How I Learned to Putt - from a Ten Year Old

I gave up golf years ago.  I could hit the ball off the tee, get out of the rough and sand traps fairly consistently, and even occasionlly hit the green in regulation.   I just couldn't putt.   I took lessons from pros, gifted amatuers, and from friends and golf partners.   Anybody and everybody and nothing worked.  It wasn't until the latest book project arrived in the shop that I realized I was fighting a losing battle from the start.  I had started playing in my later twenties and that I found out was the problem.

Sherri Mignatti wanted us to make and bind a book about Golf,  her son Garrett Whitfield had written and drawn in a small spiral bound notebook.   Garrett was ten years old when he wrote the book, but he had the gold wisdom of a fifty year old. 

Here's the opening chapter:

Who ever the putter

is you face the direction

you want the ball to

travel.  Then square

your feet, kness,

shoulders and arms

parallel to a path.

Put your eyes on the

dot or on the middle part

of the club and

point it to the hole.

to make the putter

stroke, get into

your proper alignment

over the ball and

take one last look

at the line.

Take the putter back

with your arms and your

shoulder swing together.

That's how the whole book is written, in a poetic manner.   

Here is his advice on reading a green:

hear is a few

other ways to

read a green.

knele down,

and look at the

greens if you

can’t see which

way it is going

then pretend

your eyes

are a golf cuputer

game and your

putting and

then see how

your green is going.

I play golf myself, barely adequate most times.   Here is what I learned about golf as I transcribed the written text into Adobe  Illustrator for placement opposite each scanned image.

You have to start young, very young. You should not try to be perfect because nobody is perfect.   You should teach your child the rules of golf and never permit Mulligans and gimmees.  Your first putt should always get with a barrel's diameter of the hole for an easy second putt.   You should have an uncle who teaches you all this at ten years of age.  You should have brothers and friends to play with who look out for you.  

I still can't putt and I'm way to old to care.  Perhaps that would make me a better golfer these days. I may have to just take Garrett's lessons to heart and make a trip to the local course early this spring, meanwhile I think the book itself when done, 8 was the equivilent of reaching a par 5 in two so that I can share with you.

We took the original notebook and scanned each page.   We transcribed the written text into Illustrator and place the text opposite the matching image page.  No editing or formatting was done to the text.  It was perfect as originally written.   We printed the pages out on acid free Johannet paper.  Garrett had drawn several images and we used on, a pair of hands holding a golf club for the front cover graphic and another drawing of the 18th hole for the rear fly page.   The cover was done in forest green goatskin, titled in gold leaf.  The end papers were custom designed paste papers depicting a dog legged golf hole.  

This was a fun job, and an educational one.  Here's a few photos of the finished book.