Golf Psychology Corner: How to Make Every Putt

You can make every putt. How’s that?

To be a great putter, you need to embrace the difference between making and holing putts, and judge your performance based on made (rather than holed) putts.

Signs you made a putt:

  • You were fully immersed in the moment-by-moment process of visualizing your line, addressing the ball (and any other key components of your pre-shot routine), looking at the target, taking a mental “picture” of it, bringing your gaze back down to the ball with that picture in mind, and then completely trusting your natural ability to roll the ball to that target.

  • You were fully present, not over-controlling or over-analyzing, and trusting of your natural ability to do the simple task of rolling a ball to a target.

  • You weren’t thinking about the mechanics of your stroke. Your mind was focused on an external target.

Signs you didn’t make a putt:

  • You were trying to force the ball into the hole

  • You were analyzing the mechanics of your stroke

  • You were expecting to roll the ball somewhere other than the target

  • You were worrying about embarrassing yourself in front of others

  • You weren’t present

You’ll know the second you hit the ball whether you made the putt or not. You don’t need to wait for the outcome to know if you’ve made it.

Making putts is 100% within your control, 100% of the time.

Whether you hole the putt or not is another story entirely. We’ve all rolled beautiful putts that didn’t drop. We’ve all been in a less-than-ideal mindset over a putt and gotten lucky.

Focusing on making rather than holing putts keeps you in the present and focused on what you control - the process of putting.

As a general background principle, expect to hole every putt. But then let that go, and focus on making each putt.

I guarantee you’ll have more fun, play more freely, and somewhat paradoxically, hole more putts.

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Is your mental game getting in the way of playing your best golf? Mental toughness can be learned. Don’t wait! Contact me for individualized golf psychology consulting.

Carly Huntgolf psychology, golf psychologist