This is the fifth entry in the GOTM Practice Series. The goal of all the entries in this series is to not only to describe practice drills, but also make sure you know how to practice with the right mental attitude, something just as important as the physical act.

Indoor Mat Putting

How

Find a putting mat, we recommend this one from Amazon (though any will work), and putt until you make 15 in a row from any distance. Feel free to challenge yourself on distance and number you need to make. You aren’t going to get better making it easy on yourself.

What to Focus On

You might be sitting here thinking, “why are the good people at GOTM wasting my time telling me to hit putts on a mat to practice?”. Well there’s a key difference I want to point out here instead of just whacking putts.

There are three types of goals when starting a drill, putting or otherwise.

First is time based, meaning “I’m going to practice putting on this mat for 15 minutes”.

Second is quantity based, meaning “I’m going to practice putting on this mat until I make 50 putts”.

Third is streak based, meaning “I’m going to practice putting on this mat until I make 15 putts in a row”.

I’ll argue that the first two of those goals are pointless because they don’t make you focus on every putt. It’s obvious for time based goals, and for quantity based goals, you can pretty much just count on slopping in enough putts given enough time. In order to complete a streak based drill, you need to make sure you’re thinking about making the putts.

 

For GOTM Practice Series posts in the future, expect to see a lot more of streak based goals.

Variations

As with all streaks, variations on this drill are the number in a row you have to make. Along with the number of times you practice.