10 golf putting tips which will change your game

You’ll never come close to achieving your full potential on the golf course if you don’t work on your putting. Even if you’re a confident driver, if you’re not at home with a putter in your hands, too, you’ll struggle to hit anywhere close to par.

Ben Hogan once described putting as ‘the game within the game’. For one of the game’s greatest-ever ball strikers, putting was undoubtedly a source of frustration. But it doesn’t have to be that way for you.

In this blog, we provide 10 golf putting tips that you can use to improve your game, whether you’re on the green or practising at home.

How to practice golf putting

1. Get a good grip

A proper grip is the foundation of effective putting. Holding a putter incorrectly—especially with minor differences in your grip—can lead to a lack of control, inconsistent strokes, and missed opportunities.

How to do it

Whilst there’s more than one way to hold a putter, try starting with the most commonly used way—the reverse overlap grip:

• Place your leading hand on the putter first with your thumb on the flat upper part, facing down.
• Place your other hand higher than your leading one, with your thumb also facing down the club. Your index finger should lie across the fingers of your other hand, whilst the three others should curl under the grip.
• Hold the putter in your palms rather than your fingers.
• Ensure your grip pressure is even and relaxed.

Practice at home

Use a putter to rehearse your grip until you’re confident you’ve got the correct hold, and it becomes second nature.

2. Find the right stance and posture

Good posture and the correct stance are essential for accurate putting, ensuring you’re properly lined up with the hole and that you swing through the ball cleanly.

How to do it

• Use a narrower stance than you would when driving, with your feet shoulder-width apart.
• Bend slightly at the hips, keeping your back straight.
• Place the ball slightly ahead of a centre line that runs between your feet.
• Stand closer to the ball than you would when driving, with your arms near your body.
• Position your head and eyes directly over the ball.
• Let your arms hang naturally, creating a triangle between your shoulders and your hands.

Practice at home

Use a mirror to check your stance and posture. Find the right pose, then practice getting into and holding it so it becomes second nature.

3. Focus on proper alignment

Finding the right alignment is simple, but players often don’t devote enough attention to it, making it a common cause of missed putts.

How to do it

First, identify the line you want your ball to travel in. This might not be directly towards the hole if the green has a curve to it. For example, your line might be above the hole if the green slopes down towards it. Once you’ve worked out your line, ensure you’re properly aligned by:

• Standing with your putter face pointing squarely towards your target line.
• Positioning your feet, hips, and shoulders parallel to your target line.
• Using alignment aids (such as sticks) on your putter or drawing a line on the ball for visual guidance if needed. This can be a simple way to quickly improve your alignment on the green.

Practice at home

Practice using alignment sticks or placing two clubs parallel on the ground to create a path for your stroke.

4. Master the pendulum stroke

Poor putts are often caused by too much motion in your body—particularly unwanted and improper motion, causing the club face to change alignment. This is where a pendulum stroke can help.

A pendulum stroke is a putting motion where you swing predominantly with your shoulders, keeping the rest of your body still, to create a smooth and controlled action without any unwanted additional movement. Picture a pendulum swinging. Your shoulders swing while your arms and club stay straight like the pendulum.

How to do it

• Put yourself in a good posture with the right grip (see above).
• Focus on staying relaxed.
• Swing with your shoulders without moving your legs and with your head staying down and motionless.
• Keep your wrists steady and avoid breaking them during the stroke.
• Swing the putter using your shoulders, keeping your arms and hands quiet.
• Maintain a steady tempo back and through your swing.

Practice at home

Take some time to practice the swing at home to get the action right. You can record yourself swinging and watch it back afterwards to see how close you are to the desired motion. You can also use a metronome app on your phone to learn a consistent stroke rhythm. A 2:1 tempo (backstroke to forward stroke) is recommended.

5. Work on distance control

Another key aspect of putting is judging how much force you’ll need in a stroke to get your ball close to the hole. 

How to do it

• Focus on the speed of your stroke rather than power.
• Take practice swings before you step up to your ball to gauge the speed required for your putt.
• Visualise your ball travelling across the green towards the hole before you swing. This can become an excellent way to judge distances and speed with practice.

Practice at home

You can easily practice distance control at home by placing a small target, such as a cup, at various distances away from you. As you putt, try to learn to stop the ball within a foot of the target to refine your control.

6. Learn to read the green

Putting is more of an art than a science. You can master your grip, stance, alignment and stroke, but if you choose the wrong target line, you’re never going to consistently sink putts from a distance. You need to be able to look at a green and judge its slopes and contours to know what target line to set before you swing.

How to do it

Learning to read a green takes experience. But to help you develop an instinct for it, as you first approach a green, you should:

• Walk around your putt to observe the slope from all angles.
• Get down low to see how the green curves and slopes.
• Look for changes in grass colour (this can indicate grain direction).
• Visualise your ball’s ideal path before stepping up to the putt.

Practice at home

You can use a putting mat with built-in slopes to get a feel for how balls travel at different speeds over curved surfaces. You can also place objects under a flat mat, like pillows or cushions, to create breaks and practice reading them.

7. Give putting aids a try

Golf putting aids can be a great way to learn good putting form and to help you diagnose and correct any flaws in your stroke.

How to do it

• Try tools like a putting mirror to check your alignment and eye position.
• Use a gate drill aid to ensure your putter path stays straight.
• Work with a laser guide to visualise your stroke path.

Practice at home

A putting mat with alignment guides is a great way to practice putting effectively at home, even in small spaces. You can use most other putting aids at home with a putting mat, too.

8. Establish a pre-putt routine

Mindset is vital in golf. Getting yourself into the right frame of mind before you approach a shot can dramatically impact your game, confidence, and consistency. An established and deliberate routine you run through before you putt can be an excellent way to focus and get into the right headspace. 

How to do it

• Decide on a sequence of actions to run through before putting. This could include assessing the lay of the green, picking your line, settling into your grip and stance, visualising your shot, and then taking practice strokes to make sure you find the right speed and swing before committing to your putt.
• Follow the same pre-putt routine to make it second nature.

Practice at home

You can simulate your routine on a putting mat, repeating it regularly until your pre-putt routine becomes something you run through automatically on the course.

9. Use visualisation

We’ve mentioned it a few times already, but visualisation deserves some deliberate focus of its own. Visualisation is a mental technique where you focus on visualising an act and its outcome in your head, such as completing your swing, striking the ball cleanly, and sinking a putt. 

Putting is as much mental as it is physical, and visualisation can be a powerful way to play with success, especially as you grow accustomed and get better at it.

How to do it

• Put yourself in your stance.
• Take a moment to visualise yourself swinging and striking the ball.
• Visualise the path the ball will take over the green and into the hole.
• Run through some practice swings.
• Take your putt.

Practice at home

Visualisation can feel odd at first, but it’s a skill you can develop with practice. Take some time at home to run through stepping up to a putt and visualising your shot with a putting mat to begin developing your ability to visualise with focus and clarity.

10. Practice under pressure

You can put yourself under plenty of pressure when putting. If your approach to the green was good, a clean putt can put you under par. If you’ve had a bad drive, you can pressure yourself to sink your putt quickly to try and recover. But too much pressure can be the death of good performance.

If you can simulate putting yourself under pressure, though, you can get better at performing when stressed, which can reap benefits on the course. 

How to do it

• Create challenges for yourself, such as making 10 putts in a row, starting over if you miss.
• Play competitive putting games with friends if you can.
• Set up time-based drills to mimic pressured conditions.

Practice at home

Try high-pressure challenges and drills on a putting mat.

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