Technique Drill for Improving Aim and Stroke

Today, Cody Alexander, Bloodline’s 4th generation, demonstrates a putting drill to work on your aim and stroke technique. This unique drill that we like to do here at Bloodline ensures that your stroke is straight back and straight through, so when you hit the ball, it’s square.bloodbk

What you’re working on is making sure all of your putts start on the proper path. If you can aim at your target properly, and you get the ball to hit that target, you’re going to give yourself a better chance of understanding how hard you hit it and what read you have.

This drill is easy to set up. First, you need to place 2 tees about 4 feet away from the hole on the putting green. The tees need to be positioned as a gate that’s a couple inches wider than the length of your putter head. You will be placing the ball between the gate and putting it from that location.

Then you need to determine the break and place a tee behind the hole that will be your target. It’s probably best to start with a fairly straight putt.

You’re going to start off by hitting a few 4-foot putts. Just aim at the middle of the cup and hit them dead center. As with all of our drills, it’s important to make sure you go through your regular routine on every putt like you would out on the golf course. Set up your putt, walk behind it and double check your aim, adjust the putter if needed, then make a nice smooth stroke.

The next step is to imagine that you’re hitting a 6-foot putt without moving the tees back. You’ll still make the same stroke and go right at the center of the cup. It doesn’t matter if the ball goes into the cup. All you care about is that it’s hitting the cup which means it’s hitting your aim point and going past. Then move to 10 feet and do the same drill.

As your stroke starts to get longer and longer, you want to make sure there’s no issue with your stroke.

Sometimes when people start hitting putts from 15 – 20 feet, they’ll open the putter face as they try to hit it a little harder, ending up to the right of the hole, not on the starting line, and not giving yourself a chance.

Next, you want to imagine hitting the ball from 15 – 20 feet, hammering the ball at the hole. If it goes over the hole, you know you are still hitting the putt square and it’s still hitting your target line. Then all you’re really worried about is making sure you have the right read and the right speed.

During this drill, the ball should always go right over the top of the hole. So, no matter how hard you hit it, you still come back to square and make a good, solid stroke.

Click here to watch the video.