If you’re looking for a way to improve your performance on the greens, focusing on your putting is a great place to start saving strokes.
Developing a reliable and repeatable stroke can pay dividends, and Heather Angell, the director of instruction at Heritage Palms Golf & Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla., has a simple checkpoint drill to help you establish the stroke consistency your game needs.
“There are many great putting gadgets out there, but unfortunately, you cannot take them with you when you play on the course,” she said. “I want my students to be able to execute the shot without the aid of a gadget, so I have them focus on a couple of checkpoints on the course.”
The placement of your feet can be a useful guide, Angell said, and you can use them to home in on a comfortable stroke length.
“Focus on your feet when you putt,” she said. “If you have your putter head in the middle of your stance and your ball just in front of clubhead, the low point of your swing arc will be where the clubhead is at address. This allows the club to contact the ball as the clubhead is leaving the lowpoint and helps to add a little loft to the putter face, which will start the ball rolling end over end. With your putter head positioned in the middle of your stance, now your feet can act as reference points for your stroke.
“Taking the putter back to your back foot (right foot for right-handed golfers), then through to the front foot creates an easily repeatable back-and-through stroke that will help with consistency and distance control,” she continued. “You can even establish how far this particular length stroke will roll on the practice green.”
At this point, you can start to familiarize yourself with the distance the ball travels when you swing the putter back to one foot and through to the other. Think of that motion as your stock tempo and distance.
“Once you determine that distance, file it away in your brain,” Angell said.
The next step is to practice from shorter and longer distances than your personal stock distance to discern how much more (or less) you need to swing the putterhead in relation to your feet.
“Obviously, a stroke length that goes just past your back foot and through just past your front foot will go farther due to stroke length,” Angell said. “This helps you keep your tempo of the stroke smooth and allows you to adjust the length of the stroke to get different distance lengths.”
The most important part of this drill is to establish the back-and-through motion that comes most comfortably and naturally to you, and then simply adjust the length of that stroke to match the length of the putt your facing. So the next time you have a few minutes to spend on the practice green, give this tempo drill a try, and enjoy your new-and-improved distance control.
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