If you’re serious about improving your game, the best place to start is with your putting.
It’s the best—and the fastest—way to lower scores.
That makes sense. Why? Because roughly, 40 percent of your shots are putts.
Cut the average number of putts you take down, and you’ll find yourself shooting dramatically lower scores. You may even break 80.
But cutting strokes from your golf handicap is tough—no matter how much natural talent you have.
If you have a high golf handicap, it’s a bit easier because there’s more room for improvement.
But it’s still hard to do.
Golf instruction books can help you improve your putting from the comfort of your home.
Here are 7 of the best ones I’ve found, complete with some commentary on how they help your short game.
Read these 7 putting books and you’ll be well on your way to shaving strokes and lowering your golf scores.
With so many books out there, it’s hard to choose which to use.
Below are descriptions of seven of the best golf instruction books on putting available. Use the descriptions below to decide which to buy:
This book is among the game’s best instruction books around. Peltz explains the book’s golf lessons on putting in great detail.
His suggestions are backed by years of research and teaching.
A scientist by profession, Pelz provides detailed explanations, photos, illustrations, charts, and plenty of sage advice on the art (and science) of putting.
This is perfect for someone with an analytical mind–an engineer, tinkerer, or someone who likes to deconstruct problems.
Ingraining the golf tips in this book can’t help but boost your putting.
The Mental Art of Putting is ideal for “the putting impaired.”
It teaches you to use what the authors consider the most crucial asset in putting—your mind.
Offering self-evaluation techniques, step-by-step instructions, and plenty of practice drills, the book gives tons of golf tips on putting.
It’s a great “starter book” if you don’t know where to begin otherwise to improve your putting.
Master the golf lessons in this book, and you’ll improve your putting and shrink your golf handicap by at least a couple of strokes.
This book was the “putting bible” of it’ time, plus the “golf how to book” of its generation.
It makes an excellent gift for yourself or someone else.
A collector’s item in its leatherbound version, this book provides fascinating insights into the game then and now.
Providing tips and techniques from a bygone era that still ring true, the book is a comprehensive guide to how to putt and improve your short game.
From one of the game’s acknowledged authorities, the book discusses a unique mental approach that can be adopted for great putting by golfers at every level of play.
The book encourages golfers to go out of their way to master the art of putting.
The effort begins with the understanding of the right attitude—an attitude that emphasizes why you need to be a better putter.
The book even includes mental rules that have helped some of the greatest golfers in the world become champion putters.
This is great for someone who knows or is interested in using specific psychological principles to improve their putting by several strokes.
The putting principals in this book can transform your game.
After all, they helped Phil Mickelson win the 2010 Masters.
Stockton is a top coach that’s taught a long list of pro players, including Annika Sorenstam, Yani Tseng, Adam Scott, and Hunter Mahan.
Stockton’s breakthrough concept is that every golfer has his or her signature stroke that’s unconscious.
It is your job as a player to uncover this “signature unconscious stroke,” and use it so that you get out of your own head, and unthinkingly play better golf around the green.
With visualization, the right frame of mind, an efficient pre-putt routine, and a connection to the individual internal stroke signature, any player can make far more putts.
Having a great putting stroke is fantastic, but there’s much more to putting than your stroke.
Sones takes a mind, body, and soul approach to mastering the elusive art of putting.
He discusses the proper fundamentals of putting, the correct putting setup, reading putting greens, pre-stroke routine, but also covers tactics, drills, and the mindset required.
In other words, everything that you need to become a great putter.
Todd Sones has been recognized by Golf Magazine as one of the top 100 Golf Instructors in America.
His co-author, whose name will delight fans of Caddyshack, helps pull all of Sones’s concepts together into an easy-to-understand package.
What do PGA stars Haas, Craig Stadler, Peter Jacobsen, and Darren Clarke all have in common?
They’ve all sought advice from Stan Utley, a well-known name in pro golf.
In a welcome change from mechanistic and overly-complex putting “systems,” Utley’s approach breaks down the putting stroke to a simple, natural motion, revealing a straightforward method for learning this sure, repeatable stroke.
He guides you through the proper fundamentals of putting, a primer on club design, and tips on finding the right putter for you given your swing.
These seven golf instruction books can help you take your putting to the next level. They’ll have you cutting strokes from your score in no time. If you’re serious about breaking 80, these books can help.
These books are a great start if you’re looking to improve your short game.
However, much like anything else, from business to self-improvement, reading books can only get you so far.
