This is the most classic putting drill of all the putting drills. Everyone ends up doing this drill at some point and the progression usually goes like this:
Golfer gets into golf. Starts to play. Gets better. Goes to instructor, asks about how to get much-more better. Instructor goes, “You should practice your putting.” Golfer goes, “Great. How?”
“Go make 100 3-footers in a row. Then you’ll be a great putter.”
Classic.
Let me be clear, I will in no way disparage the ability to make a bunch of 3-footers. It is vital to the game and you certainly can’t be great without an ability to make a high percentage of them.
However, what we see in statistics is that once golfers get to a certain level (important distinction), the disparity between great 3-foot putters and terrible 3-foot putters is small.
At the PGA Tour level, the difference between the very best on tour (and there are several tied) and the very worst is 100% made and 98.21% made. LESS THAN 2%. (2024 stats)
Sam Burns is like 535 for 535 or something, and Kevin streelman is like 438 out of 446. That boils down to a whopping 8 shots over almost 58 rounds of golf this season, or almost 28 rounds if all they had were 3-foot putts.
I hope you recognize those 8 shots aren’t gonna move the needle, in regards to winning (unless they all happened in the same event, or the most innoportune 3-footers (think Rory at US Open)) and the reason Sam Burns is tops in the world and Kevin Streelman currently isn’t has nothing to do with the fact that Sam makes all his 3-footers and Kevin is the worst on the tour.
Intrigued? Me too.
How about this stat instead:
Hayden Springer is best on tour from 10-15’ making about 43% of his putts. This means that out of his 105 attempts, he’s made 46. Solid.
Worst on tour is Harrison Endycott at 10.71%—and actually let’s throw him out because he’s been probably statistically so bad it’s just an outlier. Next on the list is Joe Highsmith at 18.75% making 15 of 80 attempts.
Extrapolating up to 105 attempts gives Joe a make total of about 19 makes from 10-15’. Same amount of rounds for the season, and that means Hayden Springer has gained about 27 shots on the worst-on-tour in this category.
You can see how much that dwarfs the 8 shots Sam Burns makes up.
I can bore you forever with even more statistics about how much more important different distances are, and you’d hate me for it. But let’s simply say that the gaps between putters don’t happen at close distances.
Even your putters who are truly terrible, still make a good number of them inside of 5-feet.
(Side note: This doesn’t really apply to golfers who struggle with the “yips.” That is a separate issue and practice isn’t the thing that really cures this, nor does it really apply in this article because that’s gonna be for a sports psychologist)
SO.
What do we do with this information?
WE PRACTICE DIFFERENT
No more will we stand there and go in a circle around the hole trying to make 25/50/100 3-footers in a row. No more will we wear a spot out in the green just to feel like we’ve accomplished something. No more will we think that making all of our 3-footers is the difference between good golf and bad golf.
We will practice from close range—just enough—to feel comfortable, and then we’ll move on to more important and influential practice.
Don’t forget, putting is simply three things:
1. Aiming where we want to aim.
2. Starting it on the line we are intending to start it on.
3. Rolling it as far as we want to.
For 3-foot putts, really only #1 and #2 apply, and with minimal, and consistent, practice, those get pretty dialed in and rarely get too far off track. I recommend a chalk line, and a tee-gate drill. Do them every day, for a few minutes, and you’ll be great from close range. (You can download my E-book on putting here to read more in depth).
The more important and influential practice will be speed work, pressure work, routine work, and then green reading work. All of these must be practice with intentionally and intensity.
When I see guys on the green hitting a million putts with headphones in, I know it’s less than optimal. What I want to see, as a coach, is a player without headphones, going through her full routine (reading the green, lining the ball up or whatever they do, rehearsing feels, pulling the trigger etc). If she hits 3 putts in 3 minutes, I think she might be on to something. If she hits 30, perhaps not.
If I were to break down my perfect ideal practice it would look something like this:
Basics practice with aim and start line feedback. Using a chalk line, tee gate, or a Dave Pelz putting tutor.
This accompishes the very basics of putting, and doing this every day keeps you from getting too far offline (pun). I rarely work from inside of 4 or 5 feet on this. Probably closer to 5/6 feet on a chalk line for me.
The ability to start the ball online has always been paramount to my confidence and doing this every day makes me feel like every day will be a great putting day.
Next, I want to see working on some breaking putts, generally from 6-15 feet. Probably 10 minutes.
Not only does doing this with intention help us calibrate our ability to read the green, it also helps us with #3 on our putting list. Speed. Speed is everything on breaking putts, and you have to be dialed in to make a ton of 10-footers.
Make sure and go through full routine on this, as we want to simulate being on-course here. The goal is to help the eyes (or feet if you believe in Aim-Point) understand the slope and speed and get the hands to match it.
Speed Drills. Probably 10-20 minutes.
Now we’re wrapping up the meat of our work, where we get to really dial in our feel. Going through our routine with each putt, this might be speed ladders, or lag putting competitions, pull-backs etc. Make sure and have feedback, try and find metrics that can be measured, and then work to improve.
Re-visit whatever didn’t feel great. Or just go back to the basics and work start line again.
I’ve never minded going back and spending another 5 min on the chalk line, really working on the most basic fundamentals.
There you have it, probably a 30-45 minute putting practice that has accomplished every single thing needed to putt well, and no filler exercises just to waste time. If you practice like this, you will absolutely see improvement in your stroke, start lines, speed control, and golf scores.
If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. If you think I’m an idiot, let me know that too. Seriously.
-Michael
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