Part 1 - Putting: The Local Golfers Lockdown Series

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at the most effective and efficient ways to improve your golf and fill some of that time spent at home.

Follow along with these simple 20 minute practice sessions to improve your skills and watch your scores come down. 

Part 1: Putting

The beauty of putting is as long as you have some carpet in home or office, you can get better. Let’s go back to basics - 

The 3 most important factors of good putting are: 

1. Starting the ball on line
2. Distance control
3. Reading the greens

We know it would be difficult to practice reading the greens at home but we certainly can improve the other two. These drills are simple and easy and guaranteed to improve your putting. 

Drill #1 - Alignment (5mins) 

A very important part in starting the golf ball online is the ability to aim the putter at the desired target. To do this drill you will need either a string on the ground, an alignment stick/club shaft or a chalk line on the ground outside. Set a target at the end of the line (could be a ball, a tee, maybe a marker) about 10ft away. Now take your set up a long the line you have created and look up at the target. Do you feel like you’re aiming left? Maybe you feel your aiming a little to the right? Continue to reset and take you’re set up again trying to calibrate you’re eyes to learn what it ‘feels like’ to aim the putter correctly. Practice this for 5minutes.

Drill #2 - Coin (5 mins) 

Now that you have calibrated your alignment, this drill should become a little more simple. Place a coin on the floor 1ft in front of your ball. All you need to do in this drill is continuously putt a ball over the coin. Hit putts of different distances from 3 - 20 feet, making sure the ball travels directly over the coin that is 1ft in front of where you’re putting from. Practice this drill for another 5 mins. This drill is great for making sure your putts are starting online and for building confidence.  

Drill #3- Leap frog (10mins) 

This drill moves onto the skill of distance control. To do this drill you will need your putter, at least 5 golf balls, a marker and at least 20 feet worth of carpet. Set the marker 10 feet from your starting point and putt the first ball as close to the marker as possible but it must go past the marker. Do the same with the next ball however you must get it past the ball you just putted and so on. Continue to ‘leap frog’ the last ball you just hit. If you leave a putt short of your target ball, you must start again. See how many golf balls you can putt past the last ball before hitting the 20 feet mark. Write down your score each day and see if you can beat it the day after. Do this drill for 10 minutes. 

And that’s it! It takes less than 20 minutes each day to improve your putting and lower your scores. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Cheers,

Ben