By Paul Gueorgieff Golfer Pacific NZ Editor

I listened with much interest recently when an American television golf commentator said Rory McIlroy was getting away from the technical aspect of putting.

The commentator said McIlroy, recently demoted as the world’s No 1 ranked player, had dispensed with using a putting line on the golf ball and was working more on getting the feel of the putt.

I don’t use a putting line on a ball, simply because I don’t believe in it. When you are behind the ball and lining up the line with where you want the ball to go, that is relatively easy because you are behind the ball.

But when you are getting ready to make the putt, you are standing to the side of the ball and looking down on the ball. It’s not the same as crouching down behind the ball and looking at where you want to hit it. They are two completely different perspectives.

The comparison I make is aiming a rifle. When you are aiming a rifle you are looking down the gun barrel. You are not standing to the side of the gun barrel and looking down on top of the gun barrel.

I used to know a guy who used to stand astride his ball when making his putt. He was a great putter, because he was standing behind the ball and was looking down the line of putt.

I’m not sure what the golf rules where then but you are certainly not able to do that now. You are not allowed to putt by standing astride the ball or having a foot on the line of the putt or an extension of that line.

So how do you hit a putt straight?

I don’t know is the answer. All I know is you need to have a reliable putting stroke and have a good feel for the putt you are about to make.

I always give the following example of how hard putting is.

If a line was painted on the green to show the exact line of a putt of moderate length and moderate break, could you keep the ball on the line every time?

The answer is clearly no because the line is painted for a certain speed of putt and getting the right speed is as hard as getting the right line.

The American golf commentator underlined the fact that feel remains one of the most important aspects of golf. I couldn’t agree more.

How do you get feel? By looking and assessing. That’s about it. We are not robots.

Recently I played with a person who was measuring his pitch and chip shots from under 50 metres. We all come across such people and wonder what are they actually trying to determine.

If one pitch is 43 metres long and another one is 37 metres long, what are they going to do differently? The smarty-pants answer is hit the 37-metre pitch six metres softer than the 43-metre pitch.

Please don’t tell me that the backswing would only go back to 8.30 on an imaginary clock instead of nine o’clock, even though I know a top Wellington player who used to subscribe to exactly that theory. Far too technical for me.

For me, it’s all about feel. Looking and assessing.