Find a practice tee and chances are you will find someone getting a lesson.
Hopefully, the instruction is coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about, not someone who fancies themselves a homemade version of Butch Harmon.
But go to the practice green and golfers getting putting lessons are harder to find than Masters tickets.
Putting accounts for approximately 40 percent of the shots hit by average players and it accounts for a solid 90 percent of the bets won or lost, not to mention most of the sailor-speak being thrown around by the putting afflicted.
But when was the last time you got a putting lesson?
I’m asking for a friend, of course.
Maybe it’s because we can see our putting strokes as we make them, unlike full swings where all we can do is guess what our action really looks like until we see it on video and wonder who that person is. Much as we might wish for it to be, putting is not self-correcting.
Hope, as the saying goes, is not a strategy.
With the new golf season just coming to life for some and still waiting to emerge from the relentless winter for others, this may be the year to change up what you’re doing. Look what Phil Kenyon did for Scottie Scheffler on the greens.
Putting, in the broadest perspective, should be relatively easy. All you’re doing is rolling a ball along the ground. It doesn’t get airborne (unless the greens are really bumpy), water should not come into play (emphasis on “should not”) and it is basic enough that there are industries built on attracting non-golfers with the notion that putting on a carpet at the beach is easy and fun (wrong on at least one of those ideas).
We’ve all played with those people who just know how to putt. It’s a gift, like musicians who can sit down at a piano and play Billy Joel or Billie Eilish without any sheet music. It’s OK to not enjoy playing golf with those people especially if they’re on the other side of a match you’re playing.
Putting lessons aren’t scary like learning to hit bunker shots can be. The worst thing that’s going to happen is you’re going to miss a lot of putts, which is why you’re getting a lesson in the first place.
If you’re into technology, putting labs are a thing now. They come with lasers and screens full of numbers and enough technology to essentially perform an MRI on your putting stroke.
It’s OK to ask for putting help. There is no shame there, just a hint of desperation.
We’ve all been there.
Some of us are still there – but the MRI results are encouraging.
Ron Green Jr.
Top: Scottie Scheffler
Jared C. Tilton, Getty Images