How to Make More Putts this Golf Season (In 5 Steps)
Step 1 – Get a Putter That Matches Your Needs
The first step to relieving struggles on the putting green is choosing the right putter that fits you. This impacts how you hold the club, how you swing the club, and your ability to keep the putter face square at impact to start putts straight on line.
Start by visiting a golf shop and asking to be club fitted for a putter.
You’ll learn which putter length matches your body and set up needs depending on how tall you are, how long your arms are, and how much you bend over in the putting stroke.
You’ll also find a putter that feels the right weight in your hands and feels nice when you make contact with the ball as feedback is everything to help you learn what you did right and wrong in your putt.
Some putters are equally weighted or face balanced and others are toe weighted which impacts how you swing them and the face relationship at impact with the ball.
Step 2 – Straighten Your Putting Stroke
Once we can’t blame the equipment in our golf bag as the fault of our bad putting, we can start turning to the first cause of bad putts, “Not hitting the ball straight on our target line”
If the ball doesn’t start off straight on the intended line you were aiming for, it will lead to inconsistency and you won’t be making many putts unless it was pure luck from mishitting it.
To start putts on line, you need to keep the putter head straight at impact so the face can push the golf ball ahead, forward on the intended line.
This can be challenging, especially to new golfers as the putter head loves to twist and turn during the putting motion.
A great drill to help you work on keep the face square and not twisting open or shut is to use an alignment mirror with lines printed on it already to give you a visual of what straight is and you can see when your putter head veers off line.
Check out my recommended putting alignment mirror on Amazon here.
You can also use two tees or two rows of tees to act as alignment gates that are just wide enough between them for the putter head to swing through. This will give you feedback if your putting stroke was off line when you make contact with the tees, either on the toe side or on the heel side of the putter.
Step 3 – Practice Tempo
Getting in a good putting rhythm takes time. The tempo you swing the putter head with can greatly impact tendencies such as hitting putts short or too far on a consistent basis.
Maybe it’s time to adjust your tempo in how fast you take the putter back in the backswing and how fast you swing forward in the forward swing towards the golf ball.
Try working on some different tempos to find which feels comfortable for you and which tempo seems to produce a more consistent roll.
Step 4 – Learn to Control Distance
Once you can swing the putter with the same tempo consistently, all you have to do is lengthen the putting stroke to add power or reduce the length of the putting motion to reduce power. Tempo still stays the same, just don’t swing the club so far back if you don’t want to hit with much power.
Practice distance control by setting up tees on a practice green different distances away from you (10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, 40 feet) and work on hitting golf balls to these tees to learn the feel of how much power is needed.
Try to get the ball to stop within a foot or less of the tee. Hitting to a tee in the ground instead of the hole, builds focus and later it will also make the hole feel much bigger after looking at such a small object as your aim point.
Step 5 – Master the 6 Foot Putt
If you total up how many of your golf strokes occur within 6 feet or less of the hole in a golf round, you’ll be quite surprised.
You can quickly lower your golf score by getting really good at putting within 6 feet of the hole.
Set up a tee in the ground to mark the spot that measures 6 feet from a chosen hole on your practice green. Set down 10 golf balls next to the tee, and focus on each, hitting one ball at a time to the hole.
Try to get the distance down first, so your misses only go past the hole 1 foot or less.
Then work on your aim, keeping the putt straight on it’s intended line so it stays straight and goes into the hole.
Practice at least 100 putts per day for a week straight and you’ll notice improvement from 5 feet away from the hole for your putting. But don’t stop there. Try to keep the 100 putts per day challenge going for a month or longer until you can make 45/50 (90%) putts from 5 feet.
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