Best Way to Practice Long and Medium Golf Putting



Most players spend insufficient time practicing putting. Long and medium length putting is mostly about learning to judge distance better.

Practice with six balls from six paces. Set up a box of four tee pegs starting just behind the hole and one putter length square. Club golfers always tend to leave the ball short. Remember, it is easier to make the ball get to the hole than to have the hole come towards you! Give yourself two points for every ball that finishes in the hole and one point for every one that finishes in the box. If you hit six putts from six paces the right distance, then by the law of averages one or two will drop in. The exercise is much harder to do downhill than uphill. Extend the exercises to eight paces and ten paces if you are a would-be champion.

Long Golf Putting Best Way to Practice Long and Medium Golf Putting

Peg out a piece of string 1 metre (3ft) beyond the hole. Try to make every putt pass the hole without going over the string. Alternatively, lay two clubs down about 1.5 metres (5ft) apart and practice trying to get four balls to finish in this box. It gives you something positive to practice to and you can see your success rate improve.

Don’t just practice long putts aimlessly to a hole. Inevitably most of them will miss. If you do this, all you see is failure and it is unlikely to hold your attention.

Put six or ten balls round a green with different lengths and lines. Putt each to the hole and see how many you can get within your putter length. This way, you start learning about your putting and seeing your success rate. To vary your target, put a tee peg down on the green and keep practicing to that. Just keep trying to get each ball within a putter length and you will soon be a good long putter.

Set up three balls of the same make but with different numbers. Putt the first one, putt the second and putt the third without looking up at each putt. This exercise will make you aware of your contact. If your putting stroke is good and your contact basically sound, all three balls should finish at much the same length. This teaches you to feel a good contact.

Long Golf Putting 1 Best Way to Practice Long and Medium Golf Putting

Lay-backs

For a really testing exercise for both long putting and short putting, try this exercise on a nine or eighteen hole putting green. Play your putt to the hole. If it misses, always move the ball further away by another putter length. If you miss again, move it away a putter length again. This way you don’t simply tap in a series of tiny putts. It makes you concentrate on every long putt, with plenty of practice of the short ones.



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