It was a great weekend of golf.  A six-way playoff for the Australian Master's, Lee Westwood dueling down the stretch in Dubai, Corey Pavin looking for his first win on the Champions Tour and of course, the much anticipated duel between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

All four events were decided by the putter.  Two of the girls struggled on the 18th when they had a chance to avoid a playoff.  Lee Westwood hit the ball incredibly well in the desert but couldn't buy a putt.  Peter Senior struggled all day with the putter before falling to Pavin in a playoff.  Of course the Pebble Beach Pro-Am was a putting disaster for some and a bonanza for others.  Charlie Wi four putted the first green before making a bunch of putts after it was too late.  Tiger Woods hit the ball well enough to make the match-up with Mickelson exciting.  However, he made next to nothing in addition to missing a few short ones.  Mickelson on the other hand made putts from all over the Monterey Peninsula.  35 and 40 foot putts for par, 40 footer for eagle....

In my opinion, Phil putted so well because he was concerned with rolling the ball more than making the ball go in the hole.  We have all seen him miss a few short putts to knock himself out of contention.  Yesterday, he was rolling the ball on a line and allowing the ball to go in the hole.  Nothing was banging against the back of the hole.  If you watch the highlights, you will see that all of the putts he made were perfect speed.  If they had not gone in they would not have rolled more than a foot past the hole.

The next time you are standing over a four  footer with a bit of break, resist the urge to bang it at the hole with a "take the break out of it" mentality.  Remember, the faster the ball is moving the smaller the hole becomes.  A putt that would roll 3 feet past the hole effectively makes the hole only half as big.  Tiger's birdie attempt on the 18th green ran more than 5 feet past the hole.  Any putt traveling that fast cannot go in even if it hits dead center in the middle of the hole!

If there is break in a putt, allow for the break and hit the putt at a speed that will only allow the ball to roll 6 or 12 inches past the hole.  Most often the player that tries to jam the ball into the hole is the one that doesn't trust how much break the putt will have.  If this applies to you, learn how to precisely read greens.  Knowing the Aimpoint Green Reading System will allow you to have the confidence of knowing how much a putt will break.  When you know your read is correct, the trust is much easier to have and you can roll putts in the hole like Phil did yesterday.

I don't want to startle you but golf season is less than two months away!  It won't be long until handicap computers start accepting scores, and the trees will start to bloom.  What have you done to make your golf more fun in 2012?

The time to get better is now.  Any athlete playing a seasonal sport understands that the time to refine, improve or make wholesale changes to the motions they rely on is NOT during their season.  If you want to make 2012 the best year of your golf career, do not wait until late March to get a tune up.  Start today to make significant and lasting improvements to your golf swing and putting stroke.

Over the winter you can really get into making changes.  You can get your golf swing analyzed via video or 3-D Motion.  We can diagnose your putting stroke using a computer analysis.  You can find out if your body has the mobility and stability to perform the golf swing you are trying to make.  Once you have a clear understanding of what you are doing, we can get a plan in place to address these issues.

The key is to do it now.  In the winter you have an opportunity to work on these changes without the interruption of your normal weekly game. 

Don't hope that this year is a better one.  Take action to make sure it is.

It is that time of year when many of us set goals for the year. How many people have made their New Year’s resolution to quit smoking, lose weight or lower their handicap? If your goal or resolution is based on a result, you could well be setting yourself up for failure.

Too many of us make the same resolution each year. Clearly this is a bad pattern. If someone resolved to lose weight every year they are either going to be ridiculously thin — or have failed to lose weight.

Try something with a little more definition this year. If your goal is to lose weight, make the resolution to exercise a certain number of times each week and maintain a more healthy diet. If your goal is to lower your handicap, commit to learning how to perform that skill and then pledge to practice that skill a certain number of times each week.

For those that want to shoot better scores in 2012, you may be able to get 75% of the way there by giving your putting skills their due time. Putting will account for roughly 40% of your shots in a round of golf. If you eliminated three-putts, what would that do to your handicap? If you made a few 15- or 20-footers and all of your 3- and 4-footers per round, what would that do?

Winter has arrived in New England, but putting can be improved indoors. I have already spent hours this week working with students on their putting mechanics. Make sure next year’s resolution is a new one. Start lowering your handicap today.  

Hank Haney is a great teacher.  no question about it.  However, in this months issue of Golf Digest his tip is about putting and is dead wrong.  Hank implores golfers to watch a missed putt as it rolls past the hole.  He says that it is important to watch how it curves after it goes past the hole because this is will show you "exactly how it will break" coming back to the hole on the next putt.  This is without question wrong.  The break of a putt is determined by a few inputs; slope direction, slope severity, and time.

A putt rolling up a hill is traveling at a different rate of speed than a putt rolling down the same grade.  A five foot uphill putt hit correctly will reach the hole in less time than a five foot downhill putt.  Once you change one of the data inputs, the amount of break changes.  The amount of time the ball took to roll three feet by the hole is different from the amount of time it will take to go back to the hole.  This is both a function of the original putt being either up or down a slope AND your two or three foot second putt will not be traveling fast enough to get two or three feet on the other side of the hole.  In other words, the ball that rolled past the hole will NOT follow the same amount of break back to the hole.  This is a long standing myth, but it is just that, a myth.

We have all seen it and many of us are guilty of it.  You face a "must make" putt.  The last message you tell yourself is, "Don't leave it short."  As a result, we slam the putt and it races past the hole.

I have seen it far too often.  I even saw it a few times while watching the Solheim Cup.  A ball that is traveling do fast that it will go 6 or 7 feet past the hole cannot go in the hole.

