Make More Putts and Avoid 3-Putting

Your tee shot lands middle of the fairway - 100 yards out. Your approach shot finds the green, but sitting 25 feet from the hole. How confident are you, you’ll walk away with at least Par?

80%?

50%?

20%?

With that number in mind, let’s look at some data…

Make % by Distance and Skill Level

Chances of 3-Putting by Distance and Skill Level:

There are 3 main components of Putting, but there is a vast difference of value between them depending how far you are from the hole.

• Green Reading

• Start Line

• Speed/Distance Control

Green Reading

People spend an enormous about of time here. They buy green maps to tell you the slope. They look at the hole from all different angles. Phone apps will even measure the degrees of the slope to tell you how far left or right you should be aiming.

That’s all well and good, but unless you hit the ball with the perfect power, the arc of the path will be no good.

Start Line

Just like Green Reading, the start line (red dashed line) you choose will also depend on how hard you hit the ball. A harder hit ball will have less break. A slower hit ball, will have more break.

Speed / Distance Control

Let’s take a look again at the first chart above. For putts outside of 5 feet, golfers who regularly shoot around 90 are more likely to miss the putt than make it. Let me say that again - they will miss it more times from 5’1” then make it. Not sure about the crew you play with, but before I took golf serious, we classified those as gimmies.

For Pro golfers, the 50/50 distance is only 3 feet longer at just 8 feet. That’s definitely not what the TV broadcast makes it seem like.

So if the make % of any putt outside of 5-8 feet is so low, what can we do about it? That’s where distance control comes in.

Now, I’m no swing expert and there are plenty of different opinions about grip, backswing length, and follow through and I’m certainly not about to jump in front of that runaway train, but the important takeaway is, you have to find the stroke and system that works for you. Whatever it is, you need to practice, practice, practice, to get a good feel for how hard to swing on a 5 foot putt, 10 foot putt, 20 footer and 30 footer.

My Putting System

For starters, I need to know how far away from the hole I am, so I pace everything out. My stride is roughly 3 feet, so 6 strides to the pin is 18 feet. Two strides is 6 feet. And so on.

From there, I have an equal length backswing and follow through and I use my feet as reference points.

Prior to the round, I’ll find a relatively flat putt on the practice green and putt three balls with my putter going from middle foot to middle foot. I’ll then pace that distance out and take the average of those three balls. Now I have a reference putting stroke and rollout distance while out on the course. (For most courses, this is 3-4 strides for me)

If I have more time, I’ll find a downslope on the green and use the same toe to toe putting stroke to get a feel for how far this length travels going uphill and then downhill. Both of which I will catalog in my brain and will either increase my width or decrease my putting stroke based on how far I am from the hole.

I encourage you to see how far the ball rolls from outside of foot to outside of foot. From inside foot to inside foot. And from 4 o’clock to 8 o’clock (thinking about a clock face).

Shot Dispersion

Just like your irons and woods, you will also have a shot dispersion with your putter. Imagine taking the time putt 100 balls and plot them all out for their relative length and width to the hole, you’d have something like this:

You’ll have a number of them that go too long. Some that are short. Some that are left and some that are right. You’ll also have a number of them in the hole. Hopefully if you’re just standing there and doing it all together, you’ll get a relatively good amount in the hole. But that too also depends on how far away you are. The key takeaway here is, you’ll want to center your shot dispersion on the hole so that 50% of the balls go long and 50% would go short.

I’d make the argument that from 10’+, you shouldn’t even try to make the putt, but rather lag it up close for an easy tap in. The reason for this is two-fold:

1. The chances of you making are very not in your favor

2. Trying to make means you’d never leave it short and thus your shot pattern is going to run long - giving yourself a 4 or 5 foot putt coming back. And we all now know the make % from 5 feet…

So yes, I’m spitting in the face of the old saying “never up, never in” for putts outside of 10 feet. If you can stay disciplined and stick to this strategy, I can assure you, you’ll have a bunch more stress-free tap in’s than you would had you tried to make the putt from 23 feet.

This has worked for me and when I’m not having to waste precious mental energy and nerves trying to avoid a three-putt, I find that I play better in all facets of my game.

Putting Practice

I’ve talked about the The Stack System before and it’s well known for its speed training, but they also have a putting training system built right into the app. The most basic feature it has is running you through 18 holes on the practice green to give you a simulated round.

You’ll then walk around the practice green to find the putt it calls for and then hit the putt. Record what happened and move on to the next “hole.”

After the “round”, you’ll get a load of stats like speed bias, direction bias and more. The good/bad part about it is, during your next practice session, it will serve up more of the putts that you struggled with during the previous session to give you more attempts and reps. The reason why that’s bad is because it’s hard and uncomfortable. The reason why that’s good is because it’s making you better.

Beyond that, there’s a whole slew of other features in the putting portion so if you’re interested in getting better, I simply can’t recommend The Stack System enough.

How Much to Practice

I’ve read that if you were in a competition between a PGA Pro on the putting green, that it wouldn’t be a complete beat down. That you’d actually hold your own. But if you then went to 150 yards out and had to hit approach and putts, that you’d get demolished. The point of this is saying, yes, putting is important but it’s not as important as other areas of your game. In fact, my instructors only recommend that I practice it roughly 15-20% of the time.

This does seem odd since putting should make up 50% of my shots on a Par 4. But Mark Brodie and his Strokes Gained data will tell you, there is a lot more room for improvement in other areas like Approach and Driving.

Final Thoughts

Speed/Distance Control is your number 1 friend on the putting surface. You’ll recall from the guidebook you downloaded that average proximities to the hole from 150 yards ranges from 45-70 feet. So stop worrying about trying to make everything from deep and start working on your lag putts and bump and runs to get into a 4 foot circle around the hole. Do that and you’re going to see your scores plummet.