Putting is a crucially important aspect of the game, but is often neglected by many amateur golfers when they get the opportunity to practice. Just spending an hour here or there working with the flat stick will help you to shoot lower scores on the course, especially with the vast array of excellent putting tips and drills that are so readily available.
In this video and article, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Ged Walters shares four fantastic putting drills, along with his expert tips, in order to help you make more birdies and avoid those costly three-putts...
1. Three-Foot Circle Drill
These four drills will help you to banish those damaging 3-putts from your game and give you more confidence on the greens. Making those crucial short putts from around 3-feet could be the difference between par and bogey.
Set-up a circle around the hole using tee pegs, measured at around three-feet, and place a ball down next to each marker. You can start anywhere, and you simply need to make your way around the circle holing as many as you can.
By going around the hole, you will get putts of all different breaks, so this is a great way to practise. The added pressure of keeping score will also replicate the feeling you might experience on the course, so why not set a target and try to beat it.
2. The Ruler Drill
This drill is my personal favourite – as it narrows the target and gives us plenty of useful information. Set up a metre ruler with one end touching the edge of the hole. Place a golf ball up at the opposite end, and try to putt the ball down the ruler.
It helps you to understand the position of your putter face at impact, as an open face will send the ball off the ruler to the right, and a closed face off to the left. Practise holing as many as you can consecutively without the ball falling off either side, and you will notice your putting improve on the course as a result.
3. Killer
Killer is a great game to practise holing out under pressure, and it’s so easy to set-up. Place a tee around one-foot from the hole, and then go back on that line placing another tee at two, three, four and five-feet.
Start at the first tee, and try to hole three putts from that distance. If you succeed, move back and repeat from the second tee, and so on. If you miss, however, you have to go back to the start. Try it out, and see how far back you can get.
4. Heads Up Drill
This final drill focuses on distance control and lag putting. This important skill can save you plenty of shots, so it’s well worth committing some time to practising. If you were aiming to throw the ball to someone standing by the hole, the chances of you leaving it eight-foot short or ten-foot past are very slim, and one reason for that is you are looking at your target.
Your brain has calculated the distance and speed needed to get from A to B, and this is something we can experiment with in our putting. Find a putt on the practice green at a distance that you might usually struggle to get close to the hole when on the course, and use the same three-foot circle you set-up for the first drill as your target area.
Get into your set-up position, and instead of looking at the ball, try looking at the target. Hit a few putts, aiming to stop the ball inside the three-foot circle. Try this from various points around the practice green, so that you can experience different breaks and speeds.
