Golf...putting...the greens beneath our feet. Golf should be a fun, enjoyable sport for most. However, as humans, we strive to be the best at all that we do, and we tend to over-think the steps necessary for a great short game. The fundamentals - weight on the left leg, feet square to the target line, hips and shoulders square to the feet, can get obscured by our line-of-sight (relax, breathe, and I need to make a hole-in-one!).
The terrain and weather conditions are important, and factor into our play; however, the skilled golfer knows that in times of doubt and rougher greens, always fall back onto your core training: shoulders level; dominant eye directly over the ball; left elbow pointed to target; thumbs on top of shaft; etc. Since many golfers are not good at judging what effect variations in grass, terrain, and moisture will have on a putted ball, a fear of missing the shot will overtake them and even paralyze a great short game. This is not the time to experiment with a varied technique. Variations are fine as long as the motive is sound - wet grass on the course does not necessarily indicate a time for drastic change.
Changes to technique are tempting, but faith and confidence in your well-developed training are best. The chances of unproven, minor adjustments working are slim at best. Nobody makes all the shots. The best way to become a better putter is by simply sticking to a single style until you're comfortable with it. Should you experience a slump in your putting, head to the practice green for the purpose of reestablishing confidence in your stroke, rather than changing it. The practice green is the best environment to test the "new" ideas and tweaks. Consequently, you'll have a better chance to produce the proper speed, and direction, necessary for each specific shot. By keeping your smaller swings as similar as possible to your full ones you'll be trying to produce basically the same motion for every single swing. The only true variations then become the precise amount of energy necessary for that specific shot, and the swing size through which you can most efficiently both generate and direct that energy.
