How to Improve Your Golf Putting

• Practice both long and short putts
  
  
• Practice short putts: You might assume this is less important than long putts, but remember even professional players miss short putts sometimes. A good technique to practice short putts is to place twelve balls around the hole as if making a clock-face. Then, in quick succession, try to hole every single one of them. If you succeed, repeat the exercise but with a slightly wider circle. However, if you miss even one putt, start from the beginning again.
  
  
• Practice long putts: Make a semicircle behind the hole, by placing tees on the ground. Then try five long putts towards the hole. Ideally you want to sink the ball each time, but should at least aim to get every ball within the semicircle within every shot. When you can consistently get all five balls into the semicircle, repeat the exercise but for a slightly longer putting distance.
  
  
• Learn to read greens: Understanding how the ball reacts when rolling up, down or across a green, is an important part of good putting. Obviously, you need to hit the ball slightly harder when putting up hill, and slightly more softly when doing downhill, but this is a skill that is much easier said than done and which can take time to acquire. Additionally, you will need to aim wide of the target when putting across a slope, in order to take account of the effect of that slope. Practice can turn you from a good putter into a great putter.
  
  
• Think and examine the situation before taking your putt. Make sure you look at things from all angles before shooting.
  
  
• Be confident: Be confident when performing putting. You need to be positive and trust your putting stroke. In particular, don’t be tentative when taking short putts - it is easy to hole these if you hit the ball firmly – but a tentative putt can lead you to hitting the ball short.