Speed awareness can save strokes

Regardless of the skill level of the player, three-putts are a frustrating end to a hole and can put a damper on any round. Three-putts will occur most often when golfers leave the first putt outside of a 6-foot radius or miss the relatively short second putt. For the majority of amateurs it is the former, leaving it outside of a 6-foot safety zone.

To understand the safety zone, let's look at the percentage of putts made on tour from 6 feet, which has averaged around 63 percent for the last decade. This means that to err on the side of statistics, we must be inside of the 6-foot safety zone.

For the average amateur, speed will be the No. 1 factor in putting. When is the last time you left a putt 6 inches short of the hole and it still went in? A ball going too fast is just as useless, as it can run directly over or lip out of the hole. So, when referring to "speed," I am talking of the speed that the ball arrives at the hole, preferably one that allows the ball to fall in and stay in.

As a former Dave Pelz instructor, I can tell you that there are many ball arrival speeds that will allow the ball to go in the hole. But, as always, there are factors at play. The slower the ball rolls as it approaches the hole, the more its direction will be affected by footprints, spike marks and imperfections in the greens surface. So, the slower you roll your putts, the fewer of them will actually hit the hole.

The more speed imparted into the putt, the more putts will hit the hole, but they also are more likely to lip out and/or careen over the hole. This is, of course, assuming that the ball is started on the appropriate line to begin with.

To control your three-putting, you must control your entry speed, not just into the hole but into the safety zone. To do this, you must become self-aware of what your tendencies are; for example, 90 percent of amateurs miss it short and on the low side of the hole.

A ball that is missed short and low never had an opportunity to go in. Worse, as the ball begins to slow down, it will get increasingly farther away from the hole, decreasing your chances of being in the safety zone.

A simple mindset change could be enough to alter the way you look at lag putting. You must gain awareness of what your dispersion pattern looks like.

I have a drill designed to do exactly that and it is one of the first drills my students do in a putting lesson, called the "lag drill." To do this, take 10 golf balls and step off roughly 14 paces. Hit all of the golf balls consecutively without disturbing the pattern being formed by the hole. After all of the balls have been struck, it is time to evaluate the pattern.

To do this, you must imagine the hole being cut into halves: high and low, and short and long. Then blend this to make quadrants. Chances are the majority of golf balls will be in the short and low quadrant. If this is the case, you need to play more break, i.e., add more apex or, depending on the severity of miss, add more speed and more apex.

This is a process-of-elimination drill; repeating the drill while changing variables becomes self-learning, which is the most valuable type of learning as it lets you draw your own conclusion as to the fix. Get to work on evaluating your speed patterns.

The most important information in this article is that the ball needs to be getting closer to the hole as it is slowing down, not getting farther away. For more information on this and other drills, please contact me.

Matt Henderson is a Class A member of the PGA of America and has been teaching golf since 2003. Before joining the PGA Tour Academy at TPC Las Vegas, he traveled to more than 15 states as an instructor for Dave Pelz, a golf coach known for his expertise and published writing on the art of the short game, particularly putting. Henderson can be reached by email at mhenderson@ touracademy.com.