find the hole.
Speaker 1: Go find a hole.
Speaker 3: Jo describe that when you roll a good putt, people
Speaker 3: describe it. They say that putt made it look like
Speaker 3: the ball was hunting for the hole. Yeah, don't that's
Speaker 3: that's a common expression in golf.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean how many times the ball went
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I knew that was going in from
Speaker 1: the time I set up. I mean, just I felt it,
Speaker 1: I saw the line, I lived the line. It just
Speaker 1: I had no doubt this putt was going in.
Speaker 3: We have those moments and they're they're great. And and
Speaker 3: you'll notice that when you have those moments, you don't
Speaker 3: think about mechanics. Nope, you don't think about your technique.
Speaker 3: All you do is you see it and you respond
Speaker 3: to it and you get it started, and you go,
Speaker 3: my job's done. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But then you then you force yourself to try to
Speaker 1: recreate that. That's when you when problems begin.
Speaker 3: Yes, trying to recreate that. The only way you can
Speaker 3: recreate that is to get better at visualizing, because what
Speaker 3: you just described was you saw it going in before
Speaker 3: it ever did. And I have a chapter in how
Speaker 3: to make every put called already in the hole. That's
Speaker 3: what you want to see. You want to see the
Speaker 3: ball already in the hole. And then you're just going
Speaker 3: up and doing a replay.
Speaker 1: And hear the happy sound.
Speaker 3: You know what, the happy sound doesn't always show up.
Speaker 3: The happy sound I want to hear is wow, I
Speaker 3: love the way I got that putt started. And if
Speaker 3: you say that every time you putt, you're going to
Speaker 3: be a great cutter, because if you're not holding a
Speaker 3: lot of them, it's just about reading. And you'll get
Speaker 3: better at that as long as you keep making the
Speaker 3: putt you intend to make, you know.
Speaker 1: Wrapping this up in section seven, it's the title of it.
Speaker 1: Sounded familiar.
Speaker 3: Yes, getting better all the time? M h. That's right.
Speaker 3: That's what you want to be doing when you're playing.
Speaker 3: And that's what the post shot routine that I teach
Speaker 3: really does. It helps you get better all the time
Speaker 3: because if you didn't make the putt, if you feel
Speaker 3: like you know something got in the way, you need
Speaker 3: to be able to identify that and make your routine better.
Speaker 3: If you did make your putt but the ball didn't
Speaker 3: do what you thought it was going to do, then
Speaker 3: you have to work on your read and your judgment
Speaker 3: of speed and that can get better. And what I
Speaker 3: talk about, what I really like, is a chapter called
Speaker 3: skills practice versus performance practice. If you want to improve
Speaker 3: your putting, there are two aspects to it. One is
Speaker 3: skills practice, and that is doing little drills that make
Speaker 3: you better at each part of putting. For example, if
Speaker 3: you want to get better at hitting the ball off
Speaker 3: the sweet spot, then you need to put You could
Speaker 3: even put contact paper on the face that shows where
Speaker 3: the was, but you can you want to roll putts
Speaker 3: until they all feel the same. You don't need to
Speaker 3: do your full routine for that, you just want to
Speaker 3: You can line up putts and roll one after another
Speaker 3: after another. Same thing with using the line on the
Speaker 3: ball to see if you're rolling an end over end
Speaker 3: and not hitting a glancing blow. These are all skills practice.
Speaker 3: But when it comes to performance practice, you want to
Speaker 3: practice the way you're going to be playing, which means
Speaker 3: one ball and putting to a hole and going through
Speaker 3: your full routine each time. Don't get careless, don't shortcut it.
Speaker 3: Do performance practice and give yourself target. So can I
Speaker 3: put from from different distances to ten different holes on
Speaker 3: the practice screen or from ten different places to one
Speaker 3: hole on the practice screen and not three putt? That's
Speaker 3: my goal, and I'm going to do my full performance,
Speaker 3: my full routine, just the way I would on the
Speaker 3: golf course. To do that, that's that's performance practice. Those
Speaker 3: are the that's the difference between the two.
Speaker 1: And it all really leads to whatever book you know
Speaker 1: you're going to write, whatever book we're going to read,
Speaker 1: it's all going to lead back to confidence.
Speaker 3: Confidence. That's what my teacher said, had a favorite expression.
Speaker 3: Confidence what every golfer needs and and really putting boils
Speaker 3: down so much more to confidence than just about any
Speaker 3: other stroke, because it's not that complicated a stroke. And
Speaker 3: if you're not confident, then you're going to second guess
Speaker 3: your read. That's not going to help you because you're
Speaker 3: gonna have doubt about it. Once you have doubt about
Speaker 3: your read, you're going to you're doomed maybe push or
Speaker 3: pull or be hesitant on your stroke. If you're not
Speaker 3: sure about your stroke, you're going to get very If
Speaker 3: you're not confident in your stroke, you're going to get
Speaker 3: very mechanical, and that's going to take you away. There's
Speaker 3: going to be no flow to your stroke. You want.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of flow to your putting stroke.
Speaker 3: And and if you're not confident about your feel then
Speaker 3: you're going to go numb, and you're going to hit
Speaker 3: putts with different at different paces, and you're always going
Speaker 3: to be guessing and and the sense of well, I'm
Speaker 3: not sure what's going on, and the feeling of confidence
Speaker 3: is a completely different thing. The other thing is if
Speaker 3: you're not confident, then some fear can come in. And
Speaker 3: if fear comes in, then you're going to end up
Speaker 3: with the word that I don't like to use. So
Speaker 3: it starts with a Y, it ends with an S,
Speaker 3: and it has four letters. And I have a bonus
Speaker 3: chapter at the end of the book in case you
Speaker 3: have yes the yips don't. If you get the book,
Speaker 3: please do not read that last chapter if you don't
Speaker 3: already have them. You don't want to be thinking about it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because you have.
Speaker 3: Them, that last chapter is for you and it will
Speaker 3: cure them.
Speaker 1: Well, that is so funny because I was going to say.
Speaker 1: The last thing I was going to say to you
Speaker 1: was Okay, So is it worth me asking about the yips?
Speaker 1: Or is that just a whole nother podcast episode.
Speaker 3: I don't We're not even going to put it on
Speaker 3: the podcast, Okay, I don't want everybody listening to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, fine, No, then we're not going to do it.
Speaker 3: Special special special code to unlock that podcast unless you
Speaker 3: unless you swear that you already have them, you're not
Speaker 3: allowed to listen to it because because you don't want
Speaker 3: to be thinking about that kind of thing. You don't
Speaker 3: want to be thinking about what could go wrong on
Speaker 3: the green in any part of your golf game. You
Speaker 3: want to be thinking about what you do want to
Speaker 3: happen having a positive attitude towards it. So, whether it
Speaker 3: happens or not, if you have a positive attitude toward it,
Speaker 3: you're going to have a better chance of producing what
Speaker 3: you're picturing because, as in one of my chapters in
Speaker 3: Zen Golf, you produce what you feel.
Speaker 1: Right right well again, the book is called How to
Speaker 1: Make Every Putt, The Secret to winning Golf's game within
Speaker 1: the game. Doctor Joseph Parent once again the author of
Speaker 1: the amazing Zen Golf and now How to Make Every Putt.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your time. It's great to talk
Speaker 1: to you again, and as always I wish you continued success.
Speaker 3: Thanks Fred, great to be with you. We'll do it
Speaker 3: again soon.