A good putter - what does it mean

[ScienceBoy]

Confidence and practice.

In your own eyes that is all you need.

If you care about what others think then throw in “results”.

If your putting isn’t costing you strokes you can’t afford then your good at it.

 

[Grant85]

Do you consider yourself a good putter?

I hear people saying this a lot but what does it actually mean to you. No 3 putts? 10 one putts a round? Getting close every time? Or is it just a feeling of a confident stroke without too much concern for scores?

For me, I feel like I’m getting better at putting but wouldn’t call myself a good putter until I feel very confident on short puts and can feel confident getting in <3 ft when lag putting consistently.

I think the strokes gained stat would be very telling here. Obviously tricky to get data for that as club golfers (but not impossible) and much better than 'I had 30 putts today' type of stat.

I had a lesson this year which helped me with my positioning and set-up and certainly has improved my putting.

I feel it's very very easy to get defensive with putting and accept 3 putt avoidance as success... but holing 'your fair share' is going to make a big difference over the season.

 

[inc0gnito]

What makes a good putter ? Definitely not me ,I'm bloody terrible, my best ever round is a gross 75, par 70. My putts for that round were a very very poor 40 ,which makes me probably the worst putter on the forum.
It's not just that round but many others as well ,I can miss from a foot just as easy as missing from ten feet.the amount of three putts I have in a round is very annoying and it's no fun walking into a green with a very makeable birdie putt to then walking off with a bogey.

That’s similar to how I felt. Many times I actually didn’t bother putting at all. Hated it. Just picked up the ball and went to the next hole.

Working on technique I’ve finally found a better ‘feeling’ over the putter. That alone has massively increased my motivation for putting. The second was distance control. Whilst it’s work in progress, I feel I can be bothered to put effort into it instead of having no idea if I’d be 6ft short or 6ft past.

 

[RangeMonkey]

To my mind, it’s worth keeping stats, as the cost (effort) is near zero, and it can give useful information, so there’s only upside.

But then, in a computer programmer, so I love playing with data and algorithms.

 

[TheJezster]

I like putting, it's the strongest part of my game. I love practising on the green.

Cant beat a good long put going in. My 4ball partner laughs at me as I like the pressure and quite often say to myself on the 1st, if I don't get this, we'll lose... It helps me, probably not everyone else but that's not important.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I think the strokes gained stat would be very telling here. Obviously tricky to get data for that as club golfers (but not impossible) and much better than 'I had 30 putts today' type of stat.

I had a lesson this year which helped me with my positioning and set-up and certainly has improved my putting.

I feel it's very very easy to get defensive with putting and accept 3 putt avoidance as success... but holing 'your fair share' is going to make a big difference over the season.

Tempted to go back to the Game Golf system as a Christmas present (or one to myself) as I understand they now use strokes gained for putting as part of their data so interesting to see if my practice stats correlate to strokes gained on the course

 

[pendodave]

Tempted to go back to the Game Golf system as a Christmas present (or one to myself) as I understand they now use strokes gained for putting as part of their data so interesting to see if my practice stats correlate to strokes gained on the course

I don't think game golf is particularly useful for putting. It's too hard to move the distances around even in the post game editing
The best thing I've used is the little program that I listed earlier in the thread.

 

[RangeMonkey]

I don't think game golf is particularly useful for putting. It's too hard to move the distances around even in the post game editing
The best thing I've used is the little program that I listed earlier in the thread.

Shot Scope V2 is on offer for not much more than Game Golf at the moment, and it gets much better reviews, especially for putting...not sure it works out strokes gained, though...

 

[mikejohnchapman]

Shot Scope V2 is on offer for not much more than Game Golf at the moment, and it gets much better reviews, especially for putting...not sure it works out strokes gained, though...

I have one and the putting elements are the weakest point of the otherwise excellent device.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

I don't think game golf is particularly useful for putting. It's too hard to move the distances around even in the post game editing
The best thing I've used is the little program that I listed earlier in the thread.

I'd only want an estimate of distance on GG anyway and so the strokes gained based on +/- a foot or two in accuracy is enough

 

[ger147]

Shot Scope V2 is on offer for not much more than Game Golf at the moment, and it gets much better reviews, especially for putting...not sure it works out strokes gained, though...

It's good for strokes gained as it records the distance of your putts and how many putts which you can pop into a strokes gained calculator and you're there (I use an online calculator).

2 drawbacks - the ShotScope software doesn't do the strokes gained calculations for you, you have to use the putt lengths data and number of putts and work it out yourself. Secondly, the putting part isn't 100% accurate, it can get a bit confused at times so needs a bit of post-round editing on a few holes most of the time.

But for less than £150, I find it very good as all I need to do is remember to press a button on my watch as I fish my ball out of the hole and bar a wee bit of post-round editing, it takes care of the rest automatically while I just play golf

 

[Fish]

I embellish my rounds with putts after most rounds, my putting stats are very good, but they’re false, that’s because I don’t hit enough greens in regulation and because the best part of my game is chipping, I get up & down more times than not, so I sink a lot of single putts distorting my stats considerably.

I’m confident that my putting stats will increase as I aim to hit more GIR next year, then they’ll be more realistic, but along with my chipping, I think I’m quite a strong putter, I’ve just got to sort out my long game then I’ll benefit from my decent short game.

Stats are ok as long as you take all aspects of the rest of your game/round into consideration.