by Geoff Mangum
Magic Wand Putting Instruction™
Greensboro, North Carolina

The Theory. The biggest problem in finding your touch is that your body’s speed is out of synch with the speed your putting gives to the ball, so you don’t get the results you wanted and expected. The answer is not simply to slow down, but to slow down in harmony with the speed of the green. Then you have much better control of the speed of your putts, regardless of distance.

The "Core Putt" does this for you. When you recognize your core putt, it’s always there, waiting for you, like a Swiss watch with its exquisite timing mechanisms, for any green, any day.

How It Works. Everyone has their own core putt, just the way everyone has a characteristic gait and personality type. You’ve heard golf psychologists say before that golfers ought to work with and not against their basic personality type in terms of fast swings or leisurely swings. Well, this really isn’t the case with putting. There’s only one way to have great touch: slow down, partner!

To make your core putt, you need to relax and enjoy yourself quietly. You know you are relaxed when you don’t have much excess body movement; you stand still patiently without much limb or hand movements or muscle tension and breathe in a measured, easy pace.

Then address the ball and make a very simple stroke to nowhere in particular -- the simpler the better, as few moving parts as possible -- as follows: initiate the backstroke with a little pushing off from the left shoulder rolling back to move the putterhead; when you first sense that taking the putterhead back any farther or higher will require some effort on your part by pushing or lifting as you feel the weight of the putterhead, just quit going back and relax; now let the putterhead fall back forward through the ball and roll the ball with good level contact just to see how far it will go. Simple.

The backstroke for me just clears my back foot, but it depends on the width of your stance.

You don’t want to "hit" the ball; just let the putterhead freefall back through the impact zone. It’s sort of like the putter is a hinged "pet door," and you just move the bottom of the door back out of vertical and then drop it and let it swing gently through the ball. The tempo is about what a baby elephant uses on a lazy day to swing his trunk lightly though the savannah grass.

What You Get. If you do this, what happens is the ball rolls a certain distance, maybe 10 feet, maybe 8, maybe 12. The distance depends on your body type, putter, ball, and characteristic manner of relating to the world with your body at this time, AND the playing characteristics of the green in terms of green speed. This core putt is always there. Try a second ball and see if it doesn’t go the same distance. Both balls go pretty much the same distance. You can do this all day long, over and over. On another green or the same green on another day, all your core putts might go a different distance but they will all go the same distance.

Use the Core Putt to Tune In Your Touch Timing. Drop a ball beside the hole and use the core putt to send it away; then go putt into the hole from where the ball stops or a bit closer. Don’t worry much about sinking the putt -- just aim pretty decently and then concentrate on the smoothness of your easy core stroke. Watch how nice your distance control becomes. Then try to sink a few. Next, change the distance and start over, again inside the core range. Then go outside the range. Finally, find an uphill putt at about the range and see what adjustments are really required. Repeat this effort from the opposite side, at the core range coming downhill.

The Core Putt is a personal "Stimpmeter," and therefore more useful and pertinent than an abstract number. It also helps get rid of "hit" and makes putts in the truly "make" range a lot easier to focus on the line instead of the force.

Make the Core Putt Part of Your Game. To consolidate this, make the core putt the first thing you do when you step onto the practice putting green. Get the timing of your own core mechanisms in synch with the green.

For more information and free putting tips, including a free putting database of over 10,000 references with annotations, visit Geoff’s website at  http://www.puttingzone.com/geoff.html
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