Tips On How To Improve Your Distance Control On The Putting Green

In this video, PGA Professional Katie Dawkins explains how to improve your distance control on the greens.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Katie Dawkins. I am an advanced PGA professional and I'm here today at West Hill

00:09Golf Club on the beautiful greens that they have here to help you work out how to better

00:14judge distance on the green. So how do I get this ball close to that hole? If you could

00:20guarantee that you never took any more than two putts on every single green, my goodness,

00:25how many shots would you save every round? I would say a lot of golfers are creeping

00:29into that double figures mark. So if putting is going to save you lots of shots and especially

00:34getting that first putt close, then why is it that people turn up for lessons and want

00:39to go on the range? Everyone needs to put a little bit more time into working on their

00:43putting game. Here are a couple of tips just to help you with that judging of distance

00:47on the green. So how do I get a ball from about here on the edge of the green to there?

00:52One of the easiest ways to get a feel for how much stroke to give it would be to roll

00:57it there. So if I am going to roll a ball to that flag, say it was for a million pounds

01:02prize money, I'm not going to stand here and give it a thumb like this with my arm. I'm

01:06not going to give it quite a jerky sort of shot. Yet this is how some people putt. Some

01:11people will stand here and smack the ball to get it close to the hole. It's very hard

01:17to know how much hit to give it. You're better off taking the hit out and working on different

01:22length strokes for different length putts. A really great way, especially if you have

01:27a demon hole on the course that really bugs you, perhaps you three or four putted heaven

01:31forbid the last time you played it, but a really good way is to stand on that green

01:36out on the course when no one else is around, roll a few balls to that hole from different

01:40spots on the green. What you'll find from that is you start to get a bit of an idea

01:54of how much swing with the arm to give it, then drop a ball down there and have a putt

01:59from that same spot. What that's going to do is it's going to start to give you a nice

02:04amount of feel for how much stroke you need for that particular length putt. It'll also

02:09give you a feel for how the up slopes and the down slopes and how the conditions are

02:13going to affect you that day. If you were going to play a different course and you were

02:18on the putting green, for example, a really good drill will be to stand there and have

02:23in your head almost like a metronome, a rhythm, a one, two, a tick tock. If you're standing

02:29over the shot, it's tick tock, tick tock. If it's a little putt, it's little tick tock,

02:37and if it's a big putt, it's a bigger tick tock, but the rhythm stays the same. That

02:42way you're working on length of stroke to determine the distance your ball goes. As

02:47with when I roll a ball with my arm, there's always a little bit more follow through than

02:51there is backswing. Bear that in mind, it's a smooth acceleration and give it a go.

02:58This is a part of the game that players just don't practice enough. All you need to do

03:01is go out and work out how you control distance. There's no textbook way of doing this. It's just

03:08down to practice and putting some time in. You put some work in on the greens,

03:11and your game will thank you for it.