How To Prepare To Putt Your Best!

For this putting article I’m going to talk about preparing to putt your best as if you had a game planned for tomorrow. Obviously within such a short space of time you should not try to improve your putting mechanics. That’s a long-term solution to your putting problems.

So I’m going to cover the mental side of preparation in this article along with how to practice immediately before a game of golf to give yourself the best chance of success out on the golf course.

OK, if you’ve got a game of golf tomorrow here’s the first thing you should do to give yourself the most chance of putting success.

When you go to bed I want you spend at least 5 minutes visualising the successful putts you’ve had in your golfing career. Pick out a great putt you’ve holed and in as much detail as possible visualize this putt over and over again. And keep doing this. Then once your mind begins to wander after say a minute or two then remember another good putt you’ve holed and repeat that successful putt over and over in your mind.

As you’re doing this it would also help if you recite positive affirmations to yourself over and over again like:

* I am a great putter
* I am a confident putter
* I have a great putting stroke etc.

The idea behind doing this is to fill your mind with positive mental images of putting success before going to sleep. This will go into your subconscious mind when you’re sleeping giving you more chances of putting success in the game tomorrow.

Now as soon as you wake up I recommend you do the same thing (i.e. visualize and do positive affirmations) then prepare as you normally would for a game of golf.

All right, now let’s say you’ve arrived at the golf course with time before your tee time to practice (which you definitely should do if you want to play your best).

Well, here is a little plan of what you should do on the practice putting green to help you putt your best out on the golf course.

First you should get out 3-5 golf balls. And these golf balls should be all the same type of golf ball that you’re going to be playing with on the golf course. Preferably new too.

So the first thing you should do is some distance control drills. Do NOT putt these 3-5 balls to a golf hole. An example of a distance drills is to putt the balls to the fringe say 20-30 feet away and try to get each ball to stop as close as possible to the fringe without going over it.

Doing distance control drills like this will give you a good feel for the speed of the green on the day that you’re playing.

Another good distance control drill is to putt to places on the practice putting green with your eyes closed. And after you’ve hit each putt guess how close the ball is going to finish to your intended target (remember, don not putt to a hole) and open your eyes and see how close you were to your guess.

Keep doing distance control drills like this but whatever you do…DO NOT PUTT TO A HOLE!

After you’ve got a good feel for the speed of the greens I then want you to stick a tee in the green and place your 3-5 golf balls about 2 feet away from the tee. Then simply putt the golf balls at the tee, trying to hit it. Do this for about 5 minutes.

Then after this I want you to go and put your golf balls away apart from the golf ball you’ve chosen to play with for that day. Then go back to the practice putting green and use that one golf ball and putt from one hole to the next. But don’t just hit the ball and go after it.

NO!

Go through your normal mental and physical pre-putt routine for each putt. Just as you would out on the golf course. If you don’t have a pre-putt mental and physical routine then you will be needlessly wasting shots on the golf course. So you need to create a pre-putt routine that takes the same time for each and every putt and gives you the most chance of holing every putt.

Now back to the pre game plan. I suggest you practice your putting exactly how you intend to play for about 5 minutes. Don’t do this too long because you’ll lose your concentration and be to mentally tired before you play. But here’s an important point.

End your practice on a good positive note and speak positively to yourself. Say positive affirmations to yourself like:

* I am a great putter.
* I love to putt.
* I am a confident putter etc., etc.

Speak to yourself how you want to be and you’re more likely to do it.

So that’s a plan on what you should do to give yourself the most chance of putting success. Use this plan but modify and experiment with different things to see what works best for you. And when you find a pre round formula that helps you to putt well keep doing it consistently.

You’ll get better, long-term putting results if you do.

Tags: practice, putt, putting