You're Correct!

The definition of practising your putting is not spending five minutes on the putting green before you run across to the first tee, although this is all the practise that many golfers do.

Your putter is the most used golf club in your bag, round after round, week in week out. Surely you should spend some quality time practising.

In reality, you need to spend at least an hour a week practising your putting and mixing up the way you do it. A great way to mix up the way you practise is to play games within your practise drills. Some of these drills require you to only use one ball and for others you will need between five and six balls. To mix it the next time youre practising, try these two games.

The Four Way Foot Long

This practise drill is a great way to improve your holing out. Take one ball and place it a foot away from a hole of your choice on the practising green. Knock it into the hole. Move back another foot and knock it in again. Each time you hole it, move back another foot until you miss. Once you miss, you must start again at a foot from the hole. You need to hole a minimum of 6 putts in a row before moving to the opposite side of the hole and repeating, then do the same from either side. This will get you used to holing out different putts from sloping to straight.

Two Feet Past

This is a great drill to improve your feel and speed control. You need to place four tees in a square, one a foot either side of the hole and the others two feet behind the hole. Take six balls and start with a 20 foot putt. The game is to get every ball that you dont hole inside your square. Once you get all six in the square or a couple even in the hole, move back five feet and repeat. The more often you play this game, the more you will improve your speed control on your longer putts.

If you only ever use one ball when you practise putting, you will find you waste a big portion of your time walking back and forth to retrieve your ball. The most important thing to remember is that you utilize your time to maximize your practise.

The number of balls you should use when youre practising should vary depending on the type of practise you are doing. You only need two or three balls if you are practising from three or four feet. You could use seven or eight balls if you want to practise long putts of over 30 to 40 feet to maximize your practise time.

The amount of time you have available to practise your putting should dictate the type of drills you do or games you play and not the number of balls you use. Make sure that you mix your practise up to include some short range, mid range and long range drills to improve all aspects of your putting.