Why You Need This: Would you like to learn "How to Putt the Golf Ball Straight?"

Be able to make the long putt.

Have confidence in your ability to hit dead straight putts from any length!

In this video, I go over a great drill with the Eye Line Putting Mirror

And a few tips on how to start putting straighter, make longer putts, and start lowering your scores.

All accomplished in the way you practice.

Let's get started

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 9:48

Video Transcription:

All right, we all want to be that clutch putter, that guy that makes everything when it really matters.

We’re going to talk about how to do that today, and a really good drill that’s very counterintuitive. Most people practice their putting the wrong way.

Most people want to hit those dead straight putts, but they’re actually practicing in a way that’s going to make it easier to choke, easier for the stroke to fall apart, and actually be less consistent as you’re out there putting.

We’re going to talk about a drill here today that’s actually going to transfer out to the course, and the right way to practice your putting.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right so here I have a drill set up that’s going to allow us to get feedback. The biggest thing whenever we’re practicing, we need to direct, cause and a effect feedback.

I need to know when I do A, I get result B. When I do C, I get result D. Then I can start to understand what makes me a good putter, what makes me a bad putter, why I pull putts, why I push putts, and I really get a feel for what’s going on in my body.

That’s the first thing we’re going to talk about. I have a drill set up here that’s going to give us that cause and effect feedback.

Number two, we have to practice in a way that’s going to transfer to the course. If I sit on a putting mat at home and I make putt, after putt, after putt, those eight-footers, but then I go to the course and I can’t make any of my eight-footers, well that practice didn’t really work.

I have to practice in a way that’s backed up by science, that’s going to allow me to transfer that to the course so I can go to the course, hit one putt, and plan on making that thing.

Let’s go ahead and get started here. The first thing I would do, if you’re out on the golf course, on the putting green, find a dead straight putt.

That’s the only way we’re going to be able to test if we can hit it straight. We have to know the putt isn’t breaking any.

I found a dead straight putt here, just roll a few until you find one that doesn’t break at all. I’ve set up something that’s going to give me feedback here which is my Eye Line putting mirror.

This is a great device because you can throw it in your golf bag, really lightweight. It’s plastic, gives you good feedback, and it’s not hard to lug around.

Now from there, what I’ve done is I’ve put up a set of tees to let me know if I’m pushing or pulling this putt right or left as I’m hitting it. So there made it right through the middle of these two tees.

The reason for this is sometimes when I putt, I could have something kick my ball offline. Maybe the wind gust, maybe something happens that makes me miss that putt when I didn’t really push it, or I didn’t really pull it.

These are going to give me a little bit more accurate feedback, and more immediate feedback, too.

The quicker I can get the feedback, so if I hit this putt and as soon as I make contact with it, it whacks into one of these tees, that gives you a more direct cause and effect relationship and your brain can actually imprint that information a little quicker, too.

So bunch of fancy stuff, just put some tees in the ground and you’ll be good to go.

If you’re at home with a mat, you just put a couple golf balls, the inside of the golf balls at a width to where your ball would barely miss that if you’re putting through it.

You can adjust that wider or more narrow based on your skill level. Another cool thing about these when you set up a little barrier like this, I can bring those tighter and tighter together to where the gap here is actually smaller than the hole in the distance if we get really advanced with it.

Now that I’ve got my mirror set up, I’ve got a dead straight putt, I’ve got some tees for feedback, now I have a system here that can know if I’m going to be able to putt this ball straight. Now I can really practice this.

Now the first thing that I think affects people most commonly is how they set up to the golf ball. What I like to do is I like to setup where on this mirror when I’m looking down, my left eye is directly in line with the golf ball and the target line, and it’s just slightly behind that.

So I almost feel like I’m looking down the target line as I’m putting. You can also be a little bit more inside, there’s great putters that have their eyes a little more inside the golf ball. Anywhere in a range of say two inches within the golf ball is completely fine.

Where I find people often get off track is they’ll get their eyes outside the golf ball to where now my eyes would be out here somewhere, and that’s just not going to be very good, because I’m kind of looking at a funny angle.

I typically find that the players that have their eyes well outside the golf balls don’t do well, off the golf ball.

Now here’s the thing. Most of the time when you hear drills like this what pros are going to tell you to do, what players are going to think they need to do is set this up and do the same thing over, and over, and over again.

That’s what’s called block practice. The research shows that that is not going to transfer to the course very well, and it’s not going to help you to learn to control your face angle or to hit the straight putts very well.

You’re going to feel good when you’re practicing this, if I do block practice and I get to where I’m doing the same thing over and over again.

I’m going to sit here and I’m just going to nail putt, after putt, after putt, and I’m going to feel like I’m getting a lot better, and then I’m going to go to the course and get wildly inconsistent.

