Rickie Fowler on How To Sink the Must-Make 4-Foot Putt | Golf Lessons | Golf Digest

Rickie Fowler and Butch Harmon show you how to stay calm and roll them in.

Transcript
Alright Rickie, let's see you run this one in.
Alright, I got it Butchy.
Hey Rickie, can I have a picture?
Yeah bud, let me just roll this in real quick.
Woah, what was that?
Hey how about that picture?
Uh, nevermind, I'm good.
We got some serious work to do Butch.
No kidding.
(rock music)
We know you don't miss those little putts like that
but you play in Pro-Ams every week on tour,
but the average player, he has a huge gap in his game.
(rock music)
Routine is so important, you see guys in Pro-Ams
if we tell them this putts for a par
and you get a stroke here for a birdie,
they're making four or five practice strokes,
they're taking too long,
they're holding the doggone thing too tight.
Mmhmm.
What you can really learn from doing a consistent
routine, you know if I put a stop watch on you
on the first round of the tournament,
and on the nd hole when you have a putt to win,
you take the same amount of time on each putt.
I think that's important, don't you?
Definitely, I start reading my putts from the hole back.
I like to see how I see the ball going into the hole
and drawing that line back and understanding where
I'm trying to start the putt.
(rock music)
Why don't you talk me through what you do on your putt?
Well, really the routine starts as I'm walking
up to the green and understanding what the green's doing
and then after that, taking a look around the hole,
behind, underneath the putt and just getting an idea
of where I see the ball entering the hole.
Drawing everything back, figuring out how hard I want
to hit the putt,
and if you can start the ball where you want to repetitively
the two big things are line and speed on putting.
Really focus on grip pressure and making sure that
you're not holding it too tight and strangling the grip.
You don't want to also hold it too loose,
you want to make sure you have control of the putter.
One of my other key points is just a little hover of
the putter before you stroke the ball.
The big thing with this is you don't use it
as a balance point,
and the putter also doesn't get stuck on the ground.
And then once I do that, I'm really just focusing
on a spot right behind the ball,
to keep my eyes and head still.
Just hover it.
Go ahead and putt.
Oh I agree, I'll tell you what.
If you can use the same routine on these short putts
every time, I don't care if it's to win your club
championship or a beer from somebody, or a soda from
a young kid, just do the same thing every time.
You're going to give yourself a better change to do it,
and you'll be like Rickie Fowler,
you stand up there and you drill it right in.
(rock music)
That's more like it Rickie, my man.
Hey Rickie, how about that photo?
Yeah let's do it.
No over here Rick.
(camera shutter)
Did you get it?
Yeah I got it.
[Boy] Alright, thanks. Thank you.
You got it.
Thank you.
Yup, you're welcome.
That was cool, huh?