Improving Distance Control in Putting
By Herb Rubenstein, JD, PGA, MPA
Introduction:
I wanted to share some of my ideas on improving your “putting distance control.” Recently, I have worked on this tirelessly after three-putting more times than I care to remember. I took the Players’ Ability Test at age 65, where I had to shoot 158 over 36 holes to qualify to become a PGA Associate member (and later took and passed courses required by the PGA to become a Class A Member at the age of 67). On the day of my Players Ability Test near Princeton, New Jersey, it was 96 degrees, and I shot the exact qualifying score of 158 (80-78) on a course I had only played twice before. During that one-day, 36-hole event, my putting included making two 50-footers, a 60-footer, and three-putting seven times. On the last hole, I needed a birdie on the 18th (my 36th hole of the day). It was a 400-yard par 4, uphill into the wind, and I had a 50-footer for birdie. I made it and am now a Class A PGA member!
An Approach to Improving Distance Control in Putting
Five years after passing my PAT distance control has again become a problem for me, especially on putts over 30 feet in length. Since I usually hit 11 or 12 greens a round, I have a lot of long birdie putts, and we have undulating greens at my home course, Lexington Golf and Country Club in Lexington, Virginia.
My goal now is 30 putts maximum on a round, so I am intensively working on my putting stroke and green reading, and I will improve my distance control significantly over the next month. My philosophy is for serious golfers: never let an identifiable golf problem go for long because the longer you have the problem, the harder it is to fix. For every golf problem, there is a well-known remedy. The challenge is diagnosing the problem accurately. Over the years and even before the Players Ability Test, the trained eyes of my golf instructor and PGA mentor, Brad Worthington, PGA identified my “acceleration” problem in my putting stroke. Smoothness in one’s putting stroke is essential, and there are ways to observe and actually measure whether or not you are accelerating your putting stroke too quickly as you start your forward stroke.
To improve, you will need to change something or more than one thing. Improvement is applied change. Hopefully, you will work with an instructor who will suggest the most likely changes to improve your distance control. If you are working by yourself, then you can experiment with different changes, including:
• Change your pre-shot putting routine and make sure it is consistent every time you putt
• Change your stance to be an open, closed, or square stance
• Amount of knee bend
• Amount of bending at the hips
• Amount of choking down on your putter (putting your hands lower or higher on the grip)
• More left-hand or right-hand control of the putter,
• Different putting grips, including different grip tightness with each hand
• Different putters if you have more than one
• Different ball position
• Different stances in terms of open, square, and close stance as well as feet narrow or wide apart,
• Putting in an arc motion (use the Putting Arc to help you do this) or putt straight back and straight through,
• More weight on your left foot or even, toes perpendicular to the line, opened out or pigeon-toed
• Eyes directly over the ball or an inch inside the ball,
• Head perpendicular to the ground or at a little angle to the ground,
• And any other variation that you think might be useful.
Over the past several days, I have worked several hours a day and have made the following changes:
• A new putting stance, bending my knees more
• Having more of an Arc putting stroke rather than straight back and straight through on long putts
• Gripping the putter lighter
• Working on being smooth
• Practicing with the intent of improving my distance control by doing drills that help me assess my skill level in this area
Specific Putting Drills That Will Help You Assess Your Skill at Distance Control and Improve
There are two kinds of practice in golf. Block practice is where you do the same thing over and over, working on a skill you want to develop and a result you want to improve. The second kind of practice is random practice, where you attempt different things with each successive shot regarding target selection, shot trajectory or curve, or even changing golf clubs every shot when you practice.
Block practice, as recommended by Brad Worthington, PGA, for the exercise below, would be to putt six balls to a hole 20 feet away. Take a picture from “above” the hole “for the record” and estimate how far each putt ended up from the hole. Keep repeating this distance so you will get very good at distance control from 20 feet, and this will help you with distance control from any distance. This is what we would call “block practice.” Soon, you might be able to putt 90% of your twenty-foot putts within a foot of the hole.
Another similar distance control putting approach recommended by Jeff Wagner, PGA, is to blend block and random practice methods. Set up on a practice putting green or indoors where you have at least 30 feet of room to putt to three different lengths. Put some type of marker at each of the three distances. If you have 30 feet of putting surface, set your markers at 10, 20, and 30 feet. If you have 90 feet, set them up at 30, 60, and 90 feet. Use 6 – 12 golf balls for this exercise.
On your “first” pass, hit all your golf balls first to the shortest marker, then collect them, putt them all to the second marker, and then the third. When you hit a putt short of the marker you think might be hit with a following putt, walk up and move it out of the way. Your goal for each putt should be to hit the putt between one inch and 12 inches past the marker.
On your “second” pass, alternate hitting one putt to each of the three markers in any order you want. You can go short to medium to long or select a target randomly and putt. Go through all of your golf balls at least two times and up to four times in this exercise.
If you want to keep score, which I recommend, give yourself 1 point for every putt that is even with the hole or up to 12 inches past the hole. You can put a line 12 inches past each target like a thin piece of paper or a tee in the putting green. Write down your score after each set of putts. Assuming you use a dozen golf balls, your score might be on the first pass:
8/12 from 10 feet; 75%
6/12 from 20 feet; 50%
4/12 from 30 feet; 33%
or
6/12 from 30 feet; 50%
4/12 from 60 feet; 33%
2/12 from 90 feet: 16%
When you randomly select a distance on your second pass, I recommend you hit the same number of balls to each distance and record your score for each distance.
