Putting to a Distance
Posted by Double Eagle in Putting Tips
When I was first learning the game, a young assistant pro at the course where I worked saw me struggling on the practice green with lag putts and distance control. He shared a tip with me that I’m passing on to you.
When trying to get a feel for distance on lag putts, it helps to pace off the putts and then associate a specific stroke with a specific distance as a way to enhance your muscle memory recall.
On your practice green, pace off a relatively level putt and figure out the distance. Then make several putts to the target, paying careful attention to the length of stroke you make for that length putt. After a handful of shots, you’ll notice that you’ve grooved a stroke that is of the proper distance most of the time (it doesn’t matter if you’re making the putts).
Then, in your mind, you can associate that swing with that specific distance. Say, you’re hitting to a target that’s ten paces from you. After you practice the stroke and get the distance down, then you have a perfect ten-pace stroke.
On the course, pace off the putt and decided how long it is. My example uses paces, but you can use feet, yards, meters, or whatever you like. Note that it’s only important that your measurements are repeatable, not accurate. If you call your paces a yard, but they’re actually two and a half feet, it doesn’t matter. So long as in your mind you associate the same stroke with the same distance each time, you’ll have the ability to recall this stroke from muscle memory at will, provided you’ve practiced it enough.
When you practice, groove a variety of distances to give you a better feel for distance out on the course. If a putt is a little longer or shorter than one of your grooved distances, you still have that distance to recall as a frame of reference. All you need to do is take a little off or give it a little bit more to handle the in-between distance.
You can also get the feel for how uphill and downhill putts work for each stroke. For instance, try your ten pace stroke on uphill and downhill putts of different severity to get a feel for how far it will go in those situations. Eventually, you’ll figure out that for a specific amount of uphill rise, your ten pace putt actually requires a 12 or 13 or 15 pace stroke, for example.
Give this a try if you suffer from poor distance control when putting, especially if you are an analytical person that likes to think about golf in terms of numbers and planes and angles and the like.
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