Is putting skill something you are "born with" or something that you learn?

[RoyalMustang]

Full disclosure: I can't putt. I practice and practice, but it seems like I keep missing 3 footers. I can make 15 12-footers in a row on my Wellputt at home but can't make a single one at the course. I try and keep my shoulders connected, with a smooth centered stroke, and sometimes the 15 foot putt only goes 12 feet, sometimes it goes 25 feet. I can't read a green half the time. 

 

I putted with my son, who is 8 and doesn't even play, and he kicked my butt on the practice green. I beat him in mini golf though, so that is something. 

 

I am wondering if putting is something that helps to pick up when you are very little, kind of like language, juggling, or skiing. The way it helps to wire your brain when you are young, so that it doesn't feel so mechanical.

 

Thoughts on this? What did you do to go from being a non-natural putter to pretty decent? I am playing some pretty good golf right now in terms of hitting greens and driving, but unless I can get away from the 3-putt plague, my scores won't reflect it.  

[chisag]

... You are born with certain natural abilities. I played QB and 2 guard because I have good hand eye coordination and spacial awareness came easy for me. Seeing what line I need to use to get the ball to roll in the hole from any distance is intuitive. Nothing about my putting is mechanical. I watch people pace off putts and have no idea how that would work, especially the difference in green speeds, slopes, etc. Having taught golf for 5 years I do think anyone can get better at reading greens as well as improved distance and directional control, but if it doesn't come naturally it is much more difficult and takes lots and lots of repetition with what I think is the most important element of putting ... confidence.

... I believe I can make every putt regardless of distance or break. Some days I do and some days I don't but having that confidence means when I have missed 10 straight putts I always think I will make the 11th. I will never understand those that say things like "I will probably 3 putt" which just sets them up for failure. I understand it isn't always easy and success breeds confidence but in golf, a relentless positive attitude in the face of failure is the only way to improve. If you miss 10 in a row and make the 11th and think  🙄 and not 👍 putting will always be a challenge. 

 

 

[golfinbrad]

No question some skills come easier for some people.  Your issue could be mental, physical, equipment, etc.  Really difficult to diagnose without seeing.  I wasn't a great short range putter, but have gotten much better.  I found a putter that I could easily line up and became very confident with.  Also, I found I putt better without using a line on the ball.  Now I do use some type of line and/or gate when I practice.  You should reach out to a teaching pro.  Could be something as simple as ball position, alignment, etc.  If you are still at a loss, consider trying a different grip or arm lock method.  Be careful you are not becoming too mechanical.  Lastly, don't under estimate the impact of grip pressure.  Good luck.

[klebs01]

46 minutes ago, RoyalMustang said:

Full disclosure: I can't putt. I practice and practice, but it seems like I keep missing 3 footers. I can make 15 12-footers in a row on my Wellputt at home but can't make a single one at the course. I try and keep my shoulders connected, with a smooth centered stroke, and sometimes the 15 foot putt only goes 12 feet, sometimes it goes 25 feet. I can't read a green half the time. 

 

I putted with my son, who is 8 and doesn't even play, and he kicked my butt on the practice green. I beat him in mini golf though, so that is something. 

 

I am wondering if putting is something that helps to pick up when you are very little, kind of like language, juggling, or skiing. The way it helps to wire your brain when you are young, so that it doesn't feel so mechanical.

 

Thoughts on this? What did you do to go from being a non-natural putter to pretty decent? I am playing some pretty good golf right now in terms of hitting greens and driving, but unless I can get away from the 3-putt plague, my scores won't reflect it.  

What are you thinking about when you read a putt? What about when you are hitting it?  Do you have technique or mechanical thoughts? That’s a recipe for disaster. 

 

If you don’t feel like you can read greens, have you tried to just work on that?  Go out to a green with a ball or two. No putter and just roll the balls to the hole. Work on the feel of the ball rolling to the hole. Work on the effort. Is the ball curving like you expected. 
 

that should help your reads. Then once you are ready to putt for real, read the green just like you did whe rolling it in and think that you are just rolling the ball to the hole. Your body should quickly adapt to having the putter in your hands and you will get that simple feel of rolling the ball into the hole. 

