Acceleration is the increasing speed at which the club head moves through the ball and is important not only for hitting shots of long distance, but also for short putts. In fact, if you find that you are missing too many short putts, the cause may be failure to accelerate
the putter head. Here is a drill that will help.
On the practice putting green, find a hole that will permit you to set up for a flat and straight putt. Place a club in the parallel line of your putt and make few putts with different strokes. If your follow-through is greater than your backswing you will find the ball staying on line. If your backswing is longer than your follow-though, you are invariably going to miss the line of putt.
To get more feeling, you can practice on the putting green by placing your club behind the ball and without the backswing, just drag the follow-through. This will promote accelerating your putts. This drill should be part of your regular practice routine, as it will teach you to accelerate the putter head and give you confidence to make those short putts that are critical to good scoring. If you are feeling extra adventurous, try this technique on a short breaking putt.
The key to accelerating and staying on line when making short putts is to keep your hands ahead of the ball, thus preventing excessive wrist motion on the forward swing that can send the ball rolling offline. Lean to use your shoulder on your strokes, this will help you to make firmer strokes on the follow-through.
A very senior golfer used to say, “Never up, never down.” True enough, if you cannot reach the hole, your ball is never going to find the cup. So you need to accelerate your putts so that you not only hit them through the hole but also stay on line.
Putting is one of the greatest parts of the game. A 350 yards drive and three feet putts are counted same shots. So improve your game by
accelerating your putts. If you start to accelerate your putting stroke, you will soon find yourself saving a lot of strokes on putting and this will drop down your score immensely.
(The author is a golf instructor and golf director at Gokarna Forest Golf Resort & Spa, Kathmandu. He can be contacted through prodeepak@hotmail.com)