Whats the best way to improve my lag putting? (Video) - by Pete Styles
Whats the best way to improve my lag putting? (Video) - by Pete Styles

We often find that golfers out of the course really struggle with judging their distance with their long and lagged putts. When I talk to people about why this is, they almost seem to sort of not take any responsibility for it, not take any of the blame, they just say, “Oh well I don’t have the touch and I don’t have the feel.” As if touch and feel are these sort of God given talents that golfers are born with. Now touch and feel and experience of lag putting is something you absolutely can learn, it’s not quick, it’s not a basic technique to learn, but it is something you can improve on relatively quickly as long as you focus on the right drills and exercises.

An example I often give to people is I put a range basket on the floor and – golf ball and say through the ball in there and they will generally get it pretty close, then I’ll give them another one, say do it again and they will get closer, maybe even getting it in. What I say to them is well; you’ve never thrown into that basket before with that ball from that distance how did you know how hard to through it? Oh well I’ve got experience of it, I’ve played tennis and I’ve used a tennis ball or a bowling ball or anything, a piece of paper in the office thrown into a basket they have got some experience of how hard to throw something to get it to go the defined distance. And then all they do is they take that experience and they apply it to the task I set them, throw the ball into the bucket. Now you need to do the same thing when you are putting. You need to build up a life time of experience of lagging putts along different surfaces and different lengths with a defined putting stroke then when you get set a task on a golf course of 25 feet uphill on a slow green, your brain, your body, your hands, your arms can adjust and adapt to the stroke to hit it the right distance. There's nobody that can actually tell you how hard to hit it, because if I say to you hit it 5 out of 10 what does that mean to you? If I say hit it 4 out of 10 well I cant adjust like that, but if you look at it and you use your experience and the past experience you’ve built up from doing lagged putting drills, in the carpet, on the carpet at home, on the putting green, on the practice green or when you’re actually out in the golf course. All of that experience filters back through your brain and suddenly you got a feel for how hard to hit a certain putt. So lagged putting drills are massively essential part of your putting practice. Now I can guarantee a few people at home are going well I don’t do any putting practice so certainly lagged putting drills aren’t a big of my practice anyway, therefore you are not going to be very good at lag putting on the golf course. So around about 25 to 30% of your entire golf practice time should be dedicated to putting, there should be another 30% dedicated to the rest of the shot game and then 40% dedicated to the full swing. So 30% of your practice time should be putting and a good portion of that should be lag putting. Now probably the easiest drill you can ever do for lag putting just at home, as much space as you’ve got utilize it get yourself in a nice flat piece of carpet, take some balls and just try and put them as close as you can to the edge of the wall, the skirting board, without actually hitting. Now clearly I don’t have masses of room here but what you will be looking to do is taking a few balls from five feet, move back to 10, 15, 20 feet, it depends how posh you are, it depends how far back you know depends how big your house is but as long as you can get down the corridor in the hallway or anything like that take a putter and try and hit lag putts that roll up towards the edge of the skirting board here without actually hitting. Now if you don’t have very good lag control you will be over hitting and they’ll be banging in the banging into the skirting board, consider that a three putt, its gone too far past the hole of three putting. Likewise if you are hitting lagged putts down the corridor, they only get half way you don’t have enough touch and feel and experience yet and keep doing more of it. I do stress this is not something that’s necessarily easy to come by but is also isn’t something God given. It is something you can learn to do. So spend lots of practice time on lag putts and next time you get set the challenge on the golf course you’ll have the experience to deal with it. 2015-03-26

We often find that golfers out of the course really struggle with judging their distance with their long and lagged putts. When I talk to people about why this is, they almost seem to sort of not take any responsibility for it, not take any of the blame, they just say, “Oh well I don’t have the touch and I don’t have the feel.” As if touch and feel are these sort of God given talents that golfers are born with. Now touch and feel and experience of lag putting is something you absolutely can learn, it’s not quick, it’s not a basic technique to learn, but it is something you can improve on relatively quickly as long as you focus on the right drills and exercises.

An example I often give to people is I put a range basket on the floor and – golf ball and say through the ball in there and they will generally get it pretty close, then I’ll give them another one, say do it again and they will get closer, maybe even getting it in. What I say to them is well; you’ve never thrown into that basket before with that ball from that distance how did you know how hard to through it? Oh well I’ve got experience of it, I’ve played tennis and I’ve used a tennis ball or a bowling ball or anything, a piece of paper in the office thrown into a basket they have got some experience of how hard to throw something to get it to go the defined distance.

And then all they do is they take that experience and they apply it to the task I set them, throw the ball into the bucket. Now you need to do the same thing when you are putting. You need to build up a life time of experience of lagging putts along different surfaces and different lengths with a defined putting stroke then when you get set a task on a golf course of 25 feet uphill on a slow green, your brain, your body, your hands, your arms can adjust and adapt to the stroke to hit it the right distance.

There's nobody that can actually tell you how hard to hit it, because if I say to you hit it 5 out of 10 what does that mean to you? If I say hit it 4 out of 10 well I cant adjust like that, but if you look at it and you use your experience and the past experience you’ve built up from doing lagged putting drills, in the carpet, on the carpet at home, on the putting green, on the practice green or when you’re actually out in the golf course. All of that experience filters back through your brain and suddenly you got a feel for how hard to hit a certain putt. So lagged putting drills are massively essential part of your putting practice.

Now I can guarantee a few people at home are going well I don’t do any putting practice so certainly lagged putting drills aren’t a big of my practice anyway, therefore you are not going to be very good at lag putting on the golf course. So around about 25 to 30% of your entire golf practice time should be dedicated to putting, there should be another 30% dedicated to the rest of the shot game and then 40% dedicated to the full swing. So 30% of your practice time should be putting and a good portion of that should be lag putting.

Now probably the easiest drill you can ever do for lag putting just at home, as much space as you’ve got utilize it get yourself in a nice flat piece of carpet, take some balls and just try and put them as close as you can to the edge of the wall, the skirting board, without actually hitting. Now clearly I don’t have masses of room here but what you will be looking to do is taking a few balls from five feet, move back to 10, 15, 20 feet, it depends how posh you are, it depends how far back you know depends how big your house is but as long as you can get down the corridor in the hallway or anything like that take a putter and try and hit lag putts that roll up towards the edge of the skirting board here without actually hitting.

Now if you don’t have very good lag control you will be over hitting and they’ll be banging in the banging into the skirting board, consider that a three putt, its gone too far past the hole of three putting. Likewise if you are hitting lagged putts down the corridor, they only get half way you don’t have enough touch and feel and experience yet and keep doing more of it. I do stress this is not something that’s necessarily easy to come by but is also isn’t something God given. It is something you can learn to do. So spend lots of practice time on lag putts and next time you get set the challenge on the golf course you’ll have the experience to deal with it.