Aside from throwing a few balls down on the putting green before teeing off, the average golfer doesn’t practice their putting nearly as much as they should. Anywhere from 40% to 50% of shots taken during a round are with the flat stick, and if you’re actually trying to improve your game, the putting green is the best place to start.
Most of the time, if you are putting in work on the green, you’re probably practicing 5 to 10 footers. Very rarely do you see someone persistently putting from one end of the green to the other but in order to eliminate round-killing 3-putts, that’s what you need to be doing.
Otherwise known as lag putts, those long 40-footers that you only see 2 or 3 times a round are pivotal shots. If you feel confident that you can consistently get up and down in two-putts from a long distance, it takes pressure off the rest of your game. You won’t have to stick it within 8 feet to make birdie, and more importantly, you won’t have to hit it within 25 feet to make par. It’s no coincidence that some of the best players in the history of the game were also the best lag putters (see Tiger Woods).
The most important thing to remember when you have a long putt is that the goal is not necessarily to make it. That may seem counterintuitive but if you try to make every single putt you have, you’re going to leave yourself with a lot of knee-knocking putts coming back. So instead of honing in on the bottom of the cup, try to find an area around the hole where you can leave the ball and have a nice straight, uphill putt coming back.
Most of the time, the closer you are the better but in some cases, this isn’t always true. For instance, would you rather have a 3-foot bender straight down the hill or a nice level 5-footer? If you’re answer isn’t the latter, you probably should re-evaluate your game.
Becoming a better lag putter will also improve your short-range putting as well. Once you can start getting 40-footers close to the hole, your speed and touch will get better and more of those 5 and 6-footers will start going in.
So next time you’re out practicing, take some time to practice those putts that no one else is trying. Stand on one end of the green and putt to the other end. You don’t even have to have a hole to putt at. Just identify a spot and make it your goal to put every putt within a 3-foot radius of your target. If you can master lag putting, those big numbers will disappear and your scores will go down. It couldn’t be any simpler.