Brad Faxon: Stop Missing Short Putts

Eight-time PGA Tour winner Brad Faxon is the game’s most trusted voice on putting and coach for Rory McIlroy. In this segment presented by @titleist, Faxon tackles one of golf’s most frustrating misses—the short putt. He shares a practice and warm up routine built around varying speed, angle and intention to shift focus from outcome to feel, building touch, confidence and a more committed routine inside five feet.

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Welcome, Broken Tea Society. We’re here at Old Marsh uh Golf Club, the dreaded three, four, five-footer. Why are you missing short putts and what can you do to make more of them? I’ve been teaching a little bit with Jason Bale at the Jupiter Hills Club. And one of the things that we say, one of our lines is it’s hard to make a golfer worse. And you could subset this. It’s hard to make a putter worse by making your setup better. So, we try to pound the fundamentals of setup when you when you putt. There’s always going to be a combination if you’re struggling with these short putts between mechanics and fundamentals and mindset and and how you think. I tend to think it’s more on how you think than just how you set up to it. But I would say quickly, if you’re looking at me from face on, the best players in the world that are conventionally gripped, so right hand below left for a right-handed player, hips, knees, and ankles are pretty stacked. Because my right hand is lower than my left, I’m going to have some amount of shoulder tilt, like 8 to 12 degrees of shoulder tilt. That’s proper. Um, the ball position somewhere just around or off the left heel. The putter when it hits the ball is slightly off the ground moving level to slightly up when you putt. When you look at a player down the line, there’s slight knee flex. The hips are back. There’s a little bit of angle or tilt. There’s a little bit of angle of tilt in the belt line here. When the arms hang down like this, there’s room about a fist width and a thumb distance from your thighs. forearms are parallel to the shaft close to it. So my forearms are what’s square. I think that’s to me one of the most important parts of it. Your head tilt, your eyes when you look down are looking straight down at the ball. If you had a visor on the visor would be just on the outside edge of the golf ball and your ey line would be just on the inside edge of the golf ball. Those are some basic fundamentals for your setup. You can work at that in the mirror. you can find a PJ professional at your club or near where you live to help you with those fundamentals or your techniques for these short putts when it really matters. You know, most of the time the members go out and you know, they’re hoping as they’ve hit it up here to three feet that somebody in their group’s going to say that’s good and you know, they’re getting ready to putt it, hoping they say pick it up. But if you want to make more of these things, you’ve got to do this in your practice. And what I really like to do, I’m I’m right below the hole here from four feet. I typically would like to hit a putt from four feet from below the hole to the side of the hole. So I have a left to right, a right to left, a downhill putt. And then I’d hit three putts from each of these points on the compass. And I’d hit these three putts at three different speeds. So the first putt I would have just barely get to the front edge. The second putt I’d hit into the back of the hole so it almost hits the back of the hole and goes up before it goes down. And then I’d hit one at what I would call golf course speed, normal speed. And see if you can work on your touch a little bit. This is really going to help you in a couple different ways. First of all, it gets you away from thinking of technique. It’s kind of like horse shooting baskets, hitting uh shots from different areas at different off the glass or straight end, high or low trajectory. So, hitting putts with these different speeds will all of a sudden make you more playful. It it will stop you from being uh so worried about whether the ball goes in the hole or not. We we talk about the result all the time. Let’s not think about the result. Let’s get this idea or concept that’s going to be more gamelike, more playful when you do this. So, four points of the c compass or the clock, right? 12, 3, 6, and 9:00, all different directions, three putts from each place, three different speeds. That’s really going to help you when you get on the golf course. It’s going to help you be more decisive, too, when you get out there. Um, so when you set up to hit hit the ball, remember, speed and line come together. Choose a speed that matches the line and you’re going to get better at this. Uh it’s funny how a drive that goes 300 yards right down the middle is has the same importance as a three-footer. We talk about don’t worry about the result when you putt. It’s so easy to say that. But practicing this on the practice screen before you go to play and I think you’ll get the concept hitting putts at different speeds. Let’s see them go in. Some really soft, some really firm. And I think that commitment is going to get you to be a better putter and think uh properly about your routine when you’re on the golf course. I’m going to show you a few of those as well right now. So, I’m going to go slow, medium, and regular on these putts. Okay, that was a little harder than I would have liked. Okay. So, here’s about a 4-footer. Little left to right. I try and