The three most important aspects of a putting stroke are:

1. Putter Acceleration/Stability

2. Putting Rhythm/Tempo

3. Ball Contact

All right, let's start by looking at putter acceleration/stability.

It's often taught that we need to have a putter that is accelerating....but why?

Well, it's simply because when you have a putter that is accelerating as it strikes the ball it makes the club head more stable. And this helps to resist any twisting and wobbling that can be caused if the ball is not hit squarely from the sweet spot of the putter.

Or in other words, if your putter is accelerating at impact you'll have better directional and distance control.

But when golfers hear that they should accelerate their putters for better direction and distance control they often exaggerate this, causing erratic results.

So to make sure that doesn't happen to you, you've got to realize that you only need to accelerate your putter slightly to get the benefits of increased direction and distance control. And here's something that may surprise you....

You should NOT "try" to accelerate your putter

Instead, you simply need to swing the putter through further than your back swing. But when you do this, it's very important that you swing your putter with a consistent tempo and that's what we're going to discuss next.

You see, when you stroke a putt, whether it's a 3 footer or a 50 footer, the time it takes for you to swing the putter should be exactly the same.

Yep, exactly the same!

That's called a consistent tempo. And one huge advantage of doing this is that it makes it much easier to control the distance you hit your ball. Because if your stroke takes the same amount of time for every putt then you simply need to increase the length of your stroke to hit the ball further.

This means you won't ever have to think about how hard or soft you have to hit the ball. Instead you simply gauge the size of the stroke you'll need and stroke the ball with that stroke. Doing this makes distance control a lot easier and it will reduce your 3 putts. And that's why I get my students to focus on this one aspect with one simple exercise which trains them and teaches them how to do this.

But when you putt with the same tempo you also want to have a nice, smooth rhythm to your stroke. You don't want a jerky motion when putting even if it takes the same amount of time. A good image to have of what is required is that of a pendulum on a clock.

All right, you now know that you need to accelerate your putter while swinging the putter smoothly with the same tempo for every length of stroke. Next we're going to look at the ball contact.

When you stroke a putt you want your ball to contact your putte rface exactly on the sweet spot of your putter. And the more consistently you can do this the better you'll putt.

Why is the point of contact between your ball and the putter face so important in determining how good you're going to putt?

Simply because where you contact the ball on your putter face determines the amount of energy that is transferred to the ball. And the energy your golf ball receives controls....

a) how far your ball travels, and

b) how fast and how much your ball will curve.

So if you did two putting strokes exactly the same but on one putt you hit the sweetspot of your putter and the other one you didn't, then the two balls would go different distances and curve different amounts.

Now when I say "sweet spot" what really does that term mean?

 OK, let me explain....you know when you hit a great drive it feels really good because the ball struck the very center of the club face (i.e. the sweet spot)?

Well, in putting the same principle applies just on a smaller scale and it's less noticeable as far as feel is concerned.

But if you can hit your putter's sweet spot consistently then you will be able to control the speeds of your putts much, much better. And this will not only allow you to hole more putts, but you'll also reduce the amount of 3 putts you have because you'll roll the ball closer to your target, i.e. the hole!

In short, if you want to become a great putter then you must be able to control the speed you hit your putts -- because being able to hit putts consistently on the sweet spot is one of the most important aspects of being able to do this.