In the wise words of Ben Hogan:
“Hitting a golf ball and putting have nothing in common. They’re two different games. You work all your life to perfect a repeating swing that will get you to the greens, and then you have to do something that is totally unrelated.”
Seems obvious doesn’t it? But even in assessing players at the highest level of the game, the ability to hole the clutch putts is so often overlooked in favour of those with the well oiled swings. The truth is, whilst professionals can practice swinging a golf club to the point where they consistently bomb 300 yard drives down the middle of the fairway and laser iron shots at the flag sticks, such a metronomic like work ethic cannot give them the ability to read greens or produce a smooth natural putting stroke. The highest prizes in golf are almost always taken by those who have the winning touch on the green, not by those who are best at getting to it. For this reason, I fear that the hype surrounding young British upstarts Rory Mcilroy and Ross Fisher is going to be rendered unfounded on the highest stage the game has to offer. Both players have been tipped as future major winners in the game (in Mcilroy’s case, multiple majors), but it seems to me as though both players are likely to be left disappointed when the talleys are totted up at the end of their careers.
With ever increasing regularity, Golf is referred to as a ‘young man’s’ sport, presumably with reference to the twenty somethings out on tour with the fine physiques and swinging flexibilities that seems to defy the capabilities of a regular human body (Camilo Villegas anyone?). But as far as ball striking goes, we need look no further than Kenny Perry to falsify this claim, who at age 49 is hitting the golf ball better now than ever before in his career. Or how about Tom Watson, who at 59 was the best player from tee to green at the 2009 Open Championship. Both players came within a whisker of claiming major titles in 2009 at the sort of ages considered decades past a golfer’s peak, and both players would have been major winners if their putting capabilities hadn’t let them down. There is no doubt that whilst a handful of players either maintain or even improve their ball striking abilities towards the latter stages of their careers, virtually none improve their putting strokes. A five minute glance at any Seniors tour event (players aged 50+) will show you that at least 90% of participants putt with either long handled or belly putters that are designed specifically to minimise the use of the hands in the putting stroke. And thus my point is this, whilst both 29 year old Fisher and 20 year old Mcilroy are both exceptional ball strikers, neither are world class putters of the ball, and golfing trends would suggest that neither is going to become one.
Perhaps it is the youthful exuberance of not caring about the potential four footer coming back, or maybe it is because their nerves have not been frayed by decades of intense competition, but so often in golf it is the young players who strike their puts with the unerring level of assuredness that leaves the on looking club golfer open mouthed with admiration. These players don’t tease the ball towards the edge of the cup, they give the hole a chance every time they putt and as a result, they sink more of them. Simple really. However, as the confidence in the stroke begins to diminish, less of the putts disappear. Sergio Garcia is a painfully clear case in point; a man who putted like a demon in his early twenties, but now looks like missing every time he puts from 5 feet. The same could probably be said of the two South African maestros Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, who would both surely fancy themselves to repeat their former glory in the U.S. Open if only they had the same putting stroke from days gone by. Whilst there is youthful exuberance in the personalities and demeanour of Mcilroy and Fisher, there is an undoubted tentativeness to the way in which they putt, a problem which is only likely to accentuate under the most testing circumstance. Indeed it can be argued that for future successes outside of Woods and Mickelson in major golf, one surely has to look to the players who are wicked with the flat stick: the likes of Geoff Ogilvy, Stewart Cink and even Aaron Baddeley (a player the rankings will tell you is vastly inferior to Mcilroy and Fisher, but who putts brilliantly every time he tees it up).
Clearly the younger player = better putter theory is somewhat of a generalization, but there is no doubt that a natural putting stroke is essential to become one of the world’s elite. After all, when was the last time you saw a golfing major champion with the claw grip?
A Sporting Thought 