Thirty Foot Lag Putt Testing

Yesterday I headed to Avery Ranch to put in some purposeful putting practice on my road to recovery plan. From the list of drills and Scoring Method tests, I decided to concentrate on 30 foot putting tests, 4 ft tests, and one 9 hole putting round. The picture in the heading above and the following picture demonstrate my 30 foot putting setup. I set a tee near the fringe, then placed another tee 10 paces downhill from the first tee. I set up two clubs 4 feet on either side of the uphill tee to give me a visual reference for a 4 foot target box around the “hole”. I putted 10 warm-up puts to get the feel for the green speed, then putted five uphill and five downhill putts. First time around I hit 6 of 10 within 4 feet of the tee/pin. The second time around I decided to follow a drill to putt the 30 foot putts with the eyes closed. I made 9 of 10 with my eyes closed.

After completing the uphill/downhill test I set up for a sidehill lie test. (The title picture was sidehill setup.) I only made 1 of 10 the first time around because I got the line right but the ball rolled out too long on every attempt. It was a tricky setup! Second time around I made 6 of 10 including one that came to rest on the tee.

Standard 4 foot test

Part of my goal with today’s work was to evaluate how I score in the Scoring Method’s chart for putting levels. My eyes-closed 30 foot test hit 9 of 10 which meets the level of a golfer who typically scores 90. For short putts the same score level the test is 9 of 10 from 3 feet, but I just skipped to 4 feet putting tests. I set up 6 tees around the hole at 4 ft and started rotating balls around the holes and putting them in. I made 6 of 10 and 8 of 10 in two rounds of putting. That works out to 7 of 10 on average which is the level for a golfer who scores 85. The next few times I practice I will retake this test to improve the score to 9 of 10 over time.

I keep a notebook in my truck to track my practice sessions. The following is a photo of today’s work and scores recorded in my little black book. The entire putting session took just under an hour.

Nine hole putting challenge and future goals

When I work on putting practices I almost always end the practice playing 9 holes of putt-out and keep score. Usually I choose random distances from the holes but today I chose to play the game at 30 foot from the hole for all holes. Given I had worked exclusively on 30 foot putting drills, I had hoped to to well in the game. However, I completed the game with a score of 20 which I was not satisfied with due to three 3-putts. I did make one 30 foot putt though! One note – for every putt I marked my ball and cleaned it and in every way executed the green reading and putting routine I use when playing a round.

I plan another putting drill fest Wednesday. I plan to extract some drills from the book “Make More Putts” by Juan Gutierrez. I will concentrate on the “Make Everything Inside 10 Foot Drills” section as I can reduce my score a lot if I can sink more 6 to 10 ft putts. By the time I get to play again I hope to be able to knock my average putts from 34 down below 32 with the extra work I’m putting in while unable to hit balls.