When bad weather or a global pandemic keeps you from playing at your favorite golf course, it doesn’t mean that you have to let your skills regress. You just have to stay more committed to practicing your putt at home. Sure, you could purchase a small putting strip, but you don’t have to do that. We’ll show you how to practice your skills using objects you may already have at home or can acquire cheaply.
Hitting the Sweet Spot
Your putt won’t be its best until you’re able to hit the ball just right. If your putter is turned slightly in, the ball goes in one direction, and if it’s slightly turned out, it will go the other direction. To get this right, the Keiser University College of Golf recommends practicing your put with a PVC pipe. Because it’s wider than a golf ball, you can more accurately see whether or not you’ve got your putter straight.
Once you can hit the PVC pipe straight, you can move on to using your ball.
Shooting Straight
To reach the hole, your ball needs to travel in a straight line. Practice this by creating a “tunnel” that your ball can travel through. Create this by making two rows of books with a space between them. Old phone books work well if you still have access to them, but any type of thick book will work. When starting, you can make the gap between the books fairly wide — about six inches apart. As you get better, push the books closer together.
Hit your ball through this tunnel without touching the “walls”. The straighter your shot, the better you’ll do.
Going the Distance
Hitting the ball just the right distance is an essential skill for improving your golf score. Now that you’ve mastered hitting the ball in a straight line, it’s time to practice hitting it with just the right amount of force to get it to go where you want it to go.
To do this, place a playing card somewhere on the floor. Then try to hit the ball so that it lands exactly on the card. Vary the placement of the card and ball so that sometimes you’re hitting it a short distance and sometimes you’re going a bit further.
Striking Your Mark
Another good way to simulate getting your ball in the hole without digging holes in your yard or purchasing special equipment is to practice knocking a tee over. Simply place a tee upside down, then hit the ball so that you knock the tee over gently. You don’t want the ball to go further after it knocks the tee over.