Putting is a game of Visualization and Feel and hence it’s very important you try and heighten those senses whenever you practice. For me putting is an almost pure mental game.
A great way to work on your feel is to take the visual element away and putt with your eyes closed. Suzanne Pettersen actually did this for a while in tournaments, putting everything within 20 ft with her eyes closed. This gives you an idea of how important feel is for putting. I don’t suggest you do it in competition, but when you are on the practice green, give this drill a try and I’ve no doubt you will increase your feel and start holing more putts on the course.
This exercise isn’t really about how many putts you hole, it’s about becoming aware of the feeling associated with the length and direction of each putt. Once you have the line in your mind’s eye and you are correctly aligned, it is all about feel and making a good positive stroke. This drill will help you achieve this.
1. Take 3 balls and a drop them down approximately 10 ft from a hole. I say “drop them” so you don’t have exactly the same putt each time.
2. Go through your putting routine of reading the putt, visualizing the line (and seeing the ball go in), feeling the stroke and addressing the ball.
3. When you are about to start your back-swing, close your eyes. Then putt.
4. Before opening your eyes, make a call on where the putt finished. E.g. short-right, long-left or holed it!
5. When you open your eyes and see where the ball has come to rest, grade yourself on how close you were to the putt you felt. E.g. If you missed long-left and you called it:
Long-left = 2 points
Short-left, Long-right = 1
Short right = 0 points
If you holed it and you called it, give yourself 3 points.
If you holed it and you called a miss, give yourself 2 points.
6. Next pick a hole 15ft away and then repeat for a 20ft putt so you have a total of nine holes. Total up your score and make it a target to beat before you can leave the putting green after your next practice session.
The reason I have developed a scoring system for this exercise is that I strongly believe you should always practice with pressure. The more you can do this, instead of practicing consequence-free, the more you can feel comfortable when you feel pressure on the golf course. Over time, this exercise will heighten your feel for putts of all distances, build a more confident putting stroke, and ultimately lower scores.
It would be great to get your feedback on the effectiveness of this drill.
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Hi David, I am a Dutch golf teaching professional in Portugal and I use this drill always in my lessons. People are amazed how well they putt. They are not distracted by the hole or technique anymore so everything is focussed on playing the ball. On the other hand, not much people use it on the course or as a practice. They only do this exercise during the lessons. Strange is’nt it?
Greetz,
Jos
David,
I practiced putting with my eyes closed several months ago to help with my occasional case of yips. My thinking was, you can’t be scared of what you can’t see. I noticed at the same time that this drill helped with my feel. I even tried it with chipping and it works there, too. I remember practicing this impossible downhill chip where a shot 10 feet from the cup would be respectable, and with my eyes closed I holed two and lipped out the third. Go figure. By the way, thanks for sending me the emails. I enjoy them.
RB
Thanks for the feedback Robert. You are absolutely right that so much of how we interpret what we see with the eyes can cause a negative reaction. Once we have decided on a line and close our eyes, we have no choice but to go along with what we have decided. So many times the average player will look again at the putt or chip and then change their mind at the ball which causes doubt and a bad shot. This exercise is great for just working purely on feel as you have work from memory, which is essentially what you are doing with the swing – just using the unconscious part of the brain. As I said in the article, Suzann Pettersen did it for a while, putting everything within 20ft with her eyes closed. I wouldn’t recommend it to all students, but once you know you are aligned correctly and you are confident you can hit the ball out the center, then why not? Sounds like you have a great short game!
I forgot about putting with your eyes closed. Someone told be about that back when I first started playing, but I didn’t stick with it. I’ll have to try it again.
Thanks for the comment Dan, my drills are largely based on improving the senses of visualization and feel which are somewhat overlooked by conventional teaching. This is the most effective way to improve. Then it’s all brought together with a good shot routine. In my opinion, practicing the short game is far more important than the long game and there are so many great drills like this to do it. Hope you are enjoying my articles, please feel free to contact me directly about any questions you might have. I also offer a free 1 on 1 session over the phone with a purchase of the CD. Good luck!