From a technical standpoint, I know that my Golf game is not very sound. My swing has a lot of moving parts and I do not know exactly how far I hit every club. Instead, over the years my game has sort of developed into a “feel” game. I select clubs based on how I want to swing given a certain yardage and my unconventional chipping is all touch oriented.
One reason that I think my game is like this is my focus on putting. Growing up, I did not want to pay for driving range tokens, instead I could hit as many putts and chips as I wanted for free. This monetary incentive as well as my Grandpa preaching the gospel of the short game growing up made me a putting connoisseur. This relentless grind on the putting green has stuck with me to this day as you are more likely to find me on a putting green then a driving range any day of the week. With putting being a giant feel and touched base skill, it is easy to see how that mindset has bled into other parts of my game such as my swing.
I wouldn’t by any means consider myself a putting master but due to my practice, it is easily the strongest part of my game. There are times when my putting actually completely bails out the rest of my game when I am playing poorly. When I practice putting I really only ever do 2 drills and I thought that I would share them with you guys. Hopefully you’d find them helpful as well.
3-4-5
Three, Four, Five is a drill that is meant to help anyone build confidence in short putts and hopefully cure anyone that has the yips. To do this drill, all you need is a ball, a target/golf hole and a tee. What you are going to do is find a relatively flat putt by a hole and put the tee in the ground about a putters length away from the hole. Since most putters tend to be around 36″, you just measured off a flat 3 foot putt. The goal is make 10 putts in a row and after you make 10 in row, make the putt about a grips length longer. This new putt is approximately 4 feet. After you make 10 in a row from 4 feet, go one more grips length away and make 10 five footers in a row. Once you made 10 in a row from each spot, you have completed the drill.
To many high (and even low) handicap players miss numerous putts at this range. Putts at this range are crucial to lowering scores and taking your game to the next level. Once you are comfortable with this drill you can spice it up but trying this with a breaking putt or even trying to make 20 in a row from each spot rather than 10. Do not get frustrated. This drill on the surface may seem easy but I think that it will present more of a challenge then you are expecting.
Give It a Chance
I cannot take full credit for this drill. After struggling with lots of putts in the 15-30 foot range this summer, I happened to stumble onto a Golf.com drill that was supposed to help with your lag putting. I made some adjustments and added some criteria to make a game out of it. I have been doing this drill for about 3 weeks and I have already seen the results of it improving my scores.
To do this drill you will need 3-5 golf balls, 6 tees and a hole/target. Around the golf hole make a semi circle using 5 of the tees. These tees should be about a putters length away from the hole giving you a 3 feet radius around half of the hole. On the opposite side of the hole, mark of 20 feet (approximately 7 putter lengths) and put your last tee into the green.
Now this drill is working on your lag putting, more specifically, your lag putting while still giving putts a chance to go in. You are going to roll putts towards the hole. You want your putt to either go in the hole or if it misses the hole, you want it to land in the semi circle of tees you have made. If the putt is short of the hole or ends up outside of the semi circle the putt is no good. See how many in a row you can get to either go in the hole or end up in the semicircle. After 10-15 minutes of this, you will start to feel yourself getting dialed in on the speed and understanding your lag putting more. The real round implications of this drill is that when you are faced with a longer putt, you give the putt enough speed to go in but not so much that you leave yourself an long tester coming back. With those long second putts, you tend to have more 3 putts and hence higher scores. This drill will lower your score, guaranteed.
I hope that these drills help you and I would like to hear your feedback on these drills and if there are any other drills that you do that I should know about. Thank you for reading this post. If you liked these drills, I would encourage you to share this with your golf friends and help them get better. Additionally if you liked what you read, check me out on Twitter, Instagram or Tiktok (@aspoiledwalk).
A Good Walk Spoiled 