Putting drills?

Re: Putting drills?

This is always one of my staples ...
golf-fix-e-mail-bag-lag-putting

Re: Putting drills?

I've always thought of myself as a pretty good putter (always room for improvement) but my long game is always lacking which kills my scores. Anytime I have trouble with judging speed with any distance putt I always try to loosen my grip slightly and give my full attention to the feel of my swing on the practice green. You need to feel a good consistent tempo that you can rely on with every single putting stroke and simply change the distance of your putts by changing the length of the swing. If you have good feel with a silky smooth tempo you can be very accurate with getting the speed right.

If your having trouble with actually estimating the speed of the greens or slope then I'm not really sure how to help you there.

Re: Putting drills?

Another drill, watch Hank Haney release with the putter and the distance is guaged with the backswing. The release on putts are the same but the distance is judged by the length of my backswing. If you practice this with your feet as distance guages you can control the speed of the putts even on tricky down hill distance putts.

Re: Putting drills?

Thanks for that link. My lag putting is terrible, caused me two 4-putts the other day.

Re: Putting drills?

That really is a good one ... I use that at least once a week to keep working on my lag putting. It's also a good idea to try putting from the fringe from time to time in order to get a feel for that as well.

distance control is the most important part of putting to eliminate three putts.  What helps me with distance control is two simple keys

 

1) I use my feet as a measurement tool for distance that I take my putter back too to help judge distance control

2) I always follow through with the same distance on each putt, keeping the same tempo.  The only time I will not do this is will very short putts within 3 feet.

I found that this is the easiest way for me to judge consistent distance and able to repeat it on the course each time.

3) practice, practice and more practice will help you become a better, consistent putter and general will help build confidence.

4) pre-putt routine everytime.

Here is a nice little thing, actually line up your putt were you think your going to hit in, then look at the hole and hit the putt with out looking at the ball. When we throw a dart, or throw a football, or basketball, we don't look at the ball we look at the target, thats because we can percieve depth with our eyes. That works because our eyes are offset from each other, meaning there's a gap, between them. This causes two images to be one, if there offset then you have depth perception, which everyone has except those who have only vision in one eye. Same principle in 3D movies

 

But what looking at the hole does is gets you to know visually how far you are from the hole, so when you glance in your preshot routine you can get the memory. Just keep putting looking at were you want the ball to end up, usually about 12-18 inches behind the hole is optimal, try to get your putts to end up there. Do that till you can get, lets say 5 in a row to end up near the distance. Then move and do it again.

 

Also during this process, DO NOT CHANGE YOUR PUTTER, OR YOUR PUTTING STROKE.

 

First thing first, get a consistant putting stroke, no way you can gauge distance if you can't hit the ball solid each time, your jsut then giving your head and muscles false information.

a) find a rhythm that works for you with your putting stroke and KEEP it...b) find a practice putting green, and marry it (make it a part of your life as much as you can, not literal)... c) practice 5 putts from 5 feet, 10, 15, 20, 25 and make a game of it by taking no more than 2 putts per ball to get it in, if you fail, start over...d) get 4 ball markers out, put them in the cardinal directions, 2 feet around a hole...practice getting your putts noted in (c) 'in the box'...should be 2 putting at most in no time.

I never go to the practice green anymore without a simple piece of string tied at each end to a tee. Can be any length you like -- six feet to eight feet is good and not too unwieldy. Find a flat putt, peg the line out alongside it and putt down it for ten minutes or so. You'll be able to see if you are actually rolling the ball straight. If not, you'll be able to see what the putter face is doing by tracking the aim line relative to the string. After that, I usually play with some breaking putts, marking off the theoretical straight putt to the aiming point and watching the ball slide away from from the line toward the cup. This trains your brain to not steer the ball at the hole on breaking putts and really helps develop your instinctive perception of how the ball rolls across a slope.

For lag putting I use my right foot, since I'm right-handed, as distance gauge.   You'll need to practice this, but what you do is determine how many inches off your right foot you need to bring the putter back to hit the putt.  For instance if you have a 40 foot putt, then I bring the putter head about 4-5 inches off of my right foot's baby toe.  If it is a 30 foot putt, I'll bring the putter head about 2-3 inches off my right foot's baby toe.  For a twenty foot putt, I'll bring the putter off my right foots baby toe, for 10 foot maybe it's the middle of my right foot where I bring the club back to.  Again this guage works for me.  The inches off your foot is an approximate and you'll need to determine this during your own practice sessions.

At the practice green I'll work on this lagging drill from different known distances, until I can kind of determine how far to bring the club back for each know distance of a putt.

 

Now when I'm on the course, what I will do is pace off my putts looking for anomalies in the putting surface as well as determine how far of a putt I have.  Know that each pace is a yard or 3 feet.  If I count off 10 paces that's 10 yards or 30 feet.  I'll add or minus some feet depending on the slope of the putting surface. By pacing off the distance of my putt, allows my brain to register how far of putt I have and solidfies exactly how far I have to roll this. 

Then once I know how far the putt from the hole, my brain knows what a 40 ft or 30 foot putt feels like.  If I'm ever unsure I've got my "feet" gauge to rely on from my practice.  This has really improved my putting and helped me get from a 21 handicap to a 10 handicap in about a year's time.

 

 

I use this same technique when putting, (looking at the hole).  I will take 7-8 balls and walk out from the hole for every step I take I drop a ball.  This get me out to about 25 feet.  I will putt all of these until I make all of them in one turn.  This also helps me judge distance when I do get out on the course because I line up my putt from the back and when I walk to my ball I will count the steps and this gives me a good idea of how far I am. 

1st thing i did to improve my putting was actually devoting more time to putting. that is what alot golfers don't do enough of. there have been time this past season that i had the whole putting green to myself, while the range was packed. i divided my practice session into 2 parts, by actually putting on the putting green as a big chunk of my practice, i also made sure i practiced my putting first, b4 i hit the range

 

putting on the putting green first for half hour, then another half hour on the range

 

putt at 3', 6',9',12', at different holes on the putting green,

but i also set a goal, that is to 1 putt all 3', no worse than 2 putt on 6',9',12'

 

 for 2011 i'm gonna change up the practice days to work on up & downs

 

chip/putt then range

pitch/putt then the range

putt then the range