Q&A With Ben Crenshaw On The State Of Putting

For Golfweek’s May putting issue, I couldn’t help but ask Ben Crenshaw all sorts of grumpy old man questions like why can’t these kids put like you used to, what’s with these silly green reading books and what happened to all the blade putters?

I enjoyed this answer to a question about how to get kids developing their putting:

Crenshaw: Putting contests, I always thought, were great. Harvey encouraged that. Having to putt against someone and go around the clock. There’s no better practice, because you’re putting something on the line, you’re competing. When you’re putting at different holes, that’s what golf is. When I was a kid, I found about eight balls out on the golf course. I went up to the putting green by myself, and I hit this one putt about an hour. Same putt, over and over. Harvey said, “Ben, I see what you’re doing. Your stroke looks pretty good, but you’ll never have that putt again the rest of your life. Putt to different holes.” You see young people do that in practice. They get the chalk out with straight lines and all that stuff.