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Building Confidence In Your Lag Putting

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Published: 21Feb2011
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Weekend golfers are finding it harder these days to hole out in two. It's not because they're bad putters. It's because today's greens are larger than in the past and there are more courses than previously. Hence, there are more large greens. Three-putting can really hurt your score. Think of your last round. How many holes did you need to lag a putt? How many of these holes did you three-putt? If you had two-putted those holes instead, you'd have saved yourself two to three strokes per round. Over a season, those strokes add up, boosting your golf handicap.

Becoming a better lag putter can chop two or three strokes off your golf handicap. It may even chop off more, depending on how accurate your approach shots. There are two steps to becoming a better lag putter. The first is improving your distance control. The second is perfecting the line of your putts. Achieving these two steps builds confidence in your lag putting and provides a significant competitive advantage over your fellow golfers, especially when you think about how many large greens there are today.

Try the two drills below and our golf tips to kick-off the process.

Distance Control Drill:
Take five balls and find a flat spot on the green at least 30 feet from the hole. Place a tee in the green roughly halfway to the cup. With your first ball, try to roll the ball somewhere between the tee in the ground and the hole. With your second ball, try to putt the ball halfway between the first ball and the hole. Keep using this approach with the last three balls until you're within a foot or two of the hole. Once you're done with the first five balls, choose a new hole and distance. As you move around the green, make sure you're hitting putts of 20 feet or longer.

No-Look Drill:
Another drill that helps develop feel is the No Look drill. Here's how it works: Set up roughly 20 feet from the hole so you have a nice long putt. At address, keep your eyes on the ball as you normally would. But as you make your stroke continue to focus on the ground where the ball was. Don't follow the ball at all. Once you think the ball has stopped, call out where you think it finished? Is it short? Right? Left? This drill develops a good sense of touch in you. Before long, you'll be able to tell exactly where the ball finished without looking. Another dill to develop feel is putting the ball by looking only at the hole, not the ball. This drill forces you to putt by feel.

Two Putting Tips:
To become a good lag putter, you must develop a good sense of rhythm. One reason why some golfers have no rhythm when they putt is they lack a trigger to start their backstroke. Without the trigger, they end up jabbing at the ball. In our golf lessons we encourage golfers to hover their putters. If you hover your putter at address, you'll encourage a smooth start to your stroke and hit putts that roll with the correct speed.

Hovering your putter allows you to feel the weight of the head, since gravity is pulling it down. When you sole your putter on the ground, its weight disappears, robbing you of feel and a smooth start to your stroke. At first, the feel will seem odd. But don't let that throw you. But hovering your putter gives you the freedom to swing your putter back with proper pace and without pulling or yanking the handle. Another way to build rhythm into your stroke is to use a metronome and synchronize your stroke to that of the metronome, which you and do at home.

Becoming a good lag putter takes some work. But it pays off in the long run. If you use the drills described above and the accompanying golf tips, you should see improvement within a short time. The drills and golf tips should also help your short putting as well. So don't be surprised if you start seeing your scores drop by about one or two strokes each round. Becoming a better lag putter will not only help you take your game to the next level, it'll also help you chop strokes off your golf handicap.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book "How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros." He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

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