Putting Drills To Lower Your Scores

Golf Monthly

yesterday

Tips to help lower your scores

Transcript

00:00So one of the drills that I love to do on the putting green, just to make sure that my club

00:11face is returning to the ball square, is I like to use, just on my Chrome Soft here, I've got,

00:16I've actually got these three lines, the triple track lines, and I'm going to use these as kind

00:21of a drill. And very simply, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to aim at a target,

00:24and I'm going to point those lines literally directly at this target. Now, when I take my

00:30putt, and actually I'm going to do this one, I'm going to hit quite a few putts doing this.

00:34If I start closing the club face down, what we're going to see is those lines are going to start

00:39wobbling and the ball's going to go off to the left. If I do the opposite and the club face is

00:43returning open, again, those lines are just going to start wobbling off to the right. So what I want

00:49to do is just, I've got a cup of balls, I'm just going to hit a few towards the target, and I just

00:53want to see, can I get these lines to just go end over end towards the hole? So let me just have a

00:59little go, strike one just to the target. So I missed it on the right, and I could really see

01:06the lines wobbling off to the right when I did that. So I know the club face didn't close down

01:13well enough, it was open through. So I'm going to do that again, line it straight up to a target,

01:19set up behind, and I'm just going to try now and close the club face down slightly,

01:23just so I can really see those lines going end over end. It's a really good way of using the

01:30triple track technology to help you putting. So for those of you that are really struggling

01:34with distance control, I've got a great little drill that I want you to try. As we know, distance

01:39control really is king. If you were to misread a putt by, say, three foot, if your distance

01:45control is correct and is right, the next putt is only a three footer. So it makes a lot of sense to

01:50work on this part of the game. Now, how do we do it? So what I've got here is what we call a ladder

01:55drill. I've just got a couple of stations here set up, you can use cones or I've just got alignment

02:00sticks. And the idea is to putt a ball and try and get it to stop within the station. If I can do

02:06that, I then move on to the next. If I get that one, I move on to the next one. Now what I'm trying

02:10to do, if I fail, if I've hit it short or long, I have to start the whole thing again. So let's

02:16have a go. First one in. There's the first one. And it's slightly longer.

02:27And then the next station, let's go for the last.

02:41So there I have it. That's the ladder drill. That's the station drill. Give it a go. Try and get all

02:46three. And if you fail, you've got to start again. I really hope that helps. So here's a lovely little

02:51drill just to give you a bit of confidence before you go out onto the golf course. Unfortunately, what I

02:56see with so many players on the putting green before they go onto the first tee is they've done

03:01a great little putting routine and they always finish exactly the same way, just hitting a couple

03:06of balls to the hole. The issue that I have with this is it's kind of lose-lose practice because if

03:12you hole it from, say, two, three foot, well, you kind of feel you should be holding that anyway. So

03:18you haven't actually gained much. But what happens if you miss? Now you could actually do this to some

03:23extremes where you get 100 balls. You could hold 99 of them. But if you miss one, if you're faced

03:29with that on the golf course, unfortunately, you will be thinking of the one that you missed.

03:34So what I like to do is take the hole out of play. Use something really small, like I've got a tee

03:39peg here, but you can use something small like a needle. Anything that just gives you, take the hole

03:44out of it and just give you a really small perception. What I want you to do is just get a line of balls,

03:48put them in a circle, and actually just very simply just putt towards the tee. Now, if you miss it,

03:54it's not the end of the world as long as it didn't go too far either side because it probably would

03:59have gone in. But if you hit it, your confidence just grows and you feel really good getting onto

04:04the first if you're faced with this. So let's have a go, see if I can hit the tee.

04:12So you can see I've hit the tee there. I'll move to the next one and I will keep doing this and I will see

04:17how many times I can hit that tee. So one of the things that always gets me on a passing green

04:22before people go out and play golf is they're always practicing with three golf balls. And where

04:27this is really funny from a coach's perspective is it's got nothing to do with the real life game

04:33of actually adding a bit of pressure. If you think of golf, you only get one go at it. You get one

04:37opportunity. Unfortunately, when you're practicing with three balls, you get feedback. You can miss the

04:43first one short, say you missed the second one long, and then you get it right the third time.

04:48Unfortunately, your brain is just adjusted to the two previous shots. What I like to try and do is

04:53this little setup station here is the nine ball drill and it just adds some vital pressure to your

05:00putting. And the way we do that is twofold. What I want you to do is actually, first of all, keep a score

05:05of how you do this, but keep the shots as random as possible. So I want you to say, do the first one

05:12short, move to a long, move to a medium, keep mixing up the balls until you finish the nine balls.

05:18I want you to hole out every single one. And I really want you to get a score at the end of it.

05:24So give the nine ball drill a go and watch your confidence grow.

Putting Drills To Lower Your Scores

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