In this video, PGA Professional Katie Dawkins explains how to improve your distance control on the greens.
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00:00Hi, I'm Katie Dawkins. I am an advanced PGA professional and I'm here today at West Hill
00:09Golf Club on the beautiful greens that they have here to help you work out how to better
00:14judge distance on the green. So how do I get this ball close to that hole? If you could
00:20guarantee that you never took any more than two putts on every single green, my goodness,
00:25how many shots would you save every round? I would say a lot of golfers are creeping
00:29into that double figures mark. So if putting is going to save you lots of shots and especially
00:34getting that first putt close, then why is it that people turn up for lessons and want
00:39to go on the range? Everyone needs to put a little bit more time into working on their
00:43putting game. Here are a couple of tips just to help you with that judging of distance
00:47on the green. So how do I get a ball from about here on the edge of the green to there?
00:52One of the easiest ways to get a feel for how much stroke to give it would be to roll
00:57it there. So if I am going to roll a ball to that flag, say it was for a million pounds
01:02prize money, I'm not going to stand here and give it a thumb like this with my arm. I'm
01:06not going to give it quite a jerky sort of shot. Yet this is how some people putt. Some
01:11people will stand here and smack the ball to get it close to the hole. It's very hard
01:17to know how much hit to give it. You're better off taking the hit out and working on different
01:22length strokes for different length putts. A really great way, especially if you have
01:27a demon hole on the course that really bugs you, perhaps you three or four putted heaven
01:31forbid the last time you played it, but a really good way is to stand on that green
01:36out on the course when no one else is around, roll a few balls to that hole from different
01:40spots on the green. What you'll find from that is you start to get a bit of an idea
01:54of how much swing with the arm to give it, then drop a ball down there and have a putt
01:59from that same spot. What that's going to do is it's going to start to give you a nice
02:04amount of feel for how much stroke you need for that particular length putt. It'll also
02:09give you a feel for how the up slopes and the down slopes and how the conditions are
02:13going to affect you that day. If you were going to play a different course and you were
02:18on the putting green, for example, a really good drill will be to stand there and have
02:23in your head almost like a metronome, a rhythm, a one, two, a tick tock. If you're standing
02:29over the shot, it's tick tock, tick tock. If it's a little putt, it's little tick tock,
02:37and if it's a big putt, it's a bigger tick tock, but the rhythm stays the same. That
02:42way you're working on length of stroke to determine the distance your ball goes. As
02:47with when I roll a ball with my arm, there's always a little bit more follow through than
02:51there is backswing. Bear that in mind, it's a smooth acceleration and give it a go.
02:58This is a part of the game that players just don't practice enough. All you need to do
03:01is go out and work out how you control distance. There's no textbook way of doing this. It's just
03:08down to practice and putting some time in. You put some work in on the greens,
03:11and your game will thank you for it.