The hole is 4.25" in diameter.  The faster the ball is traveling the more the hole effectively shrinks.  If a ball travels 6" past the hole, the hole become 3.8" in diameter.  Hit it three feet by and the hole has shrunk to less than 1.5"!  If the ball will travel 5 feet past the hole, your target has been reduced to the size of a quarter, only 1/2"!

On "must make" putts please use good speed.  This gives you the biggest target.  If you are going to run the ball at the hole so fast that it will go 6 feet by, just concede the hole and save yourself the anguish.

I only saw a few minutes of yesterday's Tour Championship. The little I did see baffled me.

Two players had downhill putts on the same hole.  Both were about 15 feet away.  Player A rolls his ball down and thought it would slide a little bit right as it came down the hill.  It didn't budge and the ball slid past the left side of the hole.

Player B's ball was a good three to four feet to the right of the Player A but a similar distance the the hole.  Player B started his ball directly at the hole and the ball curved pretty hard to the right.

What astounded me was the commentators reaction.  "Wow, that one broke way to the right!  How could the first putt have been so straight and that one moved at least a foot?"

To think that this guy gets paid to comment on golf is the most shocking part.  Please understand this, if a ball rolls straight down a slope, another ball rolling down the same slope from a different angle cannot roll straight.  Further, if the second ball is to the right of the straight one, it MUST move to the right.  MUST.

Well the big storm has passed.  I am fortunate to live in an area of Connecticut that was only slightly affected by the wind and rain. 

So while we were all shut in by the storm this past Sunday, I worked on my golf game, did you?  Indoor training is something I stress to all of my students.  During the golf season, working indoors allows you to work on specific pieces of the motion without the distraction of the ball flight.  This is a faster way to change habits.  Once winter hits, all we have is indoor practice.  This is not a negative.  It is an opportunity to quickly and permanently correct a motion or a position.

So while I was watching the rain and the wind this past Sunday, I improved my putting stroke.  With a few of my favorite putting aids, the "Balls of Steel" and the "Kure" I was able to work on my putter alignment and a good transfer of energy into the ball. 

The great thing about both of these training aids is that they can be used anywhere.  Indoors, outdoors, with electricity or without.  Curious?  Let me know.  I love to talk or email golfers about ways to improve

Everyone talks about their "golf swing."  I constantly remind my students of what we are implying when we use the word swing.  There are two things that we must recognize about anything that swings.

1. Whatever it is that is swinging has no engine or motor.  A pendulum in a grandfather clock swings because of the gears in the clock, momentum and gravity.  On a playground, a swing set swings because of momentum and gravity.  There is no engine in the chain.
2. Whatever swings is extremely consistent.  There are no scratches in the back of the grandfather clock box.  The seat of the swing set moves through the same space at the bottom of the arc each time.

How does this apply to your golf swing?  If your arms and hands are guiding or forcing the club through the motion, you are hitting not swinging.  Once the hands control the golf club the consistency that is inherent to anything that swings is gone.

If your body moves correctly and the arms are allowed to swing freely because of that motion, centrifugal force and gravity, the arms, hands and club will move correctly and consistently.

"Keep your head down" is a phrase that is thrown around all too often. Let's take a minute to examine this.

If your friend tells you to keep your head down during the shot, what exactly is happening?  Clearly, your head is higher from the ground than where it started. My question to you is why is that happening? Once you are told to keep your head down you will make swings with that in mind, yet your head continues to rise.

First of all, let's define what happens when your friend sees your head rise. Your neck hasn't grown longer. What has happened is the angle of your spine relative to the ground has changed. As the spine moves from the angle it was in at address towards vertical, your head will move higher. So it is a posture issue, not a "head" issue.

I see this happen for two reasons. One is physical. If you do not have the mobility to make a proper golf swing while staying in posture, mentally trying to do so won't work.

The second reason for the loss of posture occurs in the forward swing is that you are making a down move rather than a forward swing. If the arms in any way force the club towards the ground, we have a physics problem and your will lose your posture.

Think back to middle school when you learned Newton's Laws of Motion. Law 3: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As this translates to golf, forcing the club towards the ground sends energy towards the ground. An equal amount of energy will also be sent up into your chest forcing you out of posture or to "lift your head."

So when you hear "keep your head down," let it translate to "rotate into the forward swing" rather than forcing the club towards the ball.

Last week I wrote about the need to practice variety in the short game.  Chipping a pile of balls from point A to point B will do little to improve your touch around the greens.

Coming up next week is one of my favorite spectator events of the year.  The Open Championship will be contested on Royal St. George's in Scotland.  "Links golf" as it is called is quite different from the golf played here in the States.  This is due in part to the windy conditions so common in Scotland but in most part to the ground conditions.  Links style golf courses are built on very sandy soil will after these hundreds of years produce extremely firm surfaces.  Trying to play high shots into the greens will often result in the wind taking the ball wherever it likes, followed by the ball rolling out of control to places unknown.

As a result, those that watch the Open will have the opportunity to see the great players use their imagination!  Rather than simply throwing a shot up in the air and having it settle close to where it lands, players will be playing many low, running shots.  "Bump and Runs", chips, knockdown shots...you will see them all.  You may see three players elect to play almost an identical shot three different ways.

Take a lesson from this.  Every short shot around the green is slightly different.  Understanding this, hit as many different shots as you can think of while you are practicing.  In doing this, you are expanding your imagination and will have a chance to figure out a way to get it close next time you are on the course.