Getting putting practice in means doing the unconventional. Sometimes, to get practice time in, it means making the best of our homes, offices, garages, and other indoor spaces.
There’s different ways to accomplish meaningful indoor putting practice. At the bare minimum, a practice putting cup can help when conducting indoor drills. At best, you can invest in synthetic turf or other custom indoor putting green to better mimic true conditions.
However you get your putts in, Pure Stroke Golf can help. Both of our flagship products are effective for indoor practice. We’ve created a couple of drills to create an easy indoor putting practice routine.
Before we get to the drills, we recommend ordering the 100% Pure Stroke® Putting Aid or our Portable Practice Hole. We also sell the two combined in our Training Aid and Practice Hole Kit.
We also recommend finding at least 10 to 20 feet of level, uninterrupted space. This can be a large room or hallway. This is key because putting errors – especially the smallest errors – are made apparent over space. Striking a putt with a slightly open clubface might still hit the bottom of the cup at 3 feet. At 10 feet, that same error might be off by a cup’s width.
Drill 1 – Using the Classic Gate
Travel to any PGA or LPGA tournament, and you’ll see professionals building “gates” using tees on the practice green. They then place the ball within the gate, and practice their putting stroke through the gate. The tees create a great visual for keeping the putter path straight and the putter face square at impact.
When putting indoors on carpet, tile, or synthetic greens, tees don’t exactly stick in the surface. We suggest grabbing two books of matching size and building your gate that way. That will help you keep your putting stroke on a path to strike the ball on line. This drill hits a new level when your putter is equipped with the 100% Pure Stroke® Putting Aid. Our putting aid will give further visual confirmation when the stroke isn’t square at impact.
Indoor putting practice with this drill will refine your stroke, even if you aren’t on an ideal surface to measure speed and reading the undulations of a green. We like doing this drill until we can hit 8 to 10 in a row without a faulty stroke.
Drill 2 – The Joker’s Wild
We keep something a bit odd in our golf bag. We like to take the Joker out of a deck of cards and place it on the practice green whenever we get to a course we don’t know. Then, we putt and try to stop the golf ball on the card. After some lag putts to get a feel for the green, we take the card and put it 18 inches behind a hole and repeat the drill. This reinforces getting a speed that takes putts past the hole.
It’s simple, and it can be translated to indoor practice.
Keep your “gate” set-up and put the Joker down the line of your putts. Practice getting the speed (and squaring your putter) right at the same time. After some practice, put a Portable Practice Hole 10 feet away with the Joker behind it 18 inches. We purposefully designed the Portable Practice Hole’s incline to mimic the power needed to roll a putt 18 inches past the hole. Putt the ball effectively, and you’ll be hitting the hole every time.
It’s not as much fun as being at the course, but indoor putting practice can help. We hope these drills help you get the most out of indoor practice.
Enjoy Your Game!
