These five simple drills from Northampton Golf Club Head Professional and England Putting Coach Nick Soto will help your short game.
Master your start line – test your ability to start the ball on your intended line with some gates. A 55mm wide gate positioned 11 inches ahead of the ball will give you a one degree margin of error, which is the difference between holing or missing a putt from 10 feet. Using the gates along-side an alignment aid such as a mirror will give feedback on the movement of the putter during the stroke.
Perfect your path – perfect the direction of your putter using sleeves of balls. Position the sleeves either side of the putter head allowing enough room for the putter head to travel through. Once you are consistently swinging the putter through the gates, narrow them to increase the difficulty.
Improve your rhythm and timing – use tee pegs as markers for an equal swing length and work on a smooth rhythm. A common fault is to swing too short and slow on the backswing, forcing acceleration through impact which can lead to inconsistent speed control. Try saying ‘one thousand’ for the duration of the backswing and ‘one’ at impact to control your timing. Once you’ve mastered this indoors try taking it to the putting green and applying it to different length putts.
Develop your touch – set two markers, one at 10 feet ahead of you and one at 20 feet ahead of you. Try to fit as many balls as possible in between the two markers. Sounds easy, but each ball must go past the previous ball. I particularly like this drill as it forces you to be brave if you are going to get a good score and can also be very frustrating if you leave one short.
Hole out like a pro – turn six tee pegs upside down in a horizontal line spaced apart. Place your ball three feet away from the horizontal line positioned in the middle. Count how many attempts it takes you to knock all six tee pegs over. Repeat this process from four, five and six feet and total your score. By narrowing your target to a tee peg, the hole should seem like a big target when you’re out on the golf course. As a guide to measure your putting performance the average make percentage on the PGA Tour from three to six feet is 86%. Good luck.
To find out more about Northampton Golf Club, email Luke Barney at golfmanager@northamptongolfclub.co.uk visit www.northamptongolfclub.co.uk
