This putting game was so difficult that a PGA Tour winner actually got a little heated when he was doing it. But he got hooked, and if you do it, it’ll make you a better putter.
You can watch the full video below, but at our Golf Digest photo shoot with Nick Dunlap earlier this year, we asked the two-time PGA Tour winner to give it a try…
How the game works
The game was invented by the team at Blueprint Golf, and here’s how it works:
- First, you stand in one spot with a bunch of golf balls.
- Next, walk 30 feet in front of you (which is about 10 steps) and place a tee on the ground.
- Then take another five steps and place another tee on the ground, which is about 45 feet away from your golf balls.
Once you’ve set up the drill, the goal is to hit putts inside this 30 to 45-foot zone. But, there’s a catch, and it’s what makes this game so difficult: each putt that you roll into this zone, you have to make sure the next putt finishes past it but still stays in the zone. It’s like a game of leapfrog, and you fail as soon as you don’t do that.
We allowed Dunlap a quick warm-up to get used to the speed of the greens.
His first two times he got four and five, at which point I told him we could stop doing this if he wanted. But the game was so difficult Dunlap wanted to keep going. He was in intense, competition mode. He wasn’t going to stop until he notched a score he was proud of – a sign that the point of the drill was working.
Then, on his next try, Dunlap fit nine golf balls in this 15-foot gap – an impressive score considering how difficult a game it is. The rest of us would probably do quite well to get four balls in that gap, but just take a few tries at this game and it will really help you.
Why the game works
Distance control on putts can be really difficult to practise, and it’s especially hard to practise under pressure. This game helps you do both. If you can dial it in to the extent where you know the difference between a 32-foot putting stroke and a 35-foot putting stroke and a 40-foot putting stroke, you’re going to have a lot fewer three-putts and do what the pros do so well: leave yourself a lot of tap-ins.
How well could you handle this brutal putting challenge? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/8QFUCkVt8O
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) November 7, 2024
