The Two Highest-ROI Putting Skills
And How to Practice Them
It’s a Sunday afternoon and you turn on PGA Tour coverage. It starts with a clip of the leader draining a 20-foot putt to extend his lead. Then they cut to someone back in 10th place making an 18-footer. After that, they flash back to a highlight of a guy earlier in the day sinking one from 50 feet.
Wow. These guys are amazing putters. How could anyone draw any other conclusion?
Meanwhile, you’re stuck missing over half of your 6-footers. And putts beyond 20 feet? Good luck. Those only fall once in a blue moon.
If only you could improve at putting. And not just any form of putting — if only you could make long putts like the guys on TV. Then you’d finally break through to the next level.
Except for none of this is true.
I’m not saying pros aren’t exceptional putters. Of course they are. But the gap between you and them is not in your inability to make long putts.
“But I saw them making 30-footers on TV.”
Well sure, you did see the broadcast cut to highlights of the few guys who happen to be putting the best they’ve putted all season. Never mind the missed putts from the other 80% of the field that didn’t make the highlight reel.
If you’re looking for where strokes are being lost, it’s most likely not coming from making mid-range putts — at least not to the degree you think it is.
I’d also argue it might not even come from missing short putts. I will get into this later in the article.
In today’s Scoring Letter, we’ll go over all of the relevant data to show you how your putting actually compares to the pros. I’ll cover how many strokes you’re leaving on the table, where they are coming from, and which areas of putting you should focus on if you want to gain strokes. Finally we’ll end with some helpful drills and games that I believe actually help move the needle.
Before we continue:
If you’re enjoying this week’s post and want access to the entire Scoring Letter archive, I’m running a little promo to receive 20% off an annual subscription for one year HERE.
Measuring the Gap
For the rest of this article, we’ll be comparing Tour pros to 10-handicaps. Partially because I think 20-handicap data is kind of useless for most serious golfers, but mostly because the majority of my readers are in the 10-handicap range.
