Putting lesson with Mike Lander

Further to my previous post about having bought yet another putter and subsequently questioning my putting style, I thought it was best to have a putting lesson before blowing yet more cash on another club. Taking a more mature and measured decision here was liberating, rather than simply blaming the tools. So I contacted Mike Lander at the St Andrews Academy, explained my frustrations with putting and my historic propensity to keep changing the club and asked him what to do. He suggested coming in for a session on SAM Putlab and then on the practice green. I subsequently emailed Adam at Auchterlonies and cancelled the L.A.B. putter fitting......

Date of lesson: Aug 16th 2023

Location: St Andrews Golf Academy

I genuinely think the biggest issue I have with putting is confidence. My friends tell me I'm a good putter but I refuse to believe them, especially when I miss a relatively short one! Thanks to stats guys like Lou Stagner and Mark Brodie, there's been a small revelation in the way I think about my putting this year though. Seeing the actual PGA Tour stats on putts made has helped me be less critical of myself when I miss. The table below shows the one-putt percentage from different distances and handicap levels and they are insightful (taken from Mark Brodie, as replicated in The Four Foundations of Golf). Putting is not as easy as SkyTV makes it look.

Distance	Tour Pro	Scratch Golfer	90 Shooter
3 Feet	96%	93%	84%
5 Feet	77%	66%	50%
8 Feet	50%	41%	27%
10 Feet	40%	33%	20%
20 Feet	15%	14%	6%

If the best players in the world are 50:50 from 8 feet, why am I expecting to be 100% and why am I getting so down on my putting when I miss? It's all about expectation management again. These stats came up again when chatting to Mike before we started as he wanted to make sure my expectations were realistic and that I understood what constituted a good putting performance. We also chatted about what I thought my dominant characteristics and miss were (right), before moving on to SAM.

The SAM session was very interesting. After holing five from five I asked him if that was the lesson over, but he insisted I stay and understand what was happening. The quick overview was that my stats were excellent (almost all in the high 70's) and that, in reality, I am actually a good putter (despite what I've told myself). The main issue was a lack of consistency in my stroke that sometimes left the putter face open at impact, contributing to my right-miss bias. I tend to swing the putter around me which opens the clubface on the way back and makes me have to aggressively rotate the face on the downswing to get it back to neutral (it's actually a bit like the same fault I had with my iron play). It's not that my motion is incorrect, it's just that it can be inconsistent, especially under pressure when my timing may be off. If we could improve the stroke to make it more "quiet, passive, controlled" then all the SAM stats would move to excellent and my putting "issues" could be narrowed down to green reading, start line and pace.

In order to work on my stroke we used a Visio arc mat like the one shown above. We stuck a tee to the face of the putter and I was instructed to try and trace the line on the mat with the tee, This was really tricky at first but the thing that helped me was imagining that I was putting using the Tour Striker ball between my arms from the previous lesson. This considerably improved the consistency of my stroke and brought the head back square to the line.

The next recommendation was to start using a gate when practising and to go straight to the smallest one possible. This will help me determine if I am starting the ball on the intended line. Mike was using Visio ones again but I've got the PuttOut ones shown below. They can easily be used indoors on the mat or outdoors on the green.

We then went out to the practice green. Mike asked me to explain my green reading routine and how I determine my start line. He liked my method and didn't propose making any significant changes. The one thing he would add is to use my feet if I'm struggling to determine the slope. He stopped short of proposing full AimPoint, rather just to stand part of the way to the hole with my feet on either side of the line and trying to feel the slope beneath me.

Mike asked about my practice routines and we talked about the spiral and ladder drills that I usually do. I had to admit to not using my gates very often so there is no way to determine whether I've been starting on my intended line or not. Using a gate will be an important training aid in future.

We then looked at a few putts and Mike asked me to read the break before testing my read using the "perfect putt". This is really just a slide you roll the ball down and see how it moves on the green - a bit like a stimpmeter. It takes the influence of face impact away. My reading was pretty good so, through a process of elimination, with most aspects of my putting being good, the likely culprit for my erratic short putting is likely the arc issue described above and starting the ball on the desired target line.

So we then set up some putts, selected the smallest gate and I set about practicing. I really found the gate to be difficult at the start but got used to it. Depending on how far you place the gate from the ball you really can make this quite a challenging exercise. It can be difficult to get the gate in the right place but it is well worth persevering as it gives excellent feedback. We also practised some putts using the mat, making me focus on the arc again to get that motion ingrained more.

Homework

When practising my putting, Mike wants me to use my gates more frequently and either borrow his arc mat or buy one of my own. I've to vary the undulations I use in order to make it more challenging too.

Conclusion

This was another really good lesson with Mike. I'm very comfortable with his style of instruction and believe I've found an instructor here that I can work with for a long time. So much so, I've booked a block of lessons rather than just paying for this individual session.

The session and the data from SAM have helped me gain more belief that I am actually a good putter and shouldn't be so down on myself. With guidance from Mike and the practice routines he has given me, let's see if I can become an excellent putter rather than just a good one. I've played 5 rounds since the lesson and I have to say that the results so far have been very encouraging. Misses from distance have definitely been much closer and I've holed a lot more of the challenging shorter ones too. So far, so good!