Use this pre-round putting drill to dial in your speed
The last thing you want to do before you tee off is waste emotional energy missing putts on the practice putting green. Sure, cleaning up a few three-footers won’t hurt, but the primary purpose of time spent on the putting green immediately before a round should be to establish a rhythm you can take onto the golf course.
Ignore whatever holes may be cut and simply find a space – ideally 10-15 metres – where you can putt to the fringe line on one side of the green and then back to the fringe line on the opposite side.
Ideally, it will be uphill one way and downhill the other, so the speed you hit each putt with will be totally different. You need to be tuned in to what that change in slope is and you need to see it and feel it. The fringe will also serve as something of a backstop, but the idea is to have each ball come to rest up against the fringe of the green.
It’s a simple and effective way to feel rhythm with the putter without the anxiety of the ball going in – or not going in – the hole.
Based at the Hills Golf Academy in Queensland, Ken Berndt has been a PGA professional for 50 years and is the current coach of Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia winners Anthony Quayle and Louis Dobbelaar.
