BADLY need putting improvement

I played a round today that seriously made me re-evaluate my practice regimen. I haven't worked very much on putting. I now know how important it is!

Just a few stats from my last round:

Score: 86 +14
FWs: 7/14
GIR: 9/18
Putts: 41
Scrambling: 0% (9 chances)

First of all, this may be a record for lowest round with 40+ putts. Not sure, but I just might call Guinness.

But secondly, and more imporantly, how do you practice putting? On a practice green? On your carpet at home? Some other crazy method? Just kinda curious, because I will now be spending about 60% of my practice time putting.

I practice putting in about anyway that I can. I'll hit puts, usually 2 at a time, on the practice green for as long as I can spare the time. I'll also put around the living room quite a bit as well. The carpet doesn't roll perfectly true so I'll focus on shorter puts to a given spot and work on my basic mechanics.

Based on what you posted above it would also be very wise for you to spend some time chipping as well. One thing that I like to do to practice chipping is grab one ball and toss it somewhere off the green. I then try to get up and down (incorporates putting practice as well). I'll do this over and over from many different places around the green to many different holes. I only use one ball because it helps me focus and concentrate on executing each and every shot. I'll keep track of my "pars" vs my "others". The goal for each session is to end up "even" or better at the end (just as many chipins as failed U/D's). Good luck!

I always thought I was extremely bad at putting. I had 55 putts one round on the course. So I decided that I was going to make a change. I took a ball and colored one half red and one half blue and lined it up facing my little practice cup on the carpet and just kept hitting the one ball from different distances till I had a good feel for my stroke and was able to see that I was stroking it pure each time (red half stayed red and blue stayed on blue side). This built my confidence in putting quite a bit. Now when I get to the course I check my distances on the practice green and head out to the course with some idea of how the ball will react on the green during the round.

My putting during the last 5 rounds was 28 at the lowest and 32 at the highest. Still not as low as I would like but it is much better than 55 and my confidence in my putter is way up. I am actually starting to enjoy putting and looking forward to it, instead of dreading it.

-E

I will usualy practice on the carpet at home. The speed will be different than on a real green, but you first need to work on a reapeatable stroke. If you can hit a 6 foot putt at home that might be a 12 foot putt on the course, but the stroke is the same.

One game I like to play is to use three balls and hit the first ball to a target area on the carpet. I will hit the second to try and hit the first ball. If all goes according to plan the second will hit the first and separate them a little (or if it really good they will be together). The third ball I will hit between the two. I try and do this with different distances so that I can get a repeatable stroke that will hit the ball the at the target each time. If you can get all three balls to touch each other when you are done then you have accomplished something. Do this with different distances so you can constantly adjust your feel. Before you play on a course hit 15-20 balls on the practice green so your feel will get out of 'carpet mode'. Play the same game and you should have a good feel as to the speed of the greens.

My guess is that if you have 41 putts you are hitting balls halfway to the hole or blowing them past by ten feet. Or you are hitting balls way off line because of a bad stroke and they don't end up near the hole. This should help a little with both.

PUTTING requires a consistent stroke, and confidence. When you practice putting, don't just putt around the practice green and call it good. WORK on consistently MAKING three to four footers. Get your mind used to hearing the ball rattle in. Once you've established your stroke, move back a bit - or putt consecutinve 4,8,12 footers. WORK on a preshot routine. Establish a routine and stick with it.

Chipping/pitching if you don't have a big yard - go to a local park and pitch-and-chip around. Take a bunch of balls. WORK on various shots. I like to toss down three balls at various points and hit them all to the same target. Work on different shots from the various distances. Flop, Pitch, Chip, Punch,... work on adjusting the height of the ball coming off of the club. Play the ball in different places in your stance and practice both what you're already good at, and pracitce the difficult shots. Don't always give yourself a perfect lie. Learn to hit out of deep grass, off dirt, off of hard pan. WORK on it like it matters, but obvioulsy have a ton of fun in the process.

I've worked VERY hard on my chipping/pitching for the entire season. Yesterday I had FOUR upand downs (failed on two) and had a total of 31 putts (including two three-jacks). I had three birdies on the front thanks to sticking sand/lob wedges from inside 100.

I really enjoy putting and I think it's one of the better areas of my game. Some will argue that it takes practice to be good, and talent to be great. Feel is such a big part. There are a lot of things one can do to make sure he/she is a better putter.

