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Putting, What Do I Do Now?
By Will T, Fri Dec 9th

It is perhaps the supreme irony in golf that the simplest shotin the book seems to cause the biggest problem to the largestnumber of golfers.

Lets's face it, the putt is the only golf shot that it is reallypossible to execute flawlessly without any tuition at all. Weall start off doing this as kids. Some of us are even superb atit at this young age. It is this shot that is often the spurthat leads to a lifelong addiction to this wonderful game ofgolf.

What then, goes wrong? How can this easiest of golf shots becomethe absolute bane of an adult golfer's life? Sorry to say, thereis no easy answer. Experts are just as baffled as inexperiencedamateurs over this one. The saying 'it's all in the mind' wasprobably never more true than in this golfing case.

Several years ago, an American company developed a golf puttingmachine. They carried out tests in optimum putting conditionsand were gob-smacked to discover that their pride and joycouldn't hole every putt. They took that machine apart andtweaked every element of it until they were certain that it wasin perfect working order. And, guess what? It still failed tohole some putts. If this doesn't go to prove

that there is atleast an element of 'black art' about golf putting, then nothingwill.

The best lesson to take from the above is that you really neverare going to achieve putting perfection. If a machine in perfectworking under operating under perfect putting conditions failsto hole every golf putt, then a human being with all his or herimperfections never is.

So, the first rule is, stop giving yourself such a hard timewhenever you miss a few putts. It happens to even topprofessional golfers. In fact, any problem you have with puttingis much more likely to be psychological than physical, so thevery last thing you should be doing is getting down on yourselfmentally; this can only make matters worse.

Is there anything you can do if you really do have severe,regular putting problems? Well, apart from working on the mentalTake your lead from the professionals. So many professionalgolfers who've suffered terribly from the 'yips' on the puttinggreen, such as Bernhard Langer, found their salvation in thebroomhandle putter - maybe you should give one a try.