imagine this ball if I’m trying to hit this one in softly. Remember Tiger Woods’s famous chip shot on the 16th hole at the Masters when it seemed like it was on the edge for eternity before Vern Lungquist said, “In your life.” So, I’m going to try and hit this one so it goes in softly. And remember, we’re working on three different speeds. So, you’re going to have different start lines. You’re gonna have different entry points into the cup. So, this one might be up here on the left edge of the hole. Now, this is me trying to hit it as soft as I can. A little left to right putt. I left that short, but I like to explore the boundaries when you’re doing this. That was a pretty soft putt. I didn’t make it, but hey, I hit it pretty soft. Now, this one I’m going to hit in much firmer. I want the ball to feel like it’s going to go up off the back of the cup before it goes down. I did a pretty good job. That was hidden much harder than I would hit, you know, in tournament play. And here is going to be maybe left edge putt, just normal speed and golf course speed. So, you’re going to continue to do this around the clock. And you can make this um an exercise or a drill that you can do for practice. Say you’re going to hit 12 four-footers, right? three up the hill, three down the hill, then the three across the slope. What would be a good challenge point for you to get to? 10 out of 12. You know, remember, you’re not hitting these the way you might do normally. So, make it hard to do, but make it fun to do. So, I’d say 10 out of 12. Be good from four feet. And remember, down the hill, this is going to make you uncomfortable trying to hit a putt in very firm down the hill. something you might not ordinarily do, but I can promise you this is one of my favorite exercises to build touch and then ultimately to build confidence in the different ways you can hit a putt. So, I’m going to hit this one as soft as I can. Hope that I can get this to go just in the front edge with with very little speed. Yeah, that was good. So, that one went in really softly. Now, remember the concept here is let’s let’s explore the boundary. So, we’re trying to do as soft as you can, as firm as you can. Now I got a downhill putt here. There’s no way in tournaments I’m going to try and hit this in and hit the back of the hole so the ball jumps up. But for this exercise and trying to be better on your short putts, I’m going to try and get this ball to hit the back of the hole and I hit it hard and I didn’t make it, but I did what I wanted to do. It reminds me of a story at the Masters one year. Uh my dad introduced me to the game of golf and when he would watch me play in some of the junior tournaments back then the holes weren’t painted white. Um but a lot of times he would see the putt and I’d hit the back of the hole and the ball would rattle sometimes before it went down. And he used to moan. Oh. And I go, “Dad, why do you keep moaning?” He goes, “You’re hitting it so hard. You know, if you miss, you’re going to have another one of those left.” Uh one year in the Masters, I’m playing. I’m on the 17th hole. I had a putt about this long from above the hole. It was one of those putts. It was hard to read whether it was going to go right or left. And as I went to the other side of the hole and looked towards the back of the green, my dad was standing there like he always did when he watched me play. And it made me laugh and think of when I was a junior. I said, “I’m just going to hit this one really hard and take the break out of it.” And I remember hitting this putt in the back of the hole and he I heard him moan as the crowd was clapping. It was pretty funny. So, I’ve hit one putt in as softly as I can hit it. I’ve tried to hit this one firmly. Missed it. But that’s okay. Now, normal speed. I’m going to still think about everything in my routine. That one look, eyes back to the hole and and go. And there a little bit softer than normally. But there you go. You get the idea of what you’re trying to do with this. So, you’re hitting 12 putts, exploring the limits of how softly you can hit it in, how firmly you can hit it in, then your golf course speed. This is going to make you better. We forget. And I was with Rory Maroy yesterday. We forget sometimes this is still a game and it can still be fun. That’s why a lot of these exercises that we do out here are different. They’re not drills. They’re not monotonous. They’re fun to do. Just simply something like a putting contest with your friends. Nobody does that anymore. Everybody’s hanging out by themselves. Practicing putting, having a putting contest here at Old Marsh with these nine holes, you could be here all day and have a blast. So again, we’re exploring the boundaries. Little bit right to left. I’m going to try and hit this as softly as I can into that right edge of the hole. That was too hard. I’m going to hit this one firmly. Back of the hole first. I did a good job with that one. Pat yourself on the back. It’s okay. Normal speed here. Look at the hole. Let the putter go. Hit it. That was nice. That was a good sequence of what we’re trying to do with this game. Remember, exploring the boundaries. This is great to do this before you go to play. You’re working on your routine while you do it. If you wanted to practice after you left the golf course, set yourself a target. What am I going to do? I’m going to make 10 out of 12 of these. Three different speeds from the four different spots that you try. Definitely will help you short game. [Music]