You have to put what you read into practice. Otherwise, what’s the point?
So I thought I’d give you a couple of my best putting tips and drills to put some of the lessons from the above books into practice.
When you combine all of this information with sustained, deliberate practice, you’ll get better at putting in no time…
Reading golf instruction books is a great way to help your game.
Among the best is David Pelz’s Short Game Bible. This book is a classic.
When it came out, everyone considered it groundbreaking and revolutionary.
It showed golfers how to unearth their weaknesses and improve them.
Eleven of Pelz’s professional students have won a total of 21 Majors.
Clearly, he knows what he is talking about when it comes to the short game.
Below are Pelz’s ten truths about putting.
Putting is one of the absolute best ways to lower your scores.
The difference between a one-putt and a two-putt can often be the difference between playing bogey golf and par.
Not to mention that every putt after two-putting can put you on a fast course to going over 90.
Putting may not be as “sexy” as hitting a 300-yard drive, but it’s probably even more crucial to lowering your golf scores.
You can have the smoothest, easiest putting stroke in the world…
But if your aim is off? You’re not going to make many putts.
This is where reading a green is so important.
If you can read a green properly, then you’ll know the proper place to aim.
Imagine water running off of a green. This will show you all of the slants, dips, and gullies on the way to the hole.
Then figure out where to aim from there.
A while back, I had a stretch where I was pulling all of my putts.
Every time, without fail, I’d hit the left lip of the cup and lip out.
My biggest problem (aside from my putter–more on that later) was that I was “yanking” my putter.
This caused me to pull everything to the left.
If you pull or push putts, or can never seem to go high enough, try to keep your stroke on-line all the way through the target.
There’s a very simple drill to practice this concept:
Line up a putt on a practice green.
Once you’ve determined where you want to aim, put a quarter on either side of your ball in line with your putting line, about 6 inches away from the ball.
Try to keep your putter going over both quarters as you get through your putting stroke.
Over time, this will show you whether you have a tendency to push or pull your putts.
It will also give you the feel of hitting putts straight as an arrow.
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You can have the straightest stroke path in the world, but if you’re holding your putter askew, or have flex in your wrists, it won’t matter.
Think of your putter face like a pinball flipper. It can be closed, open, etc.
You want to have it as straight-on as possible.
This is “the next step” in the drill from 3a above.
Line up the quarters along your stroke path.
Place your putter so that the back quarter is in line with your putter shaft, in a way that it has the proper face angle you want.
Drop one more quarter right at each of the toe and heal of your putter.
Then do the same with the quarter in front of the hole.
In all, you should end with 6 quarters.
Practice your stroke while trying to go over the back three quarters, then the front 3 quarters.
A bad impact pattern will lead to all kinds of muffed putts, “not high enough putts,” and even “rogue putts” that rocket past the hole.
Practice the two drills above to improve your impact pattern.
This is a scary concept for weekend golfers, but one that the pros know all too well.
It can be daunting to try to drain a long putt, especially if you’re facing a downhill lie.
But one of the best ways to save strokes on the green is to be more aggressive with these longer putts.
To do so, you’ll have to dial in your speed.
Nothing is better for dialing in speed than getting to the course early and doing some good old-fashioned practice on the putting green.
You want to hit putts from a variety of distances and lies.
You also can roll balls toward holes, and gauge speed, green maintenance, etc.
Information here is very key to improvement.
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Your putter should be like a metronome.
You need to ingrain this rhythm in your putting stroke to sink longer putts.
Nobody, not even Tiger or Freddy Couples, is born a “natural putter.”
The best putters on tour started out having little or no skill on the green.
What got them to where they’re at now was sustained, repeatable practice.
There’s no shortcut.
However, there is an easy enough way to practice during the day:
Get an indoor putting mat.
It may be a movie trope that the “big boss” is constantly working on his short game at work… but it really does improve your short game!
Nothing has been better for being able to practice pretty much any time of day or night.
It also helps that you can do the golf putting drills in this article at pretty much any time.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Tiger or DJ’s putting stroke.
Tiger has been putting since he was 2 years old. And while you don’t need that level of dedication, you do need sustained practice to get better.
You may not see improvement overnight. Or even in a week or two.
But if you grab an indoor putting mat, and practice 5 days a week for a month? I guarantee you’ll start to get better.
Much like compound interest, your improvement will compound as well over time.
