Indoor Putting Practice

If you are wondering what you can do to improve your golf game in bad weather, look no further then your putter.  Indoor putting practice can do a lot of good, if you know what to look for.  If you have ever taken a putting lesson with me you know I divide putting practice into two areas, direction (your stroke) and distance (your “feel”).  When you work indoors you are going to work on your stroke and forget about distance.I would recommend finding a piece of carpet that is at least four feet long.  Put down two clubs (or alignment sticks, or books, or anything else that will work) far enough apart that your putter will fit in between them with about 1/2 inch on either side of the toe and heel.  Put a target down 3 feet in front of the ball that will also stop the ball (a book on end would do).  Now hit putts seeing if you can hit the target and not hit the clubs with your putter.  As you get better, move the clubs closer and closer together until there is only an 1/8 of an inch on either side of the toe and heel. You can vary the length of your stroke to replicate different length putts.  If you get really serious you could also get a metronome and find out what pace of stroke feels good for you.  Then with the metronome set at that pace you can vary the length of your stroke keeping the same “tempo”.

Below left you can see the set up with 1/2 inch on either side of the putter, on the right you can see a more difficult set up with barely 1/8 inch on either side.  And., yes, that is a circa 1940’s Ben Hogan putter 🙂