If the guys who train snipers for the military have a piece of advice for me on accuracy, I’m not only going to pay attention, I’m going to take that advice. Those guys don’t get second chances. They don’t get to miss. When the stakes are high and lives are on the line, they follow a simple mantra. Aim small, miss small.
Even if you haven’t talked to any snipers lately, you have probably heard this. Some of the top disc golfers in the world give this instruction when teaching putting clinics. Sometimes they say aim small, miss small. Sometimes they say pick a link. either way, it’s the same thing. But what does it really mean?
Put very simply, if you aim at the basket and miss, you miss your putt. If you aim at as small a target as possible, like an individual link, you can miss your target but still make your putt. You can miss your target by quite a bit, actually, and still make the putt when approaching your putting in this way.
If you really think about it, the basket it pretty big. In fact, there’s a big debate floating around about having the pros use smaller baskets. One of the best putters in the world, Cam Todd, has actually designed a smaller basket just for this reason. This begs the question for us average disc golfers. If the basket is too big, why do we keep missing it?!
The answer might lie in where you are aiming. If you don’t already do this, the next time you are out on the course try picking a singular link. Focus only on that one small spot. Personally, I like to pick a link on one of the inner chains, just on the right side of the pole, about 30% of the way down from the top of the basket. That’s the link I’m aiming to hit. Somewhere in that area is probably where you will pick as well.
This gets really fun when you realize you can actually hit that link more often than not. That’s how you know you’re getting good. When you can step up and hit a particular spot on the chains, you will start to understand how the pros hit so many putts.
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