Pros generally win or lose in the margins. Being a tiny bit worse in one or two areas is the difference between an elite golfer and one struggling to keep their tour card.
For amateur golfers, it's the opposite. It's big mistakes that separate lower handicaps from higher ones. Moments where it takes two shots to do the work of one.
Three instances where this happens the most:
- It takes two chips to get onto the green, instead of one, because you flubbed your first.
- You hit a ball into a penalty area off the tee, so you have to drop or re-tee with your third shot.
- You miss a short putt, or blast your first attempt way past, turning a two-putt opportunity into a three-putt.
The latter is something we can all relate to in particular—three-putts are such an unforced error it often feels like a particularly bad gut punch. So I went looking to see who was the best on tour at avoiding three-putts last season.
The answer? Rickie Fowler.
What he's good at: Avoiding three-putts
Fowler, this year's winner of The Arnie Award presented by Golf Digest, three-putted just 1.4 percent of the time in 2025, tops on the PGA Tour, with an approach putt proximity of just two feet.
It shouldn't come as a huge surprise—he's been an elite putter for most of his career. I went into the Golf Digest archive to look for clues why, and here's what came back.
1. Hover the putter above the ground
Fowler has always done something interesting throughout his career: Moments before he starts his stroke, Fowler hovers the putter head a few millimeters above the ground.
This, explains the six-time PGA Tour winner, relieves tension in his fingers and forearms by forcing him to hold the putter lightly in place, and prevents the putterhead from sticking into the grass as you try to take it back.
2. Two different grips
Fowler also played around with using two different grips from various ranges throughout his career—something Scottie Scheffler does himself. He uses the claw from short range and coventional from longer.
Fowler's approach is somewhat similar.
- From longer range, he used a conventional grip to encourage some subtle wrist hinge in his putting stroke.
- From shorter range, Fowler switched to a left-hand low grip, which he says aligns his forearms and reduces that wrist hinge, making the clubface more stable.
The takeaway here is that long and short putts require different things. Longer putts are about speed; shorter putts are about keeping the clubface square. Different tasks that sometimes require different grips.
3. 24-inch rule
Waffling over how hard you want to hit a putt won't do you any good.
Fowler says he tries to take the confusion out of the equation by picking one speed ahead of time—and not second-guessing it. Fowler's goal, he says, is to pick a speed that will end the putt two feet past the hole. He works backwards from there.
4. Focus on a spot behind the ball
Finally, Fowler keeps his eyes quiet and head still on his putts—but not in the way you think. He doesn't lock his eyes onto the ball. Instead, he locks into a spot behind the golf ball, on the ground. It makes sense: That spot, unlike the ball, isn't going to move, so that's where he looks.