[dfeldss]

Like many things in life, some people just got it, some people don't.

 

Doesn't mean you can't get better at it and become just as good or better than someone who has the natural feel for it.

 

 

[ItJustDiz]

Putting is interesting.. I know players who have picked up the game recently who have terribly inconsistent strokes who are great putters, and guys who have played for years and worked on it endlessly and still don't putt well. 

 

That said, I don't think it's "putting skill" they are born with or without, just understanding the complexities of the skill - not to say that you do, but I think a lot of people err on the side of "we'll, we got to the green, now lets hurry up and get to the next hole" rather than focusing as much or more on putting as  they do with the other strokes in golf. It's roughly half the strokes in a given round, so it should be something you focus tremendously on. 

 

I played in a scramble recently with a friend who just picked up the game, never played a round in his life, and he made 5-6 putts for us because he works in landscaping and concrete construction and he sees the world as a gradient grid. It's not a skill he was born with but his livelihood depends on seeing level and slopes. 

 

Or maybe you just have the wrong putter....

[golfortennis]

2 hours ago, ItJustDiz said:

Or maybe you just have the wrong putter....

 

Over 100 posts:  check.

Gave an opinion:  check.

 

Status thus far:  could be a wrx'er.

 

Suggested buying another club:  Full status awarded!

[GoGoErky]

Skills can be learned. Putting is a skill.

 

Some have natural abilities that make learning those skills easier, others have to work hard everyday to develop them.

 

Putting on a mat at the house can develop the skill to improve a stroke but what carry over does standing in one spot and making the same read over and over have to the course. I would say little. 
 

You need to be practicing 3 footers on the practice green with some kind of pressure associated with it. Put balls at different spots around the hole on different angles, up hill, down hill, side hill. Force yourself to make X in a row or you have to start over or you have to do push-ups or something you don’t like for not achieving the goal

[golferdude54]

So I have data on the average, median,  mode age for strokes gained putting season leaders on the PGA Tour. The range is typically 28-32 years old to have the highest chance to be the best putter.
 

Past 36 and especially past 40 is when the body does not have the precise motor control it once did in 20s and early 30s.

[Zitlow]

Good putters know they're good putters, bad putters know they suck at putting.  

[sadclevelandsports]

When I putt on the greens at the store, I was "born with" the skill. When I putt on the course, I was not "born with" the skill.

Edited May 13, 2023 by sadclevelandsports

[DJ07]

Definitely agree the mental side is huge! There's a big difference between those that get to the green and think "welp, here comes a 3 putt bogey" vs. "time to make a birdie." The mental challenge is also thoughts like "if I don't make this par putt, I will then have to putt for bogey." That same binary focus isn't as common on full shots where if you miss the fairway with the driver, you can tell yourself, I can still get to the green or get close to chip it close for par.

 

I do think there is a physical component to it as well. With most other shots in golf, people are generally taking a full swing and can get the setup and motion of the full swing, but struggle with partial swings. To that point, putting is all partial swings.  There are things people can work on to improve (hitting the center of the putter face or at least the same spot consistently and developing that feel for putting).  But I also think there are some more innate qualities people have like depth perception that just make them good at putting. Just think of when Tiger got lasik to improve his depth perception to read greens better.

[ChipNRun]

People who claim they have natural ability to putt well were lucky enough to stumble onto a putter they could use.

 

Lots of research on putting since the early 2000s. One aspect has to do with dominant eye. Here's the living room test to determine Dominant Eye.

 

And, there's the physical specs on the putter. A putter that is too upright, a rightie can miss left (just as with too long driver shaft). Does it have too much loft? Is the head weight too light?

 

Also, consider fine points of set-up. Does the ball roll smoothly off the clubface, or do you get skid the first 12 inches or so. (This may relate in part to physical specs of putter.)

 

Since poor putting appears to be long-term problem, get a putting lesson and a putter fitting. By your own admission, you are unable to cure the problem on your own.

Edited May 13, 2023 by ChipNRun

[596]

It's a skill that can be taught but it's easier for some then others.

 

What are you thinking about when you make your stroke? 

