Putting can often make or break a round, yet practicing it is often neglected by golfer’s. If you’re looking to improve to sharpen your skills on the green, consistent practice is key.
Whether you’re a professional, mid-handicapper, senior golfer or beginner, everyone needs to practice their putting. It’s a skill you just can’t be good enough at.
To help you refine your skills, we’ve compiled a variety of putting drills that focus on everything from accuracy and distance control to consistency and mental focus. These drills are designed to suit golfers of all levels and will help you develop the muscle memory and confidence needed to make more putts and lower your scores. Let’s dive into some of the best drills to improve your putting!
Technical Putting Practice
Chalk line
This a great tool that draws a non permanent line on the green to create a visual start line. The aim is be to able to consistently set the ball off rolling in the direction you want it to.
Putting mirror
This is a great tool for seeing where your eyes are in relation to the ball. Typically, your eyes should sit directly above the ball as this gives you the most consistent view of what you’re doing.
Putting gate
This is often paired with a chalk line, as a secondary measure of start line. The aim is to be able to get the ball through the gates. You can get these in different width, for varying difficulty. Equally, tee pegs work great if you don’t have actual gates.
Blue Tack
Perhaps not what you know blue tack best for but putting a blob on the heel and toe of your putter means that any off centre strike will come off dead. This is a great way of working on striking putts better/more central.
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Metronome
If a golfer is struggling with their putting tempo, a metronome is a great way to improve this. Rock your shoulders to the tempo of the metronome when practicing.
Putting template
This a template that has a curved arc line draw on. These come in a range of different arc severity’s and so find one that matches your strokes curve. From here you can work on replicating the line, which is a great calibration of your stroke.
T Bar
The T-Bar is a great training aid to use as it allows a golfer to align the face square at address with the black and white lines on the bar, and then know if the ball is starting on line by either running straight down the line or not. This is a great short-putting drill.
A golfer will quickly understand if they are pushing or pulling putts as the ball will roll off the bar either left or right before it gets to the end. A golfer can either then address this putting technique error in a lesson or, through trial and error, develop an in-swing feeling that returns the putter face back to square.
Gate drill
This is the putting drill that Tiger Wood’s loves to use. It simply uses two tee pegs to create a gate for your putter head to travel through. The idea is that a putt will always be struck from the middle of the face if the head goes perfectly through the gate.
Golfers will quickly see if they have a toe or heel strike tendency, but 5 minutes stroking between the gate should help address this.
Putting Practice Drills
Entry Speed
Take three golf balls to a sloping putt at roughly 10 feet. For the first putt, you want to hit roughly 3 feet past and play less break; for the 2nd putt, try to hit the ball at an 18-inch past pace and play some more break; and for the 3rd putt, try to hit dead weight and play the maximum possible amount of break.
This is a great drill for short-range short putts and holing out, as it teaches the golfer to match up their reads with a pace, and golfers will figure out what their preferred read/pace combination is. Some players like to hit putts firm and play less break, and others soft with more break. It will also improve your green reading.
Towel Drill
This drill is a pace putting practice. Lay your golf towel out on the green and place balls down at 20 feet, 25 feet, 30 and 35 feet. The goal is to hit the putt and stop the ball on the towel. With distance control being the most important skill in putting, golfers often get too focused on the hole and line rather than speed.
Par 18
This putt drill works on a range of different length putts. Starting with a short putt and working up in nine increments the aim is to see how many balls you can hole. As per the name ‘par 18’ the baseline score would be two putts per every hole. The idea is to beat this target and record your attempts each time to track your progress.
One Ball Drill
Ladder/Box Drill
This is a great drill for pace as it gives you a visual aid. The ladder drill involves a handful of tees and will help you to improve your putting. The first thing you do is make a semicircle of tees around the back of the hole, a grip length away from the hole.
You then place a tee a few feet away, then another tee a few feet past and so on depending on how far you want to go back. The aim of the game is to hole the putt but make sure you don’t go outside of the tees behind the hole.
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If you come up short or go past the tees you need to start again. If you hole the putt or finish in between the tees and the hole, you can move onto the next station.
You don’t need to move to the next station on the ladder. If you want you can go from the first to the third or simply whatever range of putting you want to work on the most. The only rule is that to move onto a new station you must either hole the putt, or make sure the ball does not travel past the tees.
Bradshaw’s Balls
This is a pace putting drill, where you hit one ball anywhere on the green. With the second ball you aim to replicate the same putt. This is so that it touches the first ball with enough speed for it to roll off an imaginary tee peg.
Conclusion
Golfer’s of all abilities need to practice their putting. Completing some simple drills like those outlined above will help you start the ball on line, read the green, and hit the ball at the right pace week in and week out over the season. You will find yourself 3 putting less and holing more putts.
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