9 Best Golf Putting Drills to Sink More Putts and Kill 3-Putts

The best golf putting drills fix one skill at a time rather than everything at once. Start line, distance control, center-face contact, and short-putt nerve are separate problems, and each has a drill that isolates it. Work the two or three that match your misses for 15 minutes a session and you will drop putts off your card faster than any new putter will buy you.

How to Choose the Right Putting Drill

Diagnose the miss before you drop a ball. If your short putts slide by the edge, your face angle or start line is off, so start with the gate and one-handed drills. If you leave long putts five feet short or blow them five feet past, it is a distance-control problem the ladder and speed-gate drills target directly. If contact feels thin, heel-y, or inconsistent, the coin drill sharpens the strike. Putting breaks down into line and speed, and speed is where most amateurs bleed strokes — a point that matters just as much when you are learning how to putt in golf for the first time. If you want the setup and stroke fundamentals behind these drills, start with our golf putting tips on eyes, grip, and distance control.

The 9 Best Putting Drills

1. Gate Drill (fixes: start line, face angle)

Stick two tees in the green just wider than your putter head, forming a “gate” a few inches in front of the ball on your intended line. Roll putts through the gate without clipping either tee. If the ball catches a tee, your face was open or closed at impact — this is the single best drill for a face that twists on short putts, because a putt that starts on line and rolls at good speed goes in.

2. Yardstick (Ruler) Drill (fixes: stroke path, center strike)

Lay a metre stick or a straight yardstick flat on the green and putt a ball off the end of it toward a hole 6 to 8 feet away. To keep the ball rolling straight down the stick, your path and face have to be square and your strike dead-center; any error sends the ball off the edge immediately. It gives instant, brutal feedback and works perfectly on carpet at home.

3. Coin Drill (fixes: center-face contact, strike)

Set a small coin down and putt it like a ball, trying to send it forward without it wobbling sideways or popping up. A coin only rolls cleanly off the sweet spot, so an off-center hit is obvious. Once you can start a coin rolling straight, switch to a ball — you will feel how a centered strike comes off softer and holds its speed far more predictably.

4. Clock Drill (fixes: short-putt confidence, make percentage)

Place six balls in a circle roughly three feet from the hole, like numbers on a clock face, and hole every one. Miss a single putt and you start the whole circle again. Then move the balls to four feet and repeat. Making pressure putts back to back rebuilds the confidence that lets you accelerate through short putts instead of steering them, which is the real cause of most edge-lipped misses.

5. Ladder Drill (fixes: distance control, 3-putts)

Drop balls at 20, 30, and 40 feet and roll each so it finishes inside an imaginary three-foot circle around the hole — do not worry about holing them. Because three-putts are a speed problem far more than a line problem, training your first putt to snuggle up close is what eliminates them. This is the highest-value drill on the list for lowering your score, and it pairs naturally with the smart, avoid-the-big-number approach in our guide on how to break 100 in golf.

6. One-Handed (Lead-Hand) Drill (fixes: face control, deceleration)

Putt 4-to-6-footers with only your lead hand (left hand for a right-handed golfer) on the grip. The lead hand controls the face, so this drill exposes any flip or breakdown at impact and forces you to accelerate smoothly through the ball. Do 10 one-handed putts, then put your other hand back on — the stroke will feel more stable and connected, the same connection principle behind good golf swing drills.

7. Spot Putting Drill (fixes: aim, alignment)

Pick a spot — an old ball mark, a discoloured blade of grass — a few inches ahead of your ball on your start line, and roll the ball directly over it instead of aiming at the distant hole. Rolling the ball over a near target is far easier than aiming at a cup 20 feet away, and it trains your eyes and setup to aim where you actually intend. Tour players borrow this from bowling for exactly that reason.

8. Eyes-Closed Drill (fixes: feel, tempo, distance touch)

Line up a putt of 15 to 25 feet, take your look, then close your eyes and stroke it — guessing where it finished before you open them. Removing your eyes forces your hands to feel the length and tempo of the stroke rather than your brain trying to steer it. Your guesses will sharpen quickly, and that internal sense of distance is exactly what carries to the course under pressure.

9. Speed-Gate (Die-It-In) Drill (fixes: pace, holding the line)

Set two tees as a gate about 18 inches past the hole and try to roll putts that would stop inside that gate if they missed — never short, never blasting through it. This grooves the ideal pace: firm enough to hold its line and take out break, gentle enough to drop if it catches the edge. Combined with the ladder drill, it turns pace from a guess into a repeatable habit.

What Makes a Good Putting Stroke

A reliable stroke is built on a still lower body, a square face at impact, and a consistent tempo, with the shoulders rocking the putter rather than the hands flipping it. The USGA allows almost any grip and stance on the green, so there is no single “correct” style — but every good putter returns the face to square with matching back-and-through timing. Your eyes should sit over or just inside the ball, your hands should stay quiet, and the putter should accelerate gently through impact rather than decelerate. Most of these drills exist to reinforce one of those fundamentals in isolation, and if you want the mechanics behind them explained in full, our guide to golf putting technique breaks down grip, stroke arc, and face control step by step. The same quiet-body, square-face logic underpins solid golf chipping technique around the greens too.

Common Putting Mistakes These Drills Fix

Deceleration on short putts. Slowing the putter into the ball is the number-one cause of missed four-footers. The clock and one-handed drills force acceleration through impact.

Leaving lag putts short. Being consistently short leaves you a knee-knocker every time; the speed-gate drill trains you to roll the ball past the hole at the correct pace.

Aiming with the whole body instead of the face. Golfers align their shoulders but not the putter face. The gate and spot-putting drills separate aim from setup so both point at the target.

Steering instead of stroking. Trying to guide the ball into the hole introduces tension and a twisting face. The eyes-closed and yardstick drills rebuild a free, repeatable motion. If your grip pressure is the culprit, revisit your proper golf grip — a stranglehold ruins touch on the greens.

A 15-Minute Putting Practice Plan

Minutes 0-5 — Start line. Gate drill from three feet, then the yardstick drill from six feet, until you can roll five in a row cleanly through the gate.

Minutes 5-10 — Distance control. Ladder drill from 20, 30, and 40 feet, judging only whether each first putt finishes inside a three-foot circle. This is the most valuable block for your scores.

Minutes 10-14 — Pressure. Clock drill from three then four feet, restarting the circle on any miss, to end the session holing putts under a little self-imposed pressure.

Minute 14-15 — Finish. Two or three eyes-closed lag putts to leave with a feel for pace. Because the whole-game payoff is fewer wasted strokes, this routine plugs straight into a scoring plan like our guide to a repeatable, consistent golf swing tips for beginners foundation, so the full swing that sets up the putt is dependable too.

How Often Should You Practice Putting Drills?

Three sessions of 15 to 20 minutes a week beats one long grind, because putting rewards frequent, focused repetition over volume. Rotate the drills — do not hammer the same one every time — so you train start line, distance, and pressure across the week rather than grooving a single skill. Keep most of your time on lag putting from outside 15 feet, since distance control saves the most strokes for the widest range of golfers. Putting is roughly 40% of the shots in a round, so the practice green is where a technically sound game, built on fundamentals like how to swing a golf club, finally turns into a lower number.