Any Putting Advice on Improving Speed Control?

[Mike412]

My wife is struggling mightily with this and I can’t find any way to help her. She does great on the practice green but once on the course just blasts everything 6 - 10 feet past the hole. She knows she’s hitting it too hard but can’t make herself stop. Again she’s just fine every time she practices or putts before a round. She’s getting extremely discouraged at this point so idk what to do. Btw, she’s fine taking advice from me but I just don’t know how to help her at this point. I feel like it’s mental at this point because she’s proven she can do it but once on the course it’s like she’s putting with a sledgehammer.

[Sp4zRX]

More time on practice green. Ladder drill is always a good one but what I found more effective for me is to get really good at 20 feet first. Drop 3 balls around 20ft. Maybe 18ft, 20ft, and 23ft and, in random order (middle ball, back ball, front ball), try to hit them close. After spending a solid week or two getting good at this distance she will probably find she is automatically better from 30 and 40 feet. Once she gets really good from 20 feet start lengthening the drill to 18 to 30 feet. If you’re not really good from 20 feet you stand no chance from further distances. 
 

It’s something she actually needs to practice, not just knocking a few around on the practice green 15 min before tee time. 

[Mike412]

1 hour ago, Sp4zRX said:

More time on practice green. Ladder drill is always a good one but what I found more effective for me is to get really good at 20 feet first. Drop 3 balls around 20ft. Maybe 18ft, 20ft, and 23ft and, in random order (middle ball, back ball, front ball), try to hit them close. After spending a solid week or two getting good at this distance she will probably find she is automatically better from 30 and 40 feet. Once she gets really good from 20 feet start lengthening the drill to 18 to 30 feet. If you’re not really good from 20 feet you stand no chance from further distances. 
 

It’s something she actually needs to practice, not just knocking a few around on the practice green 15 min before tee time. 

The thing is, she is actually okay at lag putting. It’s the 6, 8, 10 footers that she just blasts by. Always ends up with the next putt being longer than the first. Sorry, should have included the distance she is struggling with in the OP.

[otto6457]

Unfortunately, she needs to practice lots of 6-10 footers. She might do better practicing to a grid instead of a hole. Put down a couple of ball markers lengthwise 3 feet apart and try and stop balls between the ball markers.   For some, removing the hole makes learning touch easier as it removes the pressure to make putts.  It changes their intention to purely speed control.

[aramirez24]

Agree with the post above about grid putting. I started practicing by putting the first ball 5-6 feet past the hole from 10-20 feet and then seeing how many balls I can putt that stop past the hole but shorter than the ball I hit previously. Fun game that takes the pressure off actually making the putt. You can do the same by stopping the ball short and doing the opposite. 

[Nickb333]

Jim Flick suggested a drill that included dripping putts over the front edge, then dropping in normal and finally bouncing them off the back of the cup. 
 

I’m a natural lagger but the drill helped me when conditions demanded a more assertive roll. 

[Ghostwedge]

Have her practice "baseline putting." 

Find a flat section of the practice putting green ( straight is better ) and hit putts the width of her stance. Then pace off how far the putts travel ( 5-6 paces on a fast green works ) lets say that is 10 feet. Obviously her stroke then is a little longer or shorter depending on distance from the hole. Got to keep her tempo the same with very putt though.

[svlido]

Lots of drills but that's like stumbling around in the dark until you find the switch.  I'd bet it's a combination of her tempo and the length of her backstroke.  I would set up a gate and then a tee to limit how far back she can take it.  Put a metronome on and have her bang 10-12 footers at a tee or better yet a disc, not a hole, so she can gauge how far she's hitting it.

 

She probably takes it back too far and then decelerates normally so when she has good tempo it goes really far.

[Scottbox]

How wristy is her stroke? If she is gripping too much in the fingers and/or her arms are hanging low enough to create an angle between her forearms and the shaft, then the wrists can come into play. That will really cause speed control problems because it's one extra lever to deal with.

[Soloman1]

don’t need hours and hours on the practice green. maybe 15 minutes.

 

setup some 8-10 foot putts and look at the hole, not the ball, while putting. our eyes don’t let us slam our hand into a door while reaching for the door knob.

 

look at the hole when taking a practice stroke on the course, then mimic that stroke. the brain remembers.

[golfing_penguin]

I play this trick in all the beginner clinics I run and it works fairly well:

 

Have her hit a putt and see where it ends up and ask her how hard she thinks she hit it on a 1-10 scale

 

Whatever number she gives, get her to hit the putt again but drop the power by four points (if that means it becomes a minus-number then so be it)

 

Try again!

 

What this does is bring an awareness to her effort level. The number itself is utterly arbitrary to the rest of us but it means something to her. I've had some people say they hit a 30ft putt 10ft past and say they were giving it 1/10. I got her to try a -7/10 and all of a sudden it clicked

 

The other side of the coin works too - in that same 30ft putt scenario someone else in the group couldn't hit it hard enough until we said to try '14/10'.

 

 

 

[SNIPERBBB]

Sounds like she needs to change where her focus is when she's putting.  I never could do the 6" in front of the ball thing because it lead to speed inconsistency.  I prefer to focus on the spot on my linea foot past the hole 

[naval2006]

You should buy her some lessons with a fine coach. That’ll most likely help.