GOLF - (Practicing with the Most Important Club in your Bag)

In the game of golf you are legally allowed to carry 14 clubs in your bag.  In almost every bag you will find the following:  Driver, Fairway Wood, set of Irons (usually 3-9), Pitching Wedge, and Sand Wedge.  Some bags may also include an additional Fairway Wood, maybe a 2 Iron, a hybrid 3 or 4 Iron, and probably another high lofted wedge, etc.  However, no matter what the make up of your club collection is, every bag is not complete without the most important club in the bag, THE PUTTER!

The putter is the only club in the bag that you will use on every hole that is unless you are lucky enough to hole out from beyond the green.  Unfortunately, the majority of the time, we are not that lucky.  Think of it this way, if you were to shoot par on every hole, and you also reached the green "in regulation", then that would mean you would use the putter 36 out of 72 Strokes during a typical 18 hole match.  That is right (18 holes times 2 putts per hole = 36 strokes).  That is 50% of your entire strokes for the round, if you are playing a Par 72 course.  Therefore, it stands to reason that this club needs to be the most reliable club that you pull out of your bag, if you want to lower your score.  Adding just one extra putt per hole, turns a final score of 72 into a 90.  Ugh!!!

The Pros that we have talked to, all agree that your goal should be to never putt more than twice on any hole.  When you can do this consistently you are well on your way to better scores.  Unfortunately, the only way to achieve this is to practice, practice, practice.  However, finding a putting green to practice on is sometimes difficult to do.  Many ranges don't have practice greens and most courses won't let you use their practice greens without paying to play a round of golf.  Also, there are bad weather days to deal with as well.  The odds may be stacked against you!  However, there are a couple of solutions to your problem and they are cheap.


SETTING UP YOUR OWN TEMPORARY PRACTICE GREEN

First you could spend a few bucks and buy one of those cheep green, foam holes with the little plastic yellow flag, located at the back of the inclined hole, and throw that down on you carpet  This device would instantly give you a target hole to practice hitting into.  However, with this setup, the entrance to the hole is only angled on one end, so you either have to always putt from the same direction, or keep moving the little foam practice hole around so you can putt from a different location in the room.  Bummer!

However, there is another easy solution you can implement at home that will give you more flexibility in the types of drills you can perform and it is practically FREE!  All you need is a little space, a ruler, some blue painters tape and you are in business.  If you have a fairly large carpeted space in you basement, then that would be the perfect to set up this practice system, but any room will do.

                                                 Here is what it looks like:

Although your design can vary, this is the training device we use because of the versatility for different drills, skills and games.

And here is how it is done.

1. Take a couple pieces of painter's tape and make a square about 3"x3" then round the corners to make a 3" diameter circle.  This is your hole.  I know that a regulation size hole is 4" in diameter, but some of the Pros we have talked too like the idea of having a smaller target to hit.  Another reason for this smaller target is for easier judgement of whether or not the ball would have fallen into the hole.  As a rule of thumb with this setup, if any portion of the ball touches the 3"x3" hole then you would treat it like the ball fell into a cup on a real green.
2. Place your hole any where you want on your carpeted floor.  Just make sure that you have enough room to comfortably putt from two feet away from the hole in any direction.
3. Now cut eight strips of painter's tape about 4" - 6" long or so and place these in an octagon shape around the hole.  (See above photo).  The center of each strip should be about 1' from the center of your hole.
4. Cut eight more strips of painter's tape, but this time make them about 9" - 12" long, and place these in an octagon shape around the inner octagon as shown in the photo above.  Make sure that these longer strips of tape are spaced approximately 1' way from the inner octagon.
5. Cut two more pieces of painters tape, approximately 2' long.  Now place one end of a 2' section on the outside edge of the inner octagon (about midway point of the hole) and run it straight up until it reaches the outer octagon.  (See Photo Above).  You will do this for both sides of the inner octagon.

Now you are finished and ready to go!  You don't have to do Step 5 right now, especially if you will have to remove the tape at the end of your practice session.  However, if you are placing the tape in a location where you can leave it down for several days or weeks, then it would be a good idea to just go ahead and complete Step 5.  The reason why you won't need Step 5 right now is because this section is used for a specific drill/game that we will discuss in a later post.



WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE SECTIONS?

I am sure you are wondering what to do now that you have placed several feet of painter's tape on you living room floor.  Well that is the easy part.  Just start Putting!  In up coming posts we will be revealing different drills and games you can play while using this practice green setup in your home.  But for now you can use the different octagons as markings to start putting.  You know that the inner octagon is 1' from the hole.  So start there and try to sink at least 10 consecutive balls from that distance.  Then move back a foot to the outer octagon.  Now sink at least another 10 consecutive balls in a row from that distance.  With this setup you also can take a large step from the outer octagon and drop you ball down at that location, which should be about 5' from the hole at this point.  The main idea at this point is you must be deadly accurate from these small distances if you want to improve you scores.  So step up and start practicing 1' and 2' putts until you have mastered them.  Then move on back a few feet and test your skills from those distances.

In actuality, this design serves three purposes.  The first purpose is for scoring scenarios in different training competitions and drills that were created after lengthy discussions with our golf Pros and insiders.  The second purpose was to give the individual who is putting a way to easily correlate distance and feel.  For example if I have a ball placed on or near the outer octagon shape, then I know for certain that the hole is 2' away.  So any putts that I attempt from that location, I will easily know that from 2', I must put a certain amount of effort or energy behind my putts every time.  Likewise if I take a step back way from the outer octagon, then I know that my ball is now approximately 5' from the hole and how hard I stroke the ball will need to change.  Another step back and I am now about 8' from the hole.  You may find that having the first couple of feet marked off correctly helps give you a visual reference for more accurately estimating distances farther from the octagons.  Finally, the third purpose for the design, is for lag putting practice.  From different distances, our instructors have different expectations for how close we should strive to lag the ball.  These markings help us to quickly know if we achieved our attempted lag position or not.  We will discuss lagging the ball up to the cup, in a later post as well.

Now that you have a general idea of what is behind the madness for the design of this cheap indoor putting green, I would suggest that you just start putting and checking back for our next post.

-CYU-