Introducing Anti-Golf Tips

There seems to be a misconception that my ‘Golf Tips’ page actually contained useful golf tips. While I may occasionally offer my golf partners useful and insightful golf tips to improve their game (usually unappreciated), I make no claims that this site will help your game in any way, shape or fashion. Your game is your own personal hell…live with it! I’ve since renamed the page ‘Anti-Golf Tips’ so as not to confuse the slow, handicapped or lefties.

With that bit of administration out of the way, I’m posting my first lesson ‘How to Miss a Three Foot Putt’ so you can better gauge for yourself how useless this information really is.  If for some reason these golf tips screw up the game of one of my golf partners and result in increasing my golf winnings…so much the better. Enjoy at your own risk!

How to Miss a Three Foot Putt

You might think you don’t need any help missing short putts and you’re probably right. Missing a short putt is the most painful shot in golf and one that tends to stay with you for a long time. But do you know ‘why’ you missed that short putt?  Was it your grip, your stroke, your read of the green, something in your head or maybe you just suck at short putts?

We’re going to explore all those excuses and more with the help of a series of specially designed, corrective limericks that have been certified authentic by the PGA Limerick Committee and fully UL tested for wear and durability under any conditions. This is all done to insure that after reading this article, you’re no better a putter then when you started and may in fact be worse because of all the additional crap floating around in your head.

On the other hand, you may gain a new appreciation for the learning capabilities of a good limerick and next time you’re standing over a three foot birdie putt, walk away with a happy par. So let’s get started!

An old Scotsman once did advise
That good putting often supplies,
A boost to your score
Where less equals more,
‘Cause a putt counts the same as a drive.

Step 1: The Grip. Taking a death grip on the putter until your knuckles turn white is a sure fire method to hit a poor putt.  They say you’re supposed to hold the putter like a little bird, just firm enough so it doesn’t fly away. Baloney! Save the soft grip for masturbation.  You don’t want the club accidentally slipping out of your hand and injuring someone further up the food chain. Of course we’re talking metaphorically here because if you squeeze a bird too hard, all the blood and guts will get on your hands and muck up the grip of that $5 putter you bought last week at a garage sale.

The strength of your grip on the putter
Is like holding a bird with no flutter.
Soft hands is the goal
So give it a roll,
And maybe you won’t putt another.

Step 2:  The Putter. People always ask me what type of putter they should use. Mallet, blade, funky shape, rainbow colors? It doesn’t matter. When you’re a lousy putter, the club makes no difference. You can miss just as easily with a new $250 Scotty Cameron as you can with the $5 garage sale putter covered with the bird guts. Just make sure you get a putter that allows you to scoop up the ball without bending over. Nothing looks better after missing a short putt than flicking the ball up in the air, catching it deftly and walking off the green in disgust as if that’s the first short putt you’ve missed in 6 years!

The putter you use plays a role,
But not near what their makers extol.
Mallet or blade?
Despite what you paid,
You can’t ‘buy your way’ in the hole.

Step 3: Reading the Break. Jack Nicklaus likes to say that every three foot putt is straight, if you hit it hard enough. That’s all well and good if you’ve got the skill to make that come back putt after you lipped out and the ’shotgun effect’ propelled the ball further away then where you started.  Always play lots of break on short putts because then you have a built in excuse for missing e.g. “that broke more than I thought” or “I did not see that break”.  You always sound smarter blaming the green rather than admitting you hit a total crap of a putt.

A three-footer always will break
Whichever way means a mistake.
So back of the hole
Like a string on a pole,
And maybe this time it goes straight.

Step 4: Standing Over the Ball. Let’s face it, short putts are hard and it takes a lot of concentration and mental obstrafucation [editor: not a real word] to get into the proper mindset to actually hit the ball.  Where is this done? Standing over the ball, of course. Why take the chance you’ll forget something by thinking about it before you’re ready to putt? All this must be done as you’re standing over the ball giving plenty of time to set your demons free and insure another missed putt. With any luck at all, one of your playing partners will say, “hit the ball already!”, giving you a ready made excuse for when you miss. You’re probably noticing by now, excuses are important! Don’t leave home without them.

The real secret to putting, it’s said,
Is your thoughts as they flash through your head.
Unclutter your mind,
Break out a rhyme
And sing ‘Uncle Albert’ instead.

[note: Paul McCartney's 'Uncle Albert' has been scientifically proven to provide a high level of distraction to the male Madagascar Lemurs thereby enabling them to maintain an erection 23.5% longer.  If it works for Lemurs, it can work for you. The distraction that is, not the erection.]

Step 5: Dealing with Tension. Tension is that feeling you get after you’ve got your death grip on, you’ve no idea how this putt will break, your demons are flying fast and furious and then you feel it, welling up deep inside…..gas! Never again with the Mexican food before a round! What to do?

Sorry…but you can’t hit a putt, good or bad, with your butt tightly clenched against slippage. It could permanently damage your sphincter! While you may be thinking “that hot cart girl is watching and maybe I can ask her out”, you really need to consider if getting shot down by her is worth missing a three-footer for double bogey. Your only real option is to let it out. While your friends are voicing their disgust and the cart girl speeds away fearing the plague, it might be just the distraction you need to relax and make the putt.

Before stepping up ready to putt,
You must be relaxed in your butt.
Feeling some gas?
Just let it pass,
As long as you sink it, “so what”?

Step 6: The Stroke. Finally…finally…we can hit the damn ball. The putting stroke is the final culmination of all the preparation above…the actual swinging of the club that will send the ball hurtling towards destiny. By now you’re such a complete mess, you’re doing good just to prevent muscle seizure. The most effective stroke to insure a complete miss is the ’stab’. The same one used, similarly with a stick, to poke injured animals or ugly naked guys (see ‘Friends’ season 3). A good stab will insure the ball starts with a skid and never even scares the hole.

This is the opposite of the nice, smooth stroke you see the pros use but then they’re not using the death grip, flying demons, free gas methodology you’ve worked so hard to develop. Your only real hope is to close your eyes, sing Uncle Albert and hope for the best.

Your putting stroke has to be true,
So mistakes upon impact are few.
The more you refine,
The better the line,
The fewer the strokes to accrue.

Conclusion: I hope this little exercise has opened your eyes to the great complexity inherent in each and every golf shot.  No wonder it takes five hours to play! If you see yourself falling prey to any of these mistakes, I can offer the following advice:

• Memorize the limericks. You may get a laugh and they’re specially formulated to be effective against gas.

• Make more long putts.  This way, you have fewer shorter putts with which to humiliate yourself.

• Go for the two putt. No one, and I mean no one, wants to three putt from three feet!