If you are going to be a great putter you need to have fantastic distance control. If you watch anyone who is a great putter, you will always notice that their distance control is excellent.

They always get the ball up to the hole, if not just slightly past. They are never short of the hole, the ball always finishes level with the hole at least.

This is a great drill to work on to enable you to learn how to get the ball up to the hole and to control your putting distance, especially as you move further away from the hole and the putt has a greater distance to travel.

Place eight tee pegs around the hole, one putter's length away, to create a circle around the hole. Place a tee peg in a north, south, east and west position around the hole and then place the other four tee pegs between these to form the circle, or bullseye.

Once you have set this up, step two paces away from the bullseye in any direction. Now play a putt towards the hole. If the ball finishes in the hole, or in the bullseye you score a point. If it finishes outside the bullseye you do not score. Now move to four paces away from the bullseye in a different direction. Play this putt and score. Now move to six paces way and play again.

Continue this until you have played 10 putts so that your last position is 20 paces away from the bullseye. If you are short on time then play five putts instead of 10, but take four paces between each putting position rather than two. Once you have you completed the stipulated number of putts to play, total up your score. The next time you play, work on beating your previous score and this will really help you to improve your distance control. Your ultimate score would be 10 (or five if you are playing the quicker version).

If you need the drill slightly harder, make the bullseye only half a putter length wide rather than a putter length. Or alternatively you could play this game but if you miss the bullseye, instead of moving to the next putt, replay the putt until you make it. With this version you will make all five or 10 putts so you now need to count how many goes it takes you to complete the game.

The next time that you play, work on completing the game in fewer attempts.
If you work on improving your distance control when putting, you will notice that you take fewer putts when you are next out on the golf course and as a result of this, you will be shooting a much lower score.