You’ll go from saving a stroke or two… to three or four… to five, six, and beyond per round.
If it improves your game by ten strokes in 6 months, isn’t it worth it?
Yet you’ll never see any improvement if you stop practicing!
Just making a habit out of practicing is going to be one of the best things you ever do for your golf game.
So commit now… and see much lower scores later.
From NFL Quarterbacks to pros on the PGA Tour, confidence can never be overrated.
You need to believe in yourself (and in your putter), or else all of these “tips” will be worthless.
Even if you think you’re an “awful” putter now, take all of those thoughts and banish them starting right now.
Starting right now, at this moment, you will be a better putter.
Ingrain that thought and you’ll do much better.
The best way to build putting confidence is to practice, practice, practice.
Confidence is something Pelz talks about in all his golf instruction books.
Need More Help With Your Putting? This “Pro of Pros” Has the Answer…
Below is a putting game Pelz created to help you with lag putting—a key area of weakness for weekend golfers.
Why? They don’t practice it enough.
Pelz’s game makes practice fun:
Use Pelz Phony Holes if you do not have fixed cups. Set the phony holes at 40-feet, 50-feet, and 60-feet from your starting point.
Putt three balls from the starting point to the 50-foot hole.
Judge each of the three putts to see if they are within the lag putt safe-zone. The ‘safe-zone” for lag putts is a 34-inch circle (about a putter length) around the cup.
So up to 34-inches short of the hole is okay. Keep putting until you get all three 50-foot putts in a row in the safe-zone, then putt to the 40-foot hole and 60-foot hole, and repeat.
Your goal is to putt three balls in a row into the safe-zone at each of the 50-, 40-, and 60-foot distances.
Then on your last putt, go to the 50-foot hole.
You get one try, which puts you under pressure to finish the drill by getting your tenth in a row into the safe-zone.
You probably won’t get ten in a row on your first try at this golf drill, but track your progress and try to beat your previous best.
There’s nothing more critical to your game than improving your lag putting and preventing three-putts.
They’ll kill you—as any golf instruction book on putting will tell you.
Golf drills offer numerous benefits. It’s why you see so many of them in golf instruction books.
Among the best ways to improve your game, golf drills ingrain specific moves and help you refine technique.
To benefit from a golf drill or drills, however, you need to isolate a specific issue then practice a drill or drills addressing the issue.
Missing short putts, for example, is an issue for many weekend golfers.
Draining more of them cuts strokes from your scores and your golf handicap.
Below is a simple golf drill that improves your short putting:
Set up three feet away from a hole on the practice green. (Make sure you have a relatively straight putt.)
Start with making five putts in a row.
Then, move on to making ten straight in a row.
Finally, work on making as many as you can.
To add variation to this dill, you can extend the distance from three feet to five feet.
You also can start with making five putts in a row from three feet.
Then, switch to making five putts in a row from four feet.
Then, finish with making five putts in a row from five feet.
If you miss a putt along the way, you start over at three feet.
Keep working on this golf drill until you can make short putts like these in your sleep.
This golf drill is simple but effective, which is why you’ll will probably find it in many of today’s best golf instruction books.
The exercise forces you to make short putts under pressure. That’s the best way to practice.
My good friend, Bobby, is a pretty unassuming guy.
He looks like any “normal” guy who you’d find out on a golf course.
Yet inside that glorious head of his lies some of the greatest little-known putting information you’ll find anywhere.
That’s because Bobby is secretly a globe-trotting golf pro, who has:
And along the way, he developed his own Precision Putting System , that can turn any duffer into a pinpoint-putting, 30-footer-sinking machine.
This is the system that he teaches his fellow pros… though it’s also worked wonders for many weekend golfers at the prestigious clubs he’s worked at…
Much like these books, I consider it an “essential tool” in improving your short game.
For a very limited time, Bobby is making his Precision Putting System available to you.
Simply click the link below… select whether you want streaming only access or a physical DVD as well… and complete the process.
You’re going to be really happy with the results!
In fact, just by practicing these 7 simple “Putting Tricks” for 20 minutes per week… I’ve saved an average of 9 strokes when putting.
If these 7 “Putting Tricks” can get me, a pretty seasoned golfer, that kind of improvement…
Imagine what they can do for your putting scores!
My mentor, named Bobby, put all 7 of these simple “Putting Tricks” into one simple, easy-to-follow video course.
You can check it out, and immediately get these 7 simple “Putting Tricks” by clicking the link below now:
