The Back Nine: It's in the hole!

Orchard Valley's Tom Tierney on putting..."I'm a firm believer in its basically a feel thing. It's real, real hard to take someone that doesn't have a certain amount of natural feel and ability and turn them into an excellent putter. You can take a lousy putter and turn them into an average putter."

On what good putters need...
"Another key facet to putting is knowing you're a good putter. It's a state of mind. A lot of good putters are cocky. You have to have a certain amount of that."

"You have to have a really good imagination. You have to be able to look at it and factor in the contour of the green, the pace of the green, uphill, downhill, sidehill...it's not like lining up a pool shot. A good putter can walk up on a green and come pretty close without squatting behind the thing and lining it up."

Whitetail Ridge Golf Club pro Patrick MacDonald had this to add as well...
"Get at least one lesson from your PGA Pro, and put a tee out there and putt to that tee and not to the cup. To me, alignment and speed are the two things that aren't practiced enough or they don't know about it."

Click here and here for the PGA Tour's current putting stats - pretty cool stuff and it gives you a way to track your own progress on the greens...

To inspire you, here's a great video of Tiger's prowess on the greens during the '08 Match Play when he came all the way back on JB Holmes...

And another one to show you all the great that can come from focus! nananananana....