#1 – Practice Your Putting
There is no part of the game of golf that will do more to reduce your score than putting. It may not be as sexy as hitting arrow straight 300+ yard drives or being able to hit lofty medium irons into the heart of the green but putting is really where you should focus on if you want to improve your score, improve your handicap or win tournaments.
Other than playing more rounds of golf, the place to improve your putting is the putting green. Putting machines are OK to practice hitting straight but do not come close to getting on a real putting surface with real grass, contours and a real hole.
Simply grab half a dozen balls and get onto the putting green and practice your short putts until you can hole 9/10 putts from 6 feet. If you can do this during a real round of golf, you’ll have an edge over 90% of amateur golfers.
Once you’ve got your short putting off, practice medium length putting – that’s those from around 20 – 30 feet. Your aim is not to putt them all, but to get within a couple of feet every time. Practice straight putts and various contoured putts; judging the swing and pace of undulating putting surfaces is vital for real world golf course greens. Once you can get 9/10 20-30ft putts to within a couple of feet, you can then move on to long putts.
Long putts can be classed as anything from over about 30 feet and the aim here is to simply 2-putt 9/10 of them. This isn’t as easy as it sounds – especially for longer putts or putts on undulating surfaces but if you can achieve all these three challenges consistently, you’ll knock a lot of shots off your average score and be well on the way to an impressive handicap or some tourament wins!