Dear 300Drive,
The first 5-10 minutes is pretty worhtless and potentially frustrating if you expect to be putting well right out of the box, as this is the time you are just settling down to the different world of the green - a much slower, sanctified arena than the highway or the fairway. So don't expect ANYTHING during this time. Just have fun and relax.
The three basic skills to practice on a regular basis are touch, straight putting, and reading and putting break. Touch and putting straight are fundamental to every putt, and reading and putting breaking putts is how the general fundamental skills get applied to specific putts.
TOUCH:
The first order of business, after relaxing, is to get a sense of the green's speed. I would recommend
Core Putts away from a hole and then back in, follwed by putts inside and outside your Core distance for that green, then followed by Core Putts uphill and downhill away from and back to a hole. A Core Putt uses the exact same backstroke with your stable repeating tempo, so all Core Putts give the same energy to your ball regardless of the green, and you just watch to see how far the ball with that energy actually rolls on that green that day. This series of putts calibrates your sense of green speed and allows you to use your targeting plus tempo to successfully stop rolls where you want, whether the putt is level or uphill or downhill, or across undulations.
A second Touch exercise you want to practice I call "Mastering the Green." If you can control the distance across a green from fringe to fringe, there is no putt inside that range the green can present that will cause you great touch difficulty. So analyze the widest dimension of the green and putt from one fringe to the other with two balls. Then putt the opposite direction. Then go to the cross-direction on the shorter axis across the green and repeat the exercise from fringe to fringe. This is a lag exercise, but also a trick for mastering any specific green. If you play a practice round on the course ahead of a competition there, this exercise will allow you to master 18 greens with confidence and a sense of domination rather than intimidation when you face long putts later in play.
A third touch drill is to tee up a ball on the green somewhere and rove around the green putting at this teed-up ball as a target. The "touch" idea is to target precisely the end roll of any putt (visualize the slowing to a stop of the putt) so that the putted ball cozies up to the teed-up ball and touches it and rattles it a little on the tee but does not knock it off.
A fourth touch drill is to perch a target ball on the lip of a hole and putt with the intention of just nudging the target ball over the edge, while leaving the putted ball on the lip. These putts are instructive from the 10-foot to 30-foot range.
These touch drills will probably take about 15 minutes or one-third of the time. If the Core Putt part of these drills covers the first 5-10 minutes, then you are not really trying to sink putts so much as you are trying to get your relaxed timing happening, so this carries you beyond that initial wasted period with something useful. You won't get a false and hurtful sense of frustration trying to sink putts with poor timing at the start.
STRAIGHT STROKES
For the middle section of the practice, I would suggest working on aiming at a tee or a ball over level or straight-uphill green from about 15 to 20 feet, squaring the putter face up, setting up square, cheking the face aim to see that it is squarely aimed, and then making a straight stroke to rolls the ball precisely on line. Initially, I would not use a string line or chalk line or two-club channel or any of that -- keep it just you, the ball, the green, the putter, and the target. Pay attention to setting your skull line so it helps square the rest of the body and watch to have a consistent ball position forward of the middle of your stance.
Once this is working pretty well, you can draw an 8-inch by 3-inch box on the green around the ball, with the back 3-inch line square to the target and an inch behind the back of the ball. Use a tee of something to sratch a line in the grass (it will go away in short order as the grass grows out that day). Square the face up to the back of the box and make a straight stroke that rolls every ball down the 8-inch shute of the box and straight away, ball after ball. Each ball should bump the preceding ball like railroad freight cars in a switching yard. If the balls don't bump, then your putts are not straight. You should find that an important aspect of putting straight is to move the lead shoulder up in order to lag / cast the putter face out and down the line away from the feet so that the face stays square and on line all the way to the far end of the "box" at least.
The next drill would be to find a part of the green where the ball starts above your feet and breaks right to left (right-hander). Setup with the putter sole flush to the tilted surface and then bring your body to the putter without altering the sole's sitting flush. Then pretend that you are actually setting up on level green and putt straight as usual. This exercise makes you putt straight on breaking putts like this without pulling the putt downhill.
Repeat this with a ball-below-feet situation -- a left-to-right breaker for a right-hander. Sole the putter flush, bring the body to the putter, pretend the surface and setup is on level ground, and putt straight. This exercise teaches you not to push these putts downhill.
That's probably enough for putting straight, but if you feel like it, you can also putt straight uphill under a string line or using a stroke-plane trainer. You can also use the Don Pooley tee-gate that squares two tees at a hole on a straight putt from about 5 feet wide enough apart that a ball rests against them on the front side with a piece of the back of the ball protruding behind the two tees. Make straight strokes that impact both tees at once and send the ball straight away from the two tees on line into the hole. It usually takes a couple of trials to get the tees aimed straight. Repeat this a half dozen or more times and pay attention to the upward motion of the putter face from the bottom of the stroke into the back of the ball as the key to the impact being square and straight. Then remove the tees and make a dozen 5-foot straight putts in a row.
BREAKING PUTTS
Starting at about 2-3 feet straight uphill to a hole on a tilted green, place about 8 balls around the hole in a widening spiral counterclockwise, adding a foot of length for every next ball. This yields a spiral pattern of balls around the hole from 2 feet to 10 feet out. Start at the 2-footer and make every putt. You will be putting straight pretty much every ball at the exact same aim spot some fixed distance straight uphill from the cup opposite the first ball. Then repeat the exercise with the spiral running clockwise.
Next, practice downhill breaking putts by laying a club on the fall line thru the cup and then shifting it to the far edge of the hole parallel to the fall line. From the ball, your objective is to find the right touch and aim spot along the shaft above the hole that will feed the ball onto the fall line and deliver it into the cup without touching the club shaft. The idea is to roll the ball with just enough touch so that, if the putt were level, the ball would just barely arrive at the aim spot and stop. Once you have these putts sinking, switch the club to the other side of the hole and practice downhill breaking putts with the opposite break.
The third exercise combines touch, straight putting on a sidehill lie, and break reading and putting all at once. Find a long 30-footer or 50-footer in which the ball breaks right-to-left and is basically running downhill to a hole that is lower than the ball. Go to the hole and read from the behind the hole to visualize the ball slowing as it nears the hole and then dropping into the cup. Draw or scratch the final 3 feet of the curve of the putt path into the cup on the green using your fingers, so the path is indicated dark enough for you to see from the ball. Then, find the fall line thru the cup and visualize how the ball has to feed into or onto that fall line without crossing it (as with the club beside the hole exercise above). Next identify another line thru the hole that is perpendicular to a direct line from ball to hole, and find an aim spot on this perpendicular "hole high" line to start the putt out with the intention of rolling the ball straight at this aim spot ONLY to touch this line. Setup at the ball aimed at this target spot on the "hole high" line thru the cup, target from beside the ball for touch, and putt smoothly with perfect tempo. The ball should finish very, very close to the hole by the way the end roll takes the break drawn on the ground and peters out right on line towards the cup.
That's probably an hour's worth. If you want, you can practice the straight part mostly inside on a rug or mat (just not the part with ball above or below feet), and save the green practice for touch and breaking putts.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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