Putting practice
Common Mistakes in Putting Practice
The habits that make putting practice feel productive while leaving your scores unchanged.
Busy is not the same as useful
Before a putting game ends, many golfers practice enough to improve but organize it poorly. When pace control is the goal, they hit the same club to the same target, rake another ball over after a miss, and leave with no record of what happened. When pace control is the goal, that feels like work, but it rarely changes the scorecard.
Putting practice often wastes time here:
- When pace control is the goal, changing three swing thoughts in one session.
- On the practice green, practicing only from perfect lies.
- Before a putting game ends, quitting a drill as soon as it gets uncomfortable.
- In putting practice, measuring success by the best shot instead of the pattern.
Make every miss useful
When a putt finishes offline or short, sort the miss before rolling another: start line, read, strike, or pace.
Keep the promise small
When pace control is the goal, a strong session often improves one narrow thing. That is enough for a useful putting block. In putting practice, stack enough small wins and the course starts to feel less random.