Michelle Wie couldn’t close the deal on Saturday, blowing a three-shot lead with eight holes to go and losing by three shots to Angela Stanford at the season-opening SBS Open in Hawaii. But should we have expected anything else? I’m not being hard on Michelle, it’s just that winning is extremely difficult out there, and Michelle hasn’t won for a very, very long time – since the 2003 USGA Women’s Amateur Public Links, to be exact. She’s going to have to learn how to win, and that’s something she will do in time (I think she’ll win several events by year’s end), but not before she goes through a few more growing pains like Saturday.
 
The good news is that Wie seems to have found a permanent home on the LPGA Tour, which can only help in her quest to get back in the winner’s circle. Her schedule in previous years put her in no position to do that. It was a joke. You’re not going to learn how to win playing in a PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour event where your goal is to shoot 2-under par and make the cut. It’s a whole different mindset for her now, because her focus is on winning, not being slightly above average. She’s definitely on the right track.

I have a few additional thoughts on the topic of lag putting, which I wrote about in my initial blog entry yesterday. First off, ditch the phrase “three-putting” from your vocabulary. Too many golfers approach a putt of 30 feet or more with the attitude that they want to get the ball close enough to the hole to avoid three-putting. Well, with that negative approach, it’s no wonder why they almost always leave their first putts short of the hole. I like to use the analogy that if you’re driving your new car with the sole focus of not getting in a car accident, then how do you expect to get to your eventual destination? Take a more positive approach and think about “one-putting.” Note your final destination, or target (the hole), and hit the putt with enough pace to get the ball there.
 
Secondly, I hate it when I read instruction articles suggesting that you try and putt to a three-foot circle around the hole (six feet in diameter). I mean REALLY, if you’re saying that three feet is acceptable, that’s like telling your child a grade of C is okay even though an A or a B is certainly attainable. When was the last time a student got into Duke with a C average? You can do better: Expect that you’ll make the putt on your first attempt. The more you envision this happening, the more it will.

Nick Watney’s 40-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the par-3 16th hole at Torrey Pines on Sunday was sweet redemption for a three-putt he had from a similar distance during the final round of last year’s U.S. Open. Watney’s putt broke sharply from right to left and then appeared to veer right at the last second and catch the left edge of the cup, helping him seize the momentum and overtake John Rollins for a one-stroke victory at the Buick Invitational.
 
Watney’s putt had the perfect pace on it, something most amateurs overlook when preparing to lag putt. Most of their focus is on the line, and where they’re going to hit the ball along this line, not on speed and the total distance the ball has to travel. They’re also thinking about how not to three-putt, which makes them more cautious and, more often than not, leads to a putt that stops well short of the hole.
 
Here’s a drill I call “Lag for Break,” which will improve your distance control on putts of 15 feet or more. Lay down a shaft horizontally about 15 feet away, and putt three balls toward the shaft, trying to get each ball to finish as close to the goal line (my name for the shaft) as possible without touching it. Once you get good at lagging each putt within inches of the goal line, change your target to two tees and then finally a spot, such as an old filled-in cup or tuft of green. Lag to distances of 25 and 35 feet, but no more. The more consistent your pace is on long putts, the better your green-reading skills will be and the more you’ll think about holing out in one putt, just as Watney did on Sunday.