Nothing sinks a scorecard faster than a three-putt, and nothing feels better than draining a long one to save par. Turning your putter from your most feared club into your most trusted weapon isn't about some secret move, it's about building a solid foundation and a repeatable process. This guide will walk you through the five pillars of great putting: mindset, fundamentals, green reading, distance control, and routine, giving you actionable steps to stop guessing and start making putts.
Before we talk about your hands or your shoulders, let's talk about what's going on between your ears. So much of putting is mental. The best putters in the world share a common mindset: they let go of the result and focus entirely on the process. They've learned that you can hit a perfect putt that lips out, and you can hit a bad putt that somehow finds the hole.
Your goal isn't to make every putt. Your goal is to hit every putt with a good stroke on your intended line with your intended speed. That's it. If you do that, more and more will fall. But when you get obsessive about a putt "having" to go in, your muscles tense up, your stroke gets jerky, and your read becomes distorted by hope or fear. Accept that putting is a game of percentages. Your job is to put a good roll on the ball. Free yourself from the pressure of the outcome and you’ll start hitting putts with more freedom and confidence.
While mindset is the framework, you still need a solid technical foundation to be consistent. Great putters come in all shapes and sizes, with all different kinds of strokes and grips. What they have in common is that their method is repeatable. Let's build yours.
The putting grip is your steering wheel. The goal is to find a hold that keeps the clubface square at impact and feels natural to you. There is no single "correct" grip, but most successful methods prioritize taking the small muscles of the wrists out of the stroke.
A good setup puts you in an athletic, balanced position to make a pure pendulum stroke without any excess body movement.
Once you’re set up, the stroke itself should be as simple as possible. Think of a grandfather clock’s pendulum swinging back and forth. That's the feeling you want.
You can have a perfect stroke, but if you're aimed at the wrong spot, the ball won't go in. Reading the green is a skill you develop, not something you're born with. Start to see it as a fun puzzle to solve.
Scratch golfers aren't necessarily better at making 15-footers. They are way better at getting their 40-footers to stop within tap-in range. Excellent distance control turns three-putts into two-putts automatically. The secret here is that the length of your putting stroke determines the distance your ball rolls.
Forget trying to "hit" the ball harder for longer putts. Instead, manage distance with your stroke length. A short, compact back-and-through motion is for short putts. A longer, more flowing back-and-through motion is for long putts. The tempo remains the same, only the size of the pendulum swing changes.
Try the Ladder Drill. On the practice green, set down tees at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 feet. Starting at the shortest, hit a putt to that tee, trying to get it to die right at the tee. Then move to the 10-footer, then the 15-footer, and so on. Don't worry about the line, only the speed. Focus on how a slightly longer stroke sends the ball to the next tee. This trains your brain and body a feel for different distances.
A consistent pre-shot routine is the glue that holes everything together. It’s your performance cockpit, ensuring you go through all your checklists - reading the green, feeling the speed, and aligning correctly - the exact same way every single time. It silences mental chatter and replaces it with a trusted, repeatable process.
A simple, effective routine might look like this:
It doesn't have to be exactly that, but it has to be yours, and it has to be the same every time. This is how you take your practice to the course and perform when it counts.
Becoming a great putter is an ongoing process of committing to a solid mindset, trusting your fundamentals, and developing a feel for line and speed. By focusing on these core elements and building a simple routine, you will remove the guesswork and stress from putting and replace it with repeatable confidence.
This process of building skill takes feedback. That's why we built our app, Caddie AI. It acts as your personal coach, helping you make sense of complex reads or giving you ideas for practice drills tailored to sharpening your distance control. It's designed to give you that expert second opinion right when you need it, simplifying the game so you can focus on building confidence one putt at a time.
Thinking about hosting a golf tournament fundraiser is the first swing, executing it successfully is what gets the ball in the hole. This guide will walk you through the entire process, step-by-step, from laying the initial groundwork months in advance to watching your happy golfers tee off. We’ll cover everything from securing sponsors and setting your budget to planning the on-course fun that makes an event unforgettable.
A golf handicap does more than just give you bragging rights (or a reason to demand strokes from your friends) - it’s the game’s great equalizer and the single best way to track your improvement. This guide breaks down what a handicap is, how the supportive math behind a handicap index a is, and exactly how you can get one for yourself. We’ll look at everything from Course Rating to Adjusted Gross Score, helping you feel confident both on the course and in the clubhouse.
The compression of a Pinnacle Rush golf ball is one of its most defining features, engineered specifically to help a huge swath of golfers get more distance and enjoyment from their game. We'll break down exactly what its low compression means, who it's for, and how you can use that knowledge to shoot lower scores.
Figuring out which spikes go into your new (or old) pair of Puma golf shoes can feel like a puzzle, but it’s much simpler than you think. The key isn't the brand of the shoe, but the type of receptacle system they use. This guide will walk you through exactly how to identify your Puma's spike system, choose the perfect replacements for your game, and change them out like a pro.
The Golf Genius app is one of the best tools for managing and participating in competitive golf events, but figuring it out for the first time can feel like reading a new set of greens. This guide cuts through the confusion and shows you exactly how to use the app as a player. We’ll cover everything from logging into your tournament and entering scores to checking the live leaderboard so you can enjoy the competition without any tech headaches.
Walking onto the first tee with sweaty palms, worried you’ll be a good partner to paly wtih...or even asked back again ...We’ve all been there - trust me! The real trick of feeling confortable... is about how you handle you’re ready to plsy. THIS guide explains the simple rules of the rode to show you hnow t play golf while staying calm relaxed and focused... an having much morse fun while you,',re aat it? You'll also play with confidence a dn make fiendsa while you're at i
Just ask a question or share a photo and Caddie gives personalized guidance for every shot - anytime, anywhere.