I divide putting into speed and line. Speed being more important than line IMO. To work on speed, it is all about having a consistent and repeatable rhythm stroke. In order to do that, stand let's say 10 feet from the hole and putt. Now, notice how far you are bringing your club back and through. After you know how far you need to stroke your club to get your ball close to the hole, forget about the hole and alignment for the time being. Just concentrate on the stroke. Keep your head down and your eyes on the ball position even after you've hit the ball. Repeat that 5-10 times. See how close your ball end up (distance-wise). Key: ingrain that speed of stroke. Don't putt to different distances by speeding up or down, change distances by lengthening or shortening your stroke. Now that you have figured out a proper rhythm for your stroke, you can change the distances of your stroke as it relates to the varying distances of your putt. Out on the course, you should be able to "feel" how far you need to stroke it to get it to a certain position.

Line, my favorite drill is to putt one handed. Assuming you have a traditional putting grip and you're right-handed (just guessing), putt with only your right hand. The key here is to feel the putter head more, and also feel the putter release through impact. I like hitting 5 to 8 footers like this, and it's my preferred warm-up prior to playing. Another key for me is to not scope at the ball as in trying to hit the ball on the upstroke. Note that there are 3-4 degrees of loft on your putter, you don't need to help the ball up. I try to keep my ball a little forward in my stance (1 to 2 ball positions from center), and keep my hands slightly ahead of the clubhead.

These tips really focus on your stroke. Now the feel part really comes in for me when you are faced with curving putts and up/down-hillers at the course. Unfortunately, that really comes with experience through time and god-given talent of "feel". Of course learning to read greens is important, but the ability to adapt on the spot to a new putt each and every putt is difficult if not impossible to practice. However, if you develop a solid stroke, you should be able to at least two-putt. The key is to lag the putt close, and ensure that second putt to go in the hole.

Good luck.

Two things, neither of which are drills, really helped me improve my putting.
First, and I know this sounds stupid but metally I think it made a big difference, I switched putters. Getting a new putter may not have been necessary, but it got rid of the bad memories with the old one and gave me a new kind of confidence that things were going to be different.
Second, and probably more useful, I saw a tip from Faldo (I think) on some program about visualizing a putt. Rather than looking your putt from the ball to the hole, see the ball in the hole and work you line back to the ball. Again, its just mental and I've been blessed with a pretty consistent putting stroke, but vizualizing the ball in the hole and working back seems to give me a better mindset than trying to wirk the ball in. Plus it has helped me reading the greens as well by looking at them from a different perspective.
Other than that, establish a routine and stick with it.
Mine is mark the ball, back up 5 steps or so, crouch to read the put, one practice stroke from far away, address the ball with right hand on top with right foot set, slide the right hand down, set the left foot, one more look at the hole, and let it go. Treat every putt the same and they all become the same, whether they are 3 feet or 30 feet.

Read Stan Utley's "The Art of Putting".
Practice his technique.
Use the right putter.
Don't think too much.

I use a mechanical method that I have posted on other golf forums "Graded Method of Putting" or "Lag Putting".

I practice with 2 balls at different distances. I practice putting 6 feet and in, 15 to 20 footers, 40 footers and 50 footers.

At home I use the Accelerator putting mat that has up to 8 feet in distance.

Distance control is more important than line for me. Read the break 3 feet and in which makes the most impact on the ball.

Putting is all about feel. Hold the putter loosely in your fingers, so loose it might fall out. And don't let the right wrist angle breakdown. Keep your eyes over the ball at address. Decide if you are an around or straight back and through pendulum style putter. Get your putter fitted for that style and your physique. Putt for that 6 foot circle on lag putts. And once you are inside 3 feet imagine a gutter that funnels both the club head and the ball directly to the hole. Always carry your putter in your left hand.

I can't give any advice on putting drills. I don't use 'em.

41 putts means you likely 2-putted 13 and 3-putted 5 greens. Not astonomically bad, but not good either. Since I've been woodshedding the putting green, I 3-putt once in about 36 holes. HUGE scoring improvement.

Where I saw the most improvement and biggest reduction in the score was at 5' and in. My make rate at 3' and in is nearly automatic. At 5' it's at least 70% now.