 

Line up the putt

 

Let your mind go totally blank

 

Imagine the distance you have to hit the ball

 

Hit the ball

 

No thoughts about stroke technique or make it or not. Only image of the hole and the distance from you to there. The body takes care of the rest.  

[iacas]

Good putters do three things well: read, bead, and speed.

 

Read - they read greens well.

Bead - they hit their intended start lines.

Speed - they hit the putts the correct distance.

 

You probably stink at speed, which doesn't help the reads for sure… and speed is the most important by far. You probably have a short backstroke, and a comparatively long follow-through.

 

But regardless of that: fix the three skills in putting, don't just "try to make putts" or something. Don't putt to a hole… practice the three skills separately.

[SNIPERBBB]

7 hours ago, RoyalMustang said:

Full disclosure: I can't putt. I practice and practice, but it seems like I keep missing 3 footers. I can make 15 12-footers in a row on my Wellputt at home but can't make a single one at the course. I try and keep my shoulders connected, with a smooth centered stroke, and sometimes the 15 foot putt only goes 12 feet, sometimes it goes 25 feet. I can't read a green half the time. 

 

I putted with my son, who is 8 and doesn't even play, and he kicked my butt on the practice green. I beat him in mini golf though, so that is something. 

 

I am wondering if putting is something that helps to pick up when you are very little, kind of like language, juggling, or skiing. The way it helps to wire your brain when you are young, so that it doesn't feel so mechanical.

 

Thoughts on this? What did you do to go from being a non-natural putter to pretty decent? I am playing some pretty good golf right now in terms of hitting greens and driving, but unless I can get away from the 3-putt plague, my scores won't reflect it.  

No pressure when putting on a mat plus you're grooving a stoke and speed just for that distance. 

 

Good putting is more of a mental thing. Closer the putt gets to the hole, the more mental things become. 

[CasualLie]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Good putters do three things well: read, bead, and speed.

 

Read - they read greens well.

Bead - they hit their intended start lines.

Speed - they hit the putts the correct distance.

 

You probably stink at speed, which doesn't help the reads for sure… and speed is the most important by far. You probably have a short backstroke, and a comparatively long follow-through.

 

But regardless of that: fix the three skills in putting, don't just "try to make putts" or something. Don't putt to a hole… practice the three skills separately.

 

Excellent advice.  If I may, let me help with the order.  Work on speed, then work on speed, then work on speed, after that, work on speed.  Controlling speed pretty much implies you can reasonably hit a start line, and any dummy can do a basic read.  Not that you don't need to work on bead/read, of course you do, but for now just work on speed.

 

And it might help if you work on the mental side.

[Texasaggie2016]

Putting is easily the most unique part of golf. So many different ways it can be done and each person has their own method. As long as you can square the face, putting comes down to feel and reading greens. Feel is hard to learn but it can be honed. Reading greens is a true skill that can be learned without actually being good at golf.

[i*windows]

I struggled with putting for years, I was terrible, then I did two things, had a lesson and bought a blast golf putting device, my putting is now so much better.

 

I know how to setup and control pace and I trust what I'm doing, some days I miss puttts, some days I'm great, such is life 

Edited May 13, 2023 by i*windows

[iacas]

8 hours ago, CasualLie said:

Excellent advice.  If I may, let me help with the order.

 

They weren't in order, and I said speed was the most important thing.

 

8 hours ago, CasualLie said:

and any dummy can do a basic read

 

Eh… no. People stink at reading putts. Not as bad as controlling speed, but they're really bad at this part, too.

[mshills]

100% both. Of course there is some ability / talent involved, but the majority is learned, and the putting practice you see under way at any given putting green at any time will show you that very few players know how to do focused practice to learn. 
 

Many (OP, am NOT saying this is you ha ha!) toss out six balls and rake one into address over and over from the same spot until a few go in, then head to the first tee. That is not practice, and putting cannot be learned that way. 
 

Reading a green and estimating speed. 
Consistent setup. 
Consistent strike. 
Mental approach and confidence. 
 

All of these take focused practice to be a good putter. 

