Everyone hates to three putt. For some people, avoiding a hat-trick of putts on one hole for their entire round can be as pleasing as making a single birdie.
But however healthy your relationship with the putter is, you know the less you use it, the better you score. And in the professional game, scoring low via a lack of putter use can make you a whole lot of money. Just ask Matt Kuchar, who has made almost $60 million across his long career.
The PGA Tour's leading money winner in 2010, Kuchar has just risen to the top of the pile in a key stat with the flat stick. According to PGA Tour records, Kuchar has now gone 212 consecutive holes without three-putting - up to and including the recent World Wide Technology Championship where the American carded a round-wrecking quadruple bogey.
Despite allowing a six-shot lead to slip through his fingers during the penultimate round at the Tiger Woods designed El Cardonal Golf Course at Diamante, Kuchar maintained his composure with the shortest club in his bag and finished just two shots behind emotional winner, Erik van Rooyen in Los Cabos, Mexico.
Regardless of that hiccup, Kuchar moved ahead of LIV Golfer Cameron Smith - who has long been known as one of the best putters in the world - in the no-three-putts table. Rather extraordinarily, Smith had been leading that particular category with a mammoth 205 holes in a row - a sequence that had kept him top on the PGA Tour's list despite having last played a sanctioned event there in August 2022.
And although Kuchar's streak of almost 12 rounds in a row with no more than a two putt is mightily impressive, the American will likely feel that kind of quality should perhaps have generated a few more top-10s, with last week's result coming as something of a surprise given his form over the second half of 2023. Since mid-May, the 2012 Players champion had claimed a highest finish of T20 at the Canadian Open - surrounded by a number of missed cuts.
Prior to the Floridian's tied-second finish at the World Wide Technology Championship, Kuchar had rarely featured anywhere near the top of a leaderboard in recent weeks and months. He managed a share of seventh spot at September's Fortinet Championship, but that was his first top-10 finish since April's Sony Open in Hawaii - coincidentally, the site of Kuchar's most recent win in 2019.
Kuchar - who had gained the nickname 'Mr Consistency' while using his Bettinardi putter - will therefore be hoping to put that quadruple bogey behind him quickly and hope his new putting prowess will push him onto brighter days in 2024.
If you are also looking to brighten up the winter period, we will be covering all of the best Black Friday deals here ahead of the big day near the end of this month.
