A wise old golf sage once said that “your short game touch is one of the first things to go, and one of the last to come back”. I’m sure he was referring to the ‘off season’ and not about the visit to the half-way-house in between nines. There is much truth to this statement and although for most it can be difficult to continue to keep your chipping and pitching skills sharp during the winter months, we can all find a way to keep a putter in our hands.
Staying in touch with your putting stroke over the off-season will give you a huge head start to better scores come spring… especially working on those short putts! Go dig out your putter and a few balls (hopefully you still know where they are) and start by storing them somewhere where you might almost have to trip over them on a day to day basis (preferably not on top of the TV remote). This simple act will help battle the ‘out of sight… out of mind’ problem. Any chunk of carpet or one of those ‘putting mats’ would be perfect. You don’t even need a hole to putt to; just putt at another ball. Make a game of it, count how many in a row you can sink, or force yourself to sink 20 short putts before you get to make your evening cocktail.
Any chance you get to put a golf club in your hands over the winter months will serve your golf game well come spring, but just think how nice it would be to sink all those short putts during those first few rounds of the season…
See you in the short grass,
Dave Lengyel
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