You show up to the range – either before a round or on your own for practice. You see the practice green, you know putting is important, but you don’t know where to start.
Do I spend time putting from 10 feet from the cup or more? Do I spend time hitting just outside of “gimme” range?
Do I worry about speed? Hitting consistent strokes with the putter face square? Getting lag putts close?
There’s definitely different ways to practice putting, but what if you had a routine that would get you practice from all areas of the green?
Here’s how the team at 100% Pure Stroke Golf works on our short game.
Short Putts – (10 to 15 minutes)
We think this is a great place to start, build some confidence, and get a feel for your course’s greens. Our team members typically attach a 100% Pure Stroke® Golf Putting Training Aid, and try to find a nice straight putt to begin practice.
The 100% Pure Stroke® Golf Putting Training Aid is going to work wonders at helping you hit putts with a squared putter face. To help your eyes visualize the squared plane the putter needs to approach the ball, address the ball with your putter, and put a tee one inch outside of each end of your putter face. This creates a “gate” for your putter to swing through, and gives a great visual of being square at impact.
Once you find a great flat, straight putt, set up the “gate” station and work until you can make 6 to 7 out of 10 putts.
Medium Putts – (10 to 15 minutes)
After building some confidence and muscle memory from the short putt exercise, it’s time to truly attack the type of putts you’re likely to face on the course.
Find practice holes on the green where you can take on about 10 attempts at left-to-right breaking putts, 10 right-to-left breaking putts, 10 uphill putts, and 10 downhill putts. After these 40 attempts, give your putting a true self-assessment.
- Was I square through my putts (if you’ve removed your 100% Pure Stroke® Putting Aid)?
- Did I make accurate reads of my putts?
- Do I have the speed of these greens? Was I missing short or long?
This self-assessment is critical and can give you a huge boost. Take a few minutes and pick the spot where your putting was the most suspect, and work solely on the most transparent problem during your 40 putts.
Lag Putting with Holing Out – (10 to 15 minutes)
Often, you see golfers before the round drop a sleeve’s worth of golf balls near the fringe of the practice green and take long putts at the furthest hole they see. This is fine, and it’s a realistic putt you could face during a round. We’re big fans of finishing the practice with the lag putts – and holing them out.
You’re reading that correctly – we putt one lag putt, and follow it toward the hole, and putt until we hole out. Why?
Because that mimics golf. If you hole out 30-foot putt after 30-foot putt, that’s great. A round of golf is typically going to look more like this: long putt, short putt, medium putt, short putt, lag putt, short putt. Rarely will you putt from long distances consecutively for a round of golf.
So practicing this way takes the muscle memory and work you did during short and medium putt practice, and ensures that it is ready for the putting challenges you’ll face.
We hope these tips help you build a practice routine capable of shaving some strokes off your next round and future rounds. Our passion is putting. It’s the easiest to practice, but doesn’t always get the love it should.
It’s also important to note that some of our team do their putting practice with the 100% Pure Stroke® Putting Aid on their putter face the whole time, and some remove part of the way through. If you are interested in purchasing this unique, patented putter training aid, simply click or tap here.
Enjoy your game!
