10 Putting Drills to Lower Your Golf Score

10 Putting Drills to Drastically Improve Your Game (Without a Teacher)

The old saying “Drive for show, putt for dough” is one of the truest clichés in golf. You can crush a 300-yard drive, but if you can’t seal the deal on the green, your scorecard will suffer. For most amateur golfers, putting accounts for a staggering 40% of all strokes in a round. Think about how many shots you’ve let slip with a frustrating three-putt or a missed “gimme.”

The good news? Putting is the one area of the game where you can make massive improvements without spending a fortune on lessons or fancy equipment. All it takes is a little know-how and focused, consistent practice.

Forget just aimlessly rolling a few putts before your round. These 10 drills are designed to build a reliable, repeatable stroke that holds up under pressure. Grab your putter and a few balls, and let’s turn those bogeys into birdies.

Part 1: The Fundamentals (Alignment & Stroke)

These drills are designed to build a solid foundation, ensuring your putter face is square at impact and your stroke is on the correct path.

1. The Gate Drill (Start Line & Alignment)

The Goal: To train your putter to strike the ball squarely and start it on your intended line. A slight push or pull can be the difference between a made putt and a lip-out.
What You’ll Need: Your putter, a ball, and two tees.
How to Do It: Find a straight, short putt (around 4-5 feet). Place two tees on the ground just wider than your putter head, creating a “gate” for your putter to swing through. For an added challenge, place another gate a foot in front of the ball, just wider than the ball itself, on your target line.
How to Win: Make 10 putts in a row without your putter or the ball touching either gate.

2. The Yardstick Drill (Perfecting Your Path)

The Goal: To groove a straight-back, straight-through putting stroke. This eliminates unwanted arcs that cause inconsistency.
What You’ll Need: A standard metal or wooden yardstick.
How to Do It: Place the yardstick on the green, aiming at the hole. Place a ball in the small hole at the end of the yardstick (or just at the end if there isn’t one). Practice making strokes, keeping your putter’s sole flat against the ruler for the entire motion.
How to Win: Roll the ball down the entire 3-foot length of the yardstick without it falling off the side. Do this 5 times consecutively.

3. The Coin Drill (Finding the Sweet Spot)

The Goal: To ensure you are striking the ball with the center of the putter face—the “sweet spot.” Off-center hits lose energy and direction.
What You’ll Need: Two coins and a golf ball.
How to Do It: Place a ball on the green. Place one coin just behind the ball and another just in front of it, leaving enough space for your putter face to fit between them. Your goal is to strike the ball without hitting either coin.
How to Win: Make a clean stroke, hitting only the ball, 10 times in a row. You’ll get immediate feedback if you hit a coin.

4. One-Handed Putting (Tempo & Control)

The Goal: To prevent your hands and wrists from getting too active in the stroke and to develop a smoother, more pendulum-like tempo controlled by your shoulders.
What You’ll Need: Your putter and a few balls.
How to Do It: From about 3-4 feet, practice putting using only your right hand (for right-handed golfers). Then switch and do the same with only your left hand. The goal is to keep the putter face square without any jerky movements.
How to Win: Make 5 consecutive putts with your right hand, then 5 with your left.

Part 2: Mastering Feel & Distance Control

These drills help you calibrate your internal GPS, ensuring your long putts nestle up close to the hole and eliminating those dreaded three-putts.

5. The Ladder Drill (Distance Control)

The Goal: To master speed and feel for putts of varying lengths. This is the key to great lag putting.
What You’ll Need: At least 5 balls and an alignment stick or tee.
How to Do It: Place the alignment stick about 2 feet behind the hole. From about 10 feet away, hit 5 balls, trying to get each one to finish past the hole but short of the alignment stick. Once you succeed, move back 5 feet and repeat the process from 15, 20, and 25 feet.
How to Win: At each distance, get at least 3 out of 5 balls to finish in the “safe zone” before moving back.

6. Eyes-Closed Putting (Developing Feel)

The Goal: To remove visual dependency and force you to rely on the feel of your stroke to control distance.
What You’ll Need: Your putter and a ball.
How to Do It: Set up to a 10-foot putt as you normally would. Just before you take the putter back, close your eyes. Execute the putt and try to guess where the ball finished—short, long, or in the hole. Then open your eyes.
How to Win: Do this for 10 putts. The goal isn’t just making them; it’s about how close your guess was to the actual result. Your feel will improve dramatically.

Part 3: Performing Under Pressure

These drills simulate the mental challenge of real golf, so when you have a putt to win the hole, it feels like you’ve been there before.

7. The Clock Drill (Clutch Short Putts)

The Goal: To build unshakable confidence on the short putts you must make.
What You’ll Need: 4-8 balls.
How to Do It: Place balls in a circle around the hole at 3-foot intervals, like numbers on a clock. Start at any ball and work your way around the circle, making each putt.
How to Win: Go all the way around the clock without a miss. If you miss one, you have to start over.

8. The String Line Drill (Visualizing the Break)

The Goal: To train your eyes to see the true line of a breaking putt.
What You’ll Need: Two stakes and a long piece of string.
How to Do It: Find a breaking putt of about 8-10 feet. Set up the string line on the actual path the ball needs to travel to go in—this will be an arc above the ground. Putt from underneath the string, making sure your ball starts on the line dictated by the string.
How to Win: Make 5 consecutive putts, focusing on how the real target line looks and feels.

9. The “Make the Hole Smaller” Drill (Pinpoint Accuracy)

The Goal: To sharpen your focus. By aiming at a smaller target, the actual hole will look huge in comparison.
What You’ll Need: A tee or a coin.
How to Do It: Instead of aiming for the hole, place a tee in the green and putt to it. Try to hit the tee from various distances and angles.
How to Win: Focus on the process. When you switch back to putting at a real hole, you’ll feel a new level of confidence.

10. The “Par 2” Pressure Game

The Goal: To simulate the pressure of scoring during a real round.
What You’ll Need: One ball.
How to Do It: Go to a random spot on the putting green, at least 20 feet from a hole. Your goal is to get the ball in the hole in two putts or less (a par). If you one-putt, you are -1. If you two-putt, you are even. If you three-putt, you are +1. Play 9 “holes” like this from different locations.
How to Win: Finish your 9-hole round at even par or better.

Put Your Skills to the Ultimate Test on Our Course

Once you’ve grooved your stroke and built confidence with these drills, it’s time to take your skills from the practice mat to the course. We believe there’s no better way to see how your practice holds up than by facing the complex challenges of a real round on our greens.

As one of the most challenging courses in the Poconos, our pristine, tour-quality bentgrass greens demand precision. This is where your practice truly pays off. Imagine applying the String Line Drill to navigate the remarkable elevation changes that affect every putt on our course, or using the Ladder Drill’s feel to lag a putt close over one of our rolling surfaces.

With over 60 sand traps and four lakes framing our fairways, a solid short game isn’t just a bonus—it’s a necessity. When you’re standing over a crucial putt on our signature Island Green, the pressure is on. This is where the Clock Drill and the “Par 2” game transform from simple exercises into round-saving skills.

Don’t just practice your putting; validate it. Take your newfound confidence to a course that demands your best. We invite you to put your skills to the test at Hideaway Hills and turn those tough two-putts into confident pars. Come on! Put your skills to the test!