[RoyalTroon]

17 hours ago, RoyalMustang said:

Thoughts on this? What did you do to go from being a non-natural putter to pretty decent?

 

Dialing in line and speed for a good putter is pretty routine, it's the stroke quality that then becomes the imperative. 

[Nard_S]

Good stroke makes a huge difference on consistency. Have always putted above pay grade but solid technical changes took it to another level precisely because speed control got that much better. Not for nothing but 3 footers should be near automatic. There's something very off not to feel okay with them. 

[PracticeSwinger]

12 hours ago, iacas said:

Good putters do three things well: read, bead, and speed.

 

Read - they read greens well.

Bead - they hit their intended start lines.

Speed - they hit the putts the correct distance.

 

You probably stink at speed, which doesn't help the reads for sure… and speed is the most important by far. You probably have a short backstroke, and a comparatively long follow-through.

 

But regardless of that: fix the three skills in putting, don't just "try to make putts" or something. Don't putt to a hole… practice the three skills separately.

100%. Speed / distance control is in my opinion the cornerstone to everything else. Every 30 footers bring an easy 2nd one, those mid-range and shorter ones have a lot more chances of catching the hole as it becomes bigger at the right speed.
 

Most Ams that are bad putters will leave 20 footers 7 feet short on occasions, and they don’t seem to understand that is equivalent of having the correct speed and hitting it 7 feet to the right; that they’d tell you was an awful putt!

 

Make sure that your mechanics are good enough to send it on your intended line and perfect your distance control, and you’ll never have a disastrous round on the greens. Now, some days they’ll drop and other you’ll burn edges, but you’ll always scare the hole and you know you can make the next one.

[bellview17v2]

16 hours ago, Zitlow said:

Good putters know they're good putters, bad putters know they suck at putting.  

Yep, everyone I have ever seen falls into those two

[RogerinNewZealand]

Simple test. Stop practicing 1m 2m puts. Go 15m to 20 distance. Are you 2feet left or right of flat or 3 or 4 feet.. observe this and then re_aim/re_align/ regrip/ plus learn about Eye Line. Where are your eyes or dominant eye looking. Once you get aligned you improve and aim at the flag for real.20metre puts. Just do it. Your Arc...move point of impact on the ball 2,3,4 inches forward or back...till you find The Spot!

[Fuscinator]

Talent is really just a head start. With anything that is a skill (including putting), you still have to learn how it works and put in the necessary time to acquire a proficiency. 

Putting is an unnatural thing to do, so talent is not going to have the same advantages it would in things like running, jumping, or fighting.

 

You have to work on your stroke and you have to learn how to read greens. If you have any kind of "hit" in your stroke, or you do some kind of weird twisting, it'll be a lot harder to calibrate speed in your putting than if you have a "rocking shoulders" type motion. 

 

Reading greens is the fun part of putting. If you can really learn to relish this part of the game, I think it gives you a better chance of becoming a good putter. (It's harder to excel at something you hate.)

 

To me, the best way to practice putting and chipping is to use just two balls. You take your best shot with the first ball, then see if you can get closer with the second ball using what you learned from the first. After the second ball, move to a different place (don't just stand there practicing the same putt all day).

 

Finding a putter that you can make work is essential (or, just use a long iron, like I used to). Better yet, finding a putter you love is a huge psychological boost. 

 

[sliderwrx]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:09 AM, semarlor said:

It is a bad look to the dozens and dozens of people that tuned in to see it. 

I can offer you this which is my experience. I was formerly a club/teaching pro, from age 21-33. Gave many lessons, played some tournaments. Even then the ball striking came easy to me but I was THE WORST putter ever to tee it up for money. Fast forward to being 47. I never let my hdcp get above 3 in all those years.

 

At 47 I put together a plan with some people who had played on tour/ made it to the senior tour. that was my goal. We did the math, broke it down into statistics and kind of turned it into a logistics problem to be solved.

 

First was putter fitting, I'm a Ping player, so time with iPing app, and a fitting thru the app and at Ping in the lab. Narrowed the quiver down to only putters that showed consistency in all the metrics. I used to have 20 (?) putters, now I have 5. All the same fit, basically all the same putter.

