Golf Asia - February 2018

I’ve always been a good putter, and 2017 has been a special year. I’ve

holed out well and made my fair share of mid-range birdie putts. But I’ve

been working hard on it and it’s something that’s improved over the years.

The basics are to make sure the putter is feeling comfortable in my

hands – that’s the most important thing – and my forearms are relaxed;

my posture needs to be consistent and my alignment needs to be good.

Those things are easy to practice. They’re the basics and I try and practise

them until I feel comfortable and once I feel comfortable, all I think about is

the speed.

Strike is so important and if you’re striking it consistently, your speed is

going to be good. And once you get dialled in with your speed you just

don’t think about it anymore, it becomes automatic.

The idea is to try and make it as reactionary as possible, like throwing

keys into a bucket. But first you’ve got to make sure the fundamentals are

there and once you’re confident with those, it’s a case of doing the same

things over and over.

When I feel I’m set up square, that’s when I’m going to putt well. I have

the same rhythm to every stroke, just changing the length of it. Generally it

will be fairly short and quick and that’s just how I’ve done it naturally and I

don’t envisage that changing.

How you can hole more putts: Everyone should have one go-to

putting drill – not technical, because putting isn’t technical, but say put

two tees either side of your putter like a gate and work on your strike. I

work with a ruler – I put my ball on that – and I do that every day. I can

match up the putter alignment to the line on the ruler and I can see

a straight true line and I know that my ball is starting on the right line,

otherwise it will fall off.

You can also try some simple performance drills such as

throwing some tees around a hole and see if you can make

36 in a row or whatever. Or throw eight to 10 in a circle and

try and make them all with two or three balls. It’s good fun and

meaningful practice – if you miss the last one, you’ve got to start

again.

You could be trying to win a tournament or just making the cut, there’s

just fewer people watching.

Paul Dunne Ireland

PUTTING

2017 highlights: Won British Masters and runner-up in Trophee Hassan II

His putter: Scotty Cameron GoLo S2 (centre-shafted)

One-putts

1st

6.04 per

round

Putts per

GIR

1st

1.71

Average

putts

1st

28.1 per

round

Average

STATS LIFE...

GOLF ASIA 65