Then, write down your percentages for each distance at the end of this initial practice or “assessment” session. Of course, you are always seeking to “do your best,” but this is an assessment, and you should never put pressure on yourself to achieve a certain result when seeking to learn how good or not good you are at something. Over time, set a goal, a stretch goal, which might be:
100% at 10 feet
90% at 20 feet
80% at 30 feet
65% at 60 feet
50% at 90 feet
Repeat this practice/assessment and keep score if you like numerous times over a three-month period. If you are having particular problems at one distance, hit more balls to that distance marker, but always hit some balls to each of the three distance markers for each practice. You should pick flat putts that are straight or have a break for your first practice/assessment. Over time, you can add uphill putts for one session and downhill putts for another session.
Other Great Ideas to Help You Improve Distance Control in Putting
Dr. Craig Farnsworth, the Putt Doctor, in a putting lesson years ago, suggested to me that for putts over ten feet, I think about or estimate while “reading the green” how many seconds this putt should take to get to the hole and stop right near the hole or go in. To do this, look at the putt from halfway to the hole from the low side (if there is a break) and imagine or visualize the ball going a certain speed and counting the seconds you believe a great putt would take to reach the hole and stop near the hole if it does not go in. This idea takes a few seconds and gives you both a mental and visual cue as to how “fast” you think the right speed should be for the putt to go the distance you want it to go. Practice this technique on a putting green or indoors before taking it on the course.
My PGA Mentor Brad Worthington suggested to me in an email section copied below to consider counting out loud as Bob Rotella suggested to Davis Love, Jr. He wrote:
I would utilize Rotella to Love counting cycle.
One: Look at hole
Two: Look back at ball
Three: Start backswing
Four: Impact
It gets your mind off being critical and caught in between. And count out loud.
Jon Sherman, the author of the book above, says just before he putts the ball, he says to himself, “Good Speed.”
One final story: several years ago, I gave a putting lesson to a woman who is a great athlete in her 50s and had never played golf before. The putting lesson was 15 minutes.
After she hit a few flat putts without any break, and I gave her some instruction, I had her attempt a 30-foot downhill putt with a five-foot right-to-left break without telling her anything about how the ball would roll or break. As she tried her first putt, I stood 20 feet past the hole and five feet to the left of the hole. She hit her putt 20 feet past the hole and five feet left of the hole, and it stopped right at my feet.
At first, she did not like her result, and I asked her – “Why do you think I stood exactly in this place before you hit the putt?” She said, “That is where you thought I would putt the ball.” I told her she was exactly right. On her next putt, she putted the ball ten feet past the hole and three feet left of the hole. She made some adjustments in her stance, her aiming point, and the length of her putting stroke, thus changing her target to a spot closer to her (short of the hole) and closer to the right of the hole. As Dawn Mercer taught me, “The hole is your goal. IT IS NOT YOUR TARGET (except on flat, straight putts). She changed her stance to aim more and more to the right, and she shortened her putting stroke to hit the putt a shorter distance.
She then went on to hit two more putts, one long and to the left and one short of the hole. She adjusted her target, her stance, and the length of her putting stroke after each putt.
On her fifth attempt, she made it, and she was excited! And we ended the lesson on a very high note.
If Marissa could do that, I know you can become a better putter with proper instruction and practicing with intent. At some point, you have to become clear regarding what is working and what is not working in your putting. That often takes a set of well-trained eyes watching you putt. Someone can watch you in person, which is a deal, or you can record a video (properly taken) and send it to an instructor. Have someone take videos of your putting (or set it up with a remote button to activate the video) and view these videos yourself to see if you can find the mistake or mistakes you are making. You can also putt with a mirror, watch yourself putt, and see if you can spot your mistakes. Sometimes, that is even harder than finding Waldo in a very busy drawing!
Good target selection (the last place you look to putt the ball to if it were a flat putt without a break) is essential as you have to read the speed of the greens where you putt, which is not easy. Your mind will always default to picking your line (to the right of the hole if the putt breaks left, but you have to train it to pick a target short of the hole if the putt is downhill or especially fast due to grain or beyond the hole by a certain amount if the putt is uphill). However, if your putting stroke does not give you precise distance control, all the green reading skills you might have will not result in putting the ball exactly the right distance you want to putt it.
Ultimately, you have to get over each putt with the same pre-shot routine and be comfortable first and confident second that you will hit the putt solidly on your starting line. When making a very good putt, sometimes it will go in, and sometimes it will not, but that is putting. No green is perfect, and Jon Sherman says 20% of 12-foot putts that are hit well will not go in the hole due to green imperfections on average greens. (The pros on TV putt on the best greens).
The more consistent you get in “speed control” or distance control, the better you will become at picking your starting line because your brain needs to know how hard you are going to hit the putt (the speed the golf ball will travel off the putter) before you can really know how much break there will be in the putt. Speed first, break second, success third.
Conclusion
And, let putting be fun. You are rolling the putts, not hitting them. And like quarterbacks who “let the ball fly” and baseball pitchers who “let the ball hunt,” don’t try to control or steer the putt. You roll it, and it goes where the greens take it. The next newsletter will be on “reading greens.”
That is an area where I need to improve, and I have a challenge I hope you do not have. I only see out of my left eye, but it never stopped me from making 50-footers when a match or tournament was on the line, and it was never the cause of me three-putting. It just makes reading greens a little harder for me, so now I use my feet and Aim Point to help me “read” uphill/downhill slopes and breaks. Green reading is a discipline, so get behind every putt and line it up, and even look at the putt from not only behind the ball, but also behind the hole and from the low side of the putt halfway from the ball to the hole. Do it quickly, as your mind can process this information quickly as you look for curves and slopes (and even “grain”) on the green that will speed up, slow down, or curve the ball along its path to the hole compared to how the ball would travel on that same green if it were perfectly flat.
Go have a ball. Everyone can improve putting.