Second was working with iPing to have my stroke be as consistent as I could make it. My iPing hdcp was around +5. I also worked on rolling the vertical line drill until 90% of my putts from any distance rolled the line without it wobbling.

Third, I took lessons on green reading from the pros in my area who were known to be good at it, former tour players, 'guys who could putt'

Fourth, I did speed drills, constantly. At every course I played I'd show up 90 minutes prior to my tee time and spend 45 of them just figuring out speed for the day.

 

I worked at all that for about 2 years, not as a full time job, but most of the practicing I did was from 150 yds and in, around the greens, and on as many different sets of greens as I could find. Some were super slopey, some flat, some fast, some slow. The goal was to apply the green reading lessons I had gotten to the actual on course execution.

 

At 49 I had my home hdcp down to +6, I traveled to around a +3. Then came tournaments. I was really surprised that for the most part all that I had learned held up. in 12-14 mini tour events I played in I maybe had 2 3 putts total. 

But...and here is where I think putting is voodoo, I never was able to find the key or the handle that let me make a buncha 12-25 footers. Which is where a player turns a 72 into a 66 or 67. Don't get me wrong, all the time and energy I put into it was totally worth it. To this day at 54, I still putt pretty good, (I'm a 1.9) occasionally I get a couple of the 12-25's to drop. The toughest part was/is handling the frustration that comes from hitting good approaches 15 feet 5 holes in a row and being even par. I'm not patient by nature, this was worse. Ultimately real life called and I gave up on thinking I was good enough to play for the real money.

 

All this ^^ leads to my advice fwiw:

Get a putter fitting. A poorly fit putter can cost you more strokes than anything else in your bag thats misfit.

If you have more than 1 putter, IMO they should all be similar to the gamer and all the same fit. I.E. A few different anser heads/ mallets, whatever your preference is. Don't try to go from an anser to a face balanced thing. There is too much difference in the way they swing to keep your stroke consistent

Learn to roll the vertical line without it wobbling. The better your putter fitting, the easier this is. This ensures you're launching the ball off the face the same every time.

Practice with iPing or something similar. I prefer iPing because it measures the actual swinging of the putter. The goal is consistency. You'd like the majority of your strokes to be the same. Once the launch off the face is the same every time, then you're ready to hit your starting points most of the time.

There are a bunch of different ways for learning green reading and speed control. Try a few different ones until you find what works for you. It may be 1 system, it may

be a combo of all of them. 

 

I know it sounds like a bunch of work, and it is. But the nice thing about putting is you can do all this in smaller bites. Got an hour? Go roll the line that day....like that. I'm not saying you'll go from bad to great if you do this stuff. I certainly didn't. Because putting is voodoo. But I do think you can go from bad to good, maybe very good. To the point where you don't show up to play gripping that you'r going to hockey the thing around on the greens all day.

Hope it helps  

[Dan Drake]

Like everything else in life, you can learn to be good at putting..............Up to a point.  The truly exceptional putters have (almost assuredly) worked just as hard as the good putters, but they are born with something just a bit different. 

 

That's part of the puzzle that is golf.  Figuring out what you have "talent" for and then were you are deficient and determining the correct ROI for skill improvement along those needs. 

 

For instance, while Bubba Watson was winning the Masters twice over a few years and reaching his highest levels as a professional golfer, he was consistently ranked outside the top 100 in bunker play.  Doesn't make sense since he has great hands and imagination, right?  He "should" be a great bunker player.  Until you realize that he led the tour in GIR for a LONG time meaning he didn't really get into very many bunkers so there wasn't a ton of ROI for him to put in the work to go from #144 to #14 or whatever.  But someone like Luke Donald, who wasn't blessed with Bubba's ability to create speed, absolutely HAD to get great at bunker play to compete.  

 

Scoring aside, there is also just what you can emotionally deal with.  Which negatively impacts your enjoyment of the game more, missing a couple of 4' putts a round or blowing 2 drives OB?  Because most of us really only have the time to devote to getting better at one of these skills (speaking very generally/broad brush here team, don't roast me on specifics please!). I know I'm a good putter, but also one who is going to miss short putts regularly UNLESS I am playing/practicing my short putts very regularly.  So if it is my first round in a month or something, I don't let it get to me.  I know the reason I miss them and I know the fix.  No big deal.  But having ZERO idea where the driver is going, now that infuriates me so I HAVE to make sure I'm keeping up with that first and foremost.  

