Never Up Never In
Never Up Never In is one of the many cliché phrases that get thrown around when you play golf. A lot of these clichés are purely urban myth and should be avoided like the plague but Never Up Never In is possibly the most important and should be implemented into your game.
Obviously if the golf ball doesn’t reach the hole it can’t go in so ideally if your putt misses the hole it should finish in a 3 foot round semicircle behind the hole. I have seen many many golfers decide that they are not going to be short and ram the putt 6 to 10 feet past the hole, the putt is up but it can’t go in because it is travelling to fast. The Never Up Never In mantra must still leave you with return putts that are statistically gettable and that is inside 3 feet.
Mentally golfers will baby their putts up to the hole when they have trouble with 3 putting, it seems to be safer if they are 5 feet short instead of 5 feet past. 5 feet past is nearly always beeter.
The big advantage of getting your putts past the hole when you miss, is you can watch the ball as it passes the hole. You are getting a direct real time read on how your next putt will behave…this is a huge advantage over a putt that finishes short.
So, your mission is to practice the speed control of your putts and get them to ideally finish 2 feet past the hole. The probability of holing the first putt goes up if the ball reaches the hole and the probability of getting the return putt goes up as well. It just makes sense!