2019-06-01_Golf_Digest

Play Your Best Gimme One Thing

Y

ou took care of what you

thought was the hard part. You

split the fairway with your best

drive of the day and managed to hit the

green in regulation—with a 4-iron no

less! Your reward? Your ball is now

above the hole, and there appears to be

a pronounced left-to-right break for the

ensuing putt. For many golfers, this

turns a birdie op into a tap-and-hope

scenario. They either get scared and try

to cozy the ball to the cup—but wind

up short and now face another tricky

downhiller—or they put too much pace

on it but fail to play enough break. The

ball races by the cup on the low side

and sets up a likely three-putt.

If this sounds all-too familiar, let’s

try something different. First, ask

yourself at what speed do you see the

ball going in. If you’re seeing it pour-

ing into the back of the cup, you might

want to think again—you’re making

your target smaller. Test this out: On

a practice green, find a downhill, left-

to-right lie and practice hitting three

putts at three speeds—the first so the

ball dies at the cup; the second with

enough speed to get it about a foot past

the cup if you miss; and the third so it

would roll two or three feet past. You’ll

start to see how adding more speed to

the putt changes the break and makes

it much harder to avoid a lip-out, even

when you get the read right.

Now comes the part where I give

you one thought when you have this

putt: maximum break, minimum

speed. That’s how to handle these

suckers. Oh, and one more thing: Stop

paying attention to the cup. Instead,

focus on that spot where you think

the ball will begin to turn toward the

cup—the aim point. It’s always great

when one of these sliders drop, but

they usually won’t if you peek too soon.

—with ron kaspriske

matt killen is a Golf Digest

Best Young Teacher. He works

with tour pros Justin Thomas,

J.B. Holmes and Jessica Korda.

Make More Sliders

Don’t fear downhill, left-to-right putts

by matt killen

Peter StackPole/getty imageS