The benefit of taking 5 minutes to practice some putting can really provide benefits, especially the first few holes were many a bogie are made. The following putting drills make effective use of your practice time before a round and should help establish in your mindset the correct alignment when putting and a good feel for the green’s speed.

Alignment

Start by doing your normal routine of lining up a putt and address the ball as you normally would. Before taking the putt place a club down at your toes to show the line you are taking. Step away and look down the line of the club on the ground. Is this pointing toward the hole? If not, then perhaps your technique of lining up shots needs to be revised so try picking a different target to aim for (one closer to your ball) and try again with another technique. A simple alignment technique is to stand behind the ball and visualise the trajectory you expect the ball to take on the way to the hole. Then simply pick a target point along the trajectory that you wish to aim for and line up your body to this target.

Distances

With any practice drill for putting distance you want to focus on getting a feel for the greens speed over short, medium and long distances.

Beginning with a long putt, you want to try to make 10 of these long putts and you should focus on making the distance the ball travels accurate (to establish long green speed).

Next try a medium putt length of about three metres, or preferably, a distance which you find yourself playing often. Again, take up to 8 to12 putts and focus on getting near the hole, and importantly not falling short. The emphasis on this practice drill is to be accurate so you wish to see some putts go in the hole.

And lastly, perform some short putts close to the hole so you get a high number of putts going. This is good for your confidence and will be good practice for the large amount of one metre putts that happen in any round of golf.

In conclusion, all amateurs should perform some putting drills prior to a round of golf to gauge the green speed, even if they play the course regularly, as factors such as the green’s soil water content, the time of the day and the length of the grass can adversely affect the ball speed.

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