It can be extremely frustrating to make a beautiful drive off the tee when golfing and reach the green in the minimum number of strokes, and then spend too many strokes on the green itself. Golfers need not only to practice their driving of the golf ball, but the putting involved in their short game. In the end, practice on your short game can save you anywhere from six to 12 shots in a game just by improving your putting. This is a result of reducing your number of putts on one out of every three holes.
Practice Makes Perfect
At the driving range, those long drives off the tee area might impress other golfers and even yourself, but in the end they do nothing to help your short game. If you know you need to work on your short game, spend your time on the putting greens that driving ranges offer. You don't lose your ball when using it on a putting green when it goes in the hole. This means you can practice putting for as long as you wish with a single ball. You improve your short game and save yourself money from going through that bucket of balls at the driving range quickly.
Anticipate Being Successful
If you are too nervous, your muscles will tighten up and you will overcorrect when putting. When you approach the green, view your put going into the hole mentally. Have a vision of making the perfect put and having it fall into the hole even before you step up to your ball. Believing in yourself will help your muscles relax and lead to a smooth putt. The perfect putt begins before you ever step up to the ball.
Learn To Read The Green
The more experience you have reading the slopes of putting greens, the more successful you will be. Try playing the same course whenever possible to learn the greens you are playing on. Before attempting your putt, watch how the putts of others react on the green before you. That will help you learn where the changes in direction of your putt are likely to occur.
Keep Your Head Down
After you line up a putt and determine the direction you want to putt it at, your eyes should focus on the ball. Just like a baseball batter, if you are looking too far away from your target, which is the ball, your point of contact with the ball will not be what you want it to be. If your point of contact on the ball is inaccurate, that mistake will be magnified by the resulting path the ball takes. The first six inches of the path of your ball are just as important, if not more important than the final 12.
