Golf Putting Practice- A Great Drill for Distance Control

This article will describe an excellent drill or game that can be included in your golf putting practice sessions to improve distance control.

What is the Proper Distance from the Hole for putts to stop?
Before we get into the details of the game, let’s discuss how hard putts should ideally be hit. That is, should putts die at the hole, or should they be hit past the hole? Dave Pelz, the well-known short game guru and author of “Putt Like the Pros” expresses his strong options on this subject in his

book. For twenty years he believed that putts should be hit with a speed to die at the hole. However, Pelz decided to test this theory, and using a machine he invented, called the True Roller, Pelz rolled thousands of putts at speeds that would stop at the hole or go beyond by a given distance. The True Roller machine could control the speed, direction, and accuracy of the putts on a consistent basis.

The result of Pelz’ testing was that he proved that the speed at which the most putts had a chance to go into the hole was a speed such that if the ball missed the hole, the putt would stop exactly 17 inches beyond the hole. In fact putts hit with that amount of force would be holed more than twice as often as putts that would die at the hole. The 17 inch number holds up for any length of putt and from any lie, that is, it is true for uphill, side-hill, and downhill putts as well. For more details and an explanation about why this would be the case, I would refer you to the book mentioned above. In a nutshell, putts that are dieing as they approach the hole are more easily influenced by imperfections in greens caused by golfers walking near the hole, hitting their second putts from close to the hole, pulling or tending pins, etc.

This was a very interesting piece of information, but Pelz found out that it was one thing to tell golfers to putt the ball 17 inches past the hole, and another thing for them to successfully accomplish that. Most people had a tendency to hit the ball way too hard, and three-putt a few times. After that they would hit it way too short and three-putt once again. Pelz needed to come up with a way for golfers to develop the proper touch, so he thought up a drill that golfers can use in their golf putting practice sessions. He calls it Safety Drawback.

Safety Drawback- The Drill to Use in Your Golf Putting Practice Sessions

Here are the rules of the game, which can be played as a sort of contest by two or more golfers, or by an individual practicing alone.

The object is to putt the ball into a safe zone that is a semicircle of 3 foot radius. The flat side of the semicircle goes through the hole perpendicular to the target line, and the round part is formed by an arc of 3 foot radius running behind the hole. A distance of 3 feet from the hole is easy to measure on a green because the standard length of putters is 35 inches, or just one inch short of this. In other words, to be in the safe zone the golfer has to putt the ball at least as far as the hole, and ideally no more than 3 feet beyond it.

Here are the rules:

If the ball is in the safe zone the golfer can putt the ball into the hole from there and record his score. Most of these putts should be made since they are 3 feet in length or less, so the score would be 2 in such cases.
If the first putt is not in the safe zone, the ball must be moved a club length radially away from the hole. So, for example, if your first putt was 5 feet past, the comeback putt would be 8 feet in length on the same line.
Starting with the third putt, all putts must be moved away from the hole by a club length if missed, even if the putt was in the safe zone at that point.
The maximum score on any hole is 5, except for the final hole where there is no limit.
Games should be at least nine holes.

This is an excellent game to add to your golf putting practice repertoire. I tried it last week and started to see improvement on my third nine hole session. Give it a try as it is bound to help you improve your putting distance control.