Practice: Take 3 balls. Start at 2' making all three from all 4 sides around the hole. Don't move on until you're drilling all balls into the hole. Move out to 3' and do the same drill. After you can make all these putts, try something really fun like making on in the left half, then center, then right half of the hole. This really helps on those shorties you KNOW will break slightly.

Move out to 5 foot range. Because you can now put a ball in the left, center or right half of the hole from 3', the hole now seems larger somehow on a 5-footer.

The rest is purely distance control. The short drills really help with putter alignment and stroking the ball squarely and accurately. When you move out to the longer putts, getting the right distance will invariably leave you inside the 3' range which now, should be automatic for you.

I also wore out the SW around the practice green this year. Getting up and down in 3, (or even 2 on many occasions) is another huge stroke saver.

As well as you appear to hit the ball from tee to green, a bit of practice with the SW and putter should have you breaking 80 in no time! Now get to work and post some scores here that you can REALLY brag about!

dave

Thanks for the wealth of advice from everybody! I think I was just very frustrated that I putted so poorly on a day that I was hitting the ball so very well, and looking at the numbers, I knew exactly what killed me.

I had five 3-putts during the round. If I could only avoid those, I would have shot 81. I played with my buddy who is a 1 hdcp, who shot a 72, beating me by 14 strokes. Those 14 strokes? Take my putts minus his putts, 41 - 27, and you get 14.

Today I've turned that frustration into something more constructive, and will work on developing a repeatable stroke.

I used to always 3 putt and then I listened to what my uncle who is a 6 and what he does. About 2 rounds after, I had a round where I didn't 3 putt the entire time. I played last week and only had one 3 putt.

What he told me? Pretty simple.

For Feel/Distance
Look at the hold and pretend rolling the ball to the hole with your right hand. Use that feel the same way when you make your stroke.

For Aim
Simply keep your head down until the ball rolls past the corner of your eye and you can't see it anymore. This is especially the case with short footers as the tendency is to cheat and pick your head up. That's why it's easy to push and pull them. Pretend there is a laser pointing from the center of your club face to the spot you want to aim. Make the stroke to follow that line.

These have helped me out a ton! Hope it helps.

Thanks,
e

Can I suggest that you get a copy of the DVD "putt to win" by Brad Faxon & Dr Bob Rotella.

It is a good few years old but well work a few Quid (bucks) It tries to stop you getting too mechanical and robotic. The drills are fun and you really understand what is being conveyed. One tip that has really improved my putting is to "put yourself in the hole". I won't give it away so you get a copy of the DVD

Just for putting and golf overall, Rotella's book "Golf is Not a Game of Perfect" is great for the psychological analysis...

This is great advice! I try to do this as well, but never thought to relay that information to anybody. If you can do this well, your lags will leave you with tap in 2 putts.

Yes this is exactly the technique described as "puting yourself in the hole" as per Faxon & Rotella's Putt 2 win DVD.

I do this too - very good for lag putting.

we have found that a key difference between professional / low handicappers and high handicappers in putting is that the high habdicapper focusses on trying to read the line first before working out how firmly or otherwise to hit the ball.

The professional will focus on more than one line with a key filter being 'how firmly do I need to hit the ball with this line' - when he is comfortable with the weight of the putt he will read or 'visualise' the line he sees before choosing the line that matches this.

The reason that the high handicapper way of thinking results in less good shots is due to the way our brains work:
If you choose the line first you have now set a concrete goal in your mind - once set it is difficult for your brain to change it without creating an element of doubt - if once the line is set you have now only one choice of weight to hit the ball in order for it to go in thus increasing the pressure to be accurate. Often, a high handicapper will have chosen his / her line and when they stand over the ball trying to work out the weight with which to hit it they find themselves uncomfortable. This is the subconscious screaming at you that the weight and the line are not what it sees as your best option.

Try this method:
Have a look at your putt from different angles (without slowing play down) with the focus being on looking for slopes / flat areas etc - at this stage you are not looking for a line, just loading data into your subconscious
Then stand behind the ball and imagine hitting the ball at different weights and on different starting lines. Narrow your options down weight first line second until you feel a putt that will finish in (or near) the hole and the line matches with the hole
Then read the line and feel the weight of putt and check that you are comfortable - at this stage all you are trying to do is set your goal of hitting the ball this hard along this line
Take your set up aiming along the start line of the putt you have chosen then remember the weight and hit the putt along the start line with that weight

Try it, it works and the more it works the more you can trust this method