So I feel good when I practice, I feel bad when it matters. If we want to do this right, we need to make it more of a challenge when we practice, so we can feel good when we go to the course.

Make practice tougher than the real thing, and that’s going to allow you to be better when it matters.

So let’s grab these golf balls again, and let’s talk about what I’m going to do to make my practice tougher and to really practice in what’s called a random practice way. It’s going to transfer to the course much better.

So first thing is with my eye set up. Instead of getting our eyes exactly set up the same way every time, what I want you to do is play around with our eye alignment.

Get your eyes well outside the golf ball, what I would say is a bad alignment and see what happens to your putts.

Now for me, typically I’m going to do something like that, where I’m going to yank my putt inside or to the left. That’s just because I end up closing the face down a little too much when I get my eyes outside.

So I now know after testing this out, the cause and effect relationship there. If I start to pull putts that may be the first thing I look at.

I might want to get my eyes a little bit more inside so I can get my putter face more square and more lined up better.

So you’re going to find that, maybe for you it’s something a little bit different. Maybe you have a different result, but play around with your eye alignment, and not only to see how that feels, but see what the putts do.

Do you start missing right? Or do you start missing left? Now you have something that is really good that you can take to the course when you start to miss those putts, now I can adjust a little bit.

Now let’s go ahead and do a little bit inside, and I would putt there. Now me again, if I get too far inside, I would tend to come inside out, have the face open, it’s more of an arcing stroke and I might hit that outside tee and have some problems there.

So play around with your eye alignment first. That’s the easiest and quickest way I found to get some cause and effect relationships if I’m missing right or I’m missing left.

You’re going to do quite a few of those, 20 or 30 putts varying and seeing how that affects it.

Now the second piece of this is just simply attempting to hit the inside tee and the outside tee, back and forth, and back and forth.

What this does, so the way I would set this up, is I would hit one putt where I try to go between the tees, so now I’m setting up well, going between the tees.

I make the putt, and now on this next one, I’m going to on purpose, and this sounds crazy, but I’m going to on purpose try to hit the inside tee.

The next putt, I’m going to again, on purpose try to hit the outside tee. What this will do, is after you go through this the first time you’re going to say, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like I’m just super inconsistent.

As you go through it again and again, what actually happens is you start to feel OK, when I push putts, when I block putts to the right, I have this sensation.

I have whatever the sensation is for you personally. When I block putts to the right I feel this, or I feel like I’m holding off the face, or I have a sensation that I have.

When I pull putts to the left, I have a completely different sensation. I feel like I’m doing something different with my body.

So now, your body learns, you’re actually learning something here you can take to the course. When I push it feels like this. When I pull, it feels like this other thing. When I hit it good and straight, I know it feels different than both of those.

So now I can start to train and learn what right, left, and straight feels like. If I get out to the course, for example, I hit a few putts in the beginning of the day, and I notice that I’m pulling all of those left.

I can simply do a different feel, I can adjust my feel based on what I know now through my practice and I’m going to be right back on track.

If I just hit the same putt over and over again, think how crazy this is. If I set up here and I hit the same putt and I try to do everything exactly the same, and I miss one, how do I know what I did wrong?

How do I know what the feel is? I have no feedback to know what’s going on.

So now if I miss one on purpose, I can start to develop that feel, should become almost automatic when I become really clutch, and I can hit those straight putts very, very effortlessly.

This is a great drill. I highly recommend it. I know you guys are going to make a lot more putts when you get to the course, if you practice this way.

I hope you really enjoyed this video. Now if you want to get one of these putting mirrors, if you don’t have some type of feedback device, it doesn’t have to be this one.

This is the one that I really like, but you can use a different brand mirror, you can use whatever you want to. You could drop a golf ball from your eye to see where your eyes are lined up.

All of that will work, but I’ve found the best bang for the buck is this small EyeLine putting mirror that you can put in your golf bag.

Click the link down below to check out the EyeLine mirror and be able to get your own if you don’t already have one. They give us a few bucks for everyone we buy, which always helps us out, support Top Speed Golf a little bit, but it’s a product that I highly recommend.

I never recommend any product that I don’t whole-heartedly believe in, so I think this is going to be a good one for your golf game.

Now from there, we also can make a lot more putts if we’re closer to the hole. So if we’re grinding it out over these 10 and 12-footers, it’s going to be tough to be clutch no matter how good of a putter we are.

One of the best things you can do for your golf game is go back in and work on your wedges. Work on your short game from around the green.

Start to get where you can knock it within two or three feet of the hole at a consistent basis, and you’re not going to have to grind out over those, you’re just going to be able to tap those in.

Now that best way to do that, work through the Top Speed Golf System, work through the Wedge section there, and you’re going to be able to be a lot more consistent and clutch not only with your putting, but also with your chipping and your wedges into the green.

I’ll see you there.