 

Ultimately, it comes down to what your personal Expectation Management System can handle best.  

[semarlor]

5 hours ago, sliderwrx said:

I can offer you this which is my experience. I was formerly a club/teaching pro, from age 21-33. Gave many lessons, played some tournaments. Even then the ball striking came easy to me but I was THE WORST putter ever to tee it up for money. Fast forward to being 47. I never let my hdcp get above 3 in all those years.

 

At 47 I put together a plan with some people who had played on tour/ made it to the senior tour. that was my goal. We did the math, broke it down into statistics and kind of turned it into a logistics problem to be solved.

 

First was putter fitting, I'm a Ping player, so time with iPing app, and a fitting thru the app and at Ping in the lab. Narrowed the quiver down to only putters that showed consistency in all the metrics. I used to have 20 (?) putters, now I have 5. All the same fit, basically all the same putter.

Second was working with iPing to have my stroke be as consistent as I could make it. My iPing hdcp was around +5. I also worked on rolling the vertical line drill until 90% of my putts from any distance rolled the line without it wobbling.

Third, I took lessons on green reading from the pros in my area who were known to be good at it, former tour players, 'guys who could putt'

Fourth, I did speed drills, constantly. At every course I played I'd show up 90 minutes prior to my tee time and spend 45 of them just figuring out speed for the day.

 

I worked at all that for about 2 years, not as a full time job, but most of the practicing I did was from 150 yds and in, around the greens, and on as many different sets of greens as I could find. Some were super slopey, some flat, some fast, some slow. The goal was to apply the green reading lessons I had gotten to the actual on course execution.

 

At 49 I had my home hdcp down to +6, I traveled to around a +3. Then came tournaments. I was really surprised that for the most part all that I had learned held up. in 12-14 mini tour events I played in I maybe had 2 3 putts total. 

But...and here is where I think putting is voodoo, I never was able to find the key or the handle that let me make a buncha 12-25 footers. Which is where a player turns a 72 into a 66 or 67. Don't get me wrong, all the time and energy I put into it was totally worth it. To this day at 54, I still putt pretty good, (I'm a 1.9) occasionally I get a couple of the 12-25's to drop. The toughest part was/is handling the frustration that comes from hitting good approaches 15 feet 5 holes in a row and being even par. I'm not patient by nature, this was worse. Ultimately real life called and I gave up on thinking I was good enough to play for the real money.

 

All this ^^ leads to my advice fwiw:

Get a putter fitting. A poorly fit putter can cost you more strokes than anything else in your bag thats misfit.

If you have more than 1 putter, IMO they should all be similar to the gamer and all the same fit. I.E. A few different anser heads/ mallets, whatever your preference is. Don't try to go from an anser to a face balanced thing. There is too much difference in the way they swing to keep your stroke consistent

Learn to roll the vertical line without it wobbling. The better your putter fitting, the easier this is. This ensures you're launching the ball off the face the same every time.

Practice with iPing or something similar. I prefer iPing because it measures the actual swinging of the putter. The goal is consistency. You'd like the majority of your strokes to be the same. Once the launch off the face is the same every time, then you're ready to hit your starting points most of the time.

There are a bunch of different ways for learning green reading and speed control. Try a few different ones until you find what works for you. It may be 1 system, it may

be a combo of all of them. 

 

I know it sounds like a bunch of work, and it is. But the nice thing about putting is you can do all this in smaller bites. Got an hour? Go roll the line that day....like that. I'm not saying you'll go from bad to great if you do this stuff. I certainly didn't. Because putting is voodoo. But I do think you can go from bad to good, maybe very good. To the point where you don't show up to play gripping that you'r going to hockey the thing around on the greens all day.

Hope it helps  

Really curious how a post I made 6 months ago got quoted in a different forum on a different post that was created 2 days ago. I'm not mad about it...just genuinely confused.