Deliberate Practice

We are living in an extraordinary time. The world has changed. You should take advantage of this extraordinary time to improve your game.  And, we improve by using deliberate, not block practice.  Block practice is dumping a bag of range balls and hitting them without focus.  On the putting green, block practice is taking three balls to the green and putting from the same spot over and over again without a goal.

Deliberate practice is practice that is focused, has specific goals, involves feedback, and is outside your comfort zone.  Deliberate practice is a “scrimmage” that includes scores, wins and losses.  It is the type of practice that is most like what we do on the golf course.

Today, I want to share with you a nugget about one of the greatest putters of all time, Ben Crenshaw, and a deliberate practice drill that integrates Crenshaw’s approach to putting.

Golf Magazine published an article today about Crenshaw and his win in the 1995 Masters.  You can find it here:  https://www.golf.com/features/2020/04/08/ben-crenshaw-masters-legacy/

In the article, Justin Leonard observed that “[y]ou can’t copy his stroke and you wouldn’t want to.  He has different technique on different putts: He’ll draw putts, slice putts, hit the ball on the toe to deaden the speed. For him, it’s all about feel. He has the best speed control I’ve ever seen and that’s all he cared about, not the way it looked. It’s fascinating to spend time with him because his approach is so different from everybody else—they’re all trying to groove the same stroke over and over.”

I agree with Leonard - Crenshaw's stroke is not one to copy.  But, his approach to putting suggests a deliberate practice drill that you can use to help challenge your brain and get you outside of your comfort zone.  It requires focus on making putts - not technique.  It comes from Andrew Rice in Savannah, Georgia.  I suggest you give it a try.

18 Ball Skill Challenge

            Using 3 balls, hit all putts from the same spot between five feet and eight feet from the hole.

            1st Three: Right edge lip in/Left edge lip in/Normal make

            2nd Three: Right eye closed/Left eye closed/Both eyes closed

            3rd Three: Toe strike/Heel strike/Center strike

            4th Three: Right hand only/Left hand only/Normal make

            5th Three: Hook Stroke/Cut Stroke/Normal make

            6th Three: Soft, trickle speed/Hard, back edge speed/Normal, topple in the hole

            An excellent score is 15 of 18.  Make more than that and you can teach putting.

See if it helps you make more putts when it counts.