European Tour Blog from Putting Coach Phil Kenyon

Valderrama was the venue this week.  This is always a great event to come due for many reason not least because the greens are always fantastic. Stimping at 12.5 this week and slopey they will prove to be a real test.

I arrived Monday and despite the rain and wind kept myself busy at the course. First up was David Howell. Every now and then David will ask me to have a look at this stroke. David is an experienced campaigner and a great putter. His stats are as good as anybodies over the least 6 or 7 years. So he knows what he should be doing. I spent a little  time giving him some feedback and I think he left the session with a lot more confidence that he had at the beginning.

On Tuesday I met up with Oliver Fisher in the morning and walked the front 9 with him. It was good to get out on the course and see the how difficult the greens are with certain pin locations on certain holes. The key I believe on putting on slick sloping surfaces like here is to make sure the tempo doesn't change, you just shorten the stroke. The biggest mistake I see golfers make when they get on really quick greens is that they slow the stroke down to take the speed out of the ball. When you loose your natural timing it can affect the mechanics and distance control. So my message this week was keep the flow to your stroke just match the stroke length to the putt. When you do so it always feels like a more aggressive putt, in terms of the motion, but with the appropriate speed in the ball. You also have to accept you will be making some short strokes this week!

Tuesday afternoon I spent with Thomas Bjorn. I hadn't seen Thomas for a few weeks, after putting tremendously well over the summer he struggled in Portugal on the last round otherwise he could have made it 4 wins this year. We spent the Tuesday and the Wednesday morning out on the course getting him back to the feelings he had prior to Portugal.

On Wednesday afternoon I caught up Richie Ramsay (picture on the right). Richie has been working hard on his putting in recent weeks and had a great finish in Valencia last week. His stroke has improved this year and with a recent tweak to his set up which has helped his alignment it was looking even better. On the Wednesday we spent most of the session testing his alignment and speed control on breaking putts ready for the challenge that lay ahead.

Hopefully the event will be back at Valderrama next year, it really is a favourite of mine. Indeed I would love to play the course one day myself. My next event on your will be Singapore.