On the Greens: Drill

How I went 351 holes without a three-putt

By Stewart Cink

With Ron Kaspriske

Photos By Jim Gund

December 2005

Testy four-footers are the ones that can make or break a round. When I was at Georgia Tech, former golf coach Puggy Blackmon used to make us do this tee drill before we could leave practice. Using your driver to measure approximate distance, place two tees in the ground at both ends of the grip (about three and four feet). Then build three more two-tee setups as shown until you have four stations. Using one ball, the goal is to make a putt from each tee (eight in all). At Tech, we had to go around three times without a miss to leave practice.

'I TRIED IT'
'Name: Curt Semanson
'Hometown: Duluth, Ga.
'Handicap: 10
I didn't get nervous down the stretch. When I started making them, I gained a little more confidence in my stroke. I made 12 in a row before I missed. These are the putts that make your score.

Why I tried the belly putter

At the tail end of the 2002 PGA Tour season, I was struggling with my putting when I saw my coach at the time, Mark Wood, using the belly putter. It shocked me because he was always a good putter.

I figured if he could do it, then some of the stigma about using one had been washed away. I spent about four hours on the practice green when I first got one, and when the tournament started, on the first hole I made a 10-footer for par. All of a sudden, I felt pretty used to it. Growing up, I was taught with a regular putter to hold the face angle square to the target going through. But when you get older, nerves creep in, and you find manipulating the putter through the ball is something you don't want to do. Instead, with the belly -- mine is a 47-inch Nike BC 002 -- it forces me to release the putter the same way on the way back and through. I'm now experimenting with a conventional putter, but releasing it like a belly putter.