Missing short putts can be one of the most frustrating parts of golf. We’ve all been there — lining up from just a few feet out, only to watch the ball slide by. In this video, I break down a Jordan Spieth putting drill that’s designed to help you build confidence on those must-make putts.
Spieth is known for his incredible putting touch, and this simple but powerful drill will:
Improve your consistency inside 6 feet
Train your stroke to stay square through impact
Eliminate those dreaded push and pull misses
Welcome to Scott Styles Golf and the scoring solution, a YouTube channel where I’m going to show you a bunch of different ways to improve your scoring to help you get the ball into the hole sooner and in general just to have more fun playing golf. So, if you enjoy this, you find yourself interested or engaged, please like this channel, please subscribe, comment, get engaged in this channel because the more and more feedback I get from all of you, the better the stuff that I can produce becomes. One of the main reasons we see people miss short putts is they’re not able to start the ball on the line they’re trying to. They don’t know whether they’re lined up properly and they don’t know whether the ball is starting where they think it should. We see putts where someone gets really close and then they’re not quite sure where they’re aimed. They get short. They get slow. They get really manipulative and they feel like the putter can twist or turn in their hands. They feel like their speed control changes. Nothing seems easy. They’re not able to focus on making the putt and they only think about making a perfect stroke, which is a good way to not make a lot of putts. So, this drill is something that I I got I’ve had for a while, but Jordan Spe is one of the golfers who when he was in his heyday was one of the best putters on the planet. He putted better than just about any anybody has ever putted for a period of time there when he was winning his majors. And one drill he liked to do, he would do it before every round, he would take an alignment stick, he’d find a relatively straight putt. He would set the alignment stick up so that the stick is even with basically the edge of the hole. Okay. So now he’s got something to calibrate himself. He would then set his putter so the toe of the putter is right up against the alignment stick. So then the ball from there ends up in the middle of the putter face. Okay. He starts maybe threeish feet away. That’s about how far we are here. Putter is about 3 feet long. So I’m about 3 ft away. And all I’m doing is I’m making sure my putter face is aimed at the center of the hole. I can check to make sure it’s perpendicular to the stick. I can set the line on the putter directly behind the middle of the ball and then make a stroke. It’s as simple as that. It’s not complicated. It’s not a lot of work. All you’re doing is making sure that the putter is square, so it’s perpendicular to your target line with the feedback of the stick. You get set up in there. Take a little bit of time to make sure it’s pointed where you think. Have a couple looks at the hole, find your balance, and let the puck go. It doesn’t have to be that hard. And that’s the whole point of what we’re talking about here. We want to make golf easier. And a lot of times we get looking for solutions in things that are very very complicated. Nobody practices the simple things in golf more than tour players. They work on things just like this alignment, setup, posture. Yet a lot of amateur golfers think the things they’re doing are very, very complicated and it’s just not the case. Again, we’re getting set up in here. Make sure the ball’s in the right spot. The toe of my putter is right along the stick. I can check to kind of see if my feet You can add another stick if you want to. Make sure your feet are lined up square to your target line. I got set up in here. Have a look to the hole. Eyes come back and let it go. Short putts in general are the easiest putts because we have the greatest amount of room for error. We don’t have to be perfect. Now, as soon as we get telling ourselves that we should make them, as soon as we place that pressure on ourselves, it tends to constrict us and makes it harder to execute. So, if we can build some fundamentals that no matter how we’re feeling, we’re able to hit these putts on the line we want. All of a sudden, the tension can go down. Again, we’re getting set up, toe of the putter right on the edge of the stick. Find my balance. Have a look to the hole. Hit it right down the line. What I like to do to add to this drill, okay, this is very, very simple, but if I’m going to add a little bit to it, what I’ll do first is I’ll take a tee. I’ve got my putter down. Okay. So now what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna put a T right in the middle of my putter. Okay. And I’m gonna make a little hole. So I’m gonna make a little hole here. And that’s going to be for where I’m going to put the ball each time. You can use something like a chalk pen to give yourself a little mark. But this is really simple. Then I’m going to go about a foot forward. Okay? And I’m going to do the same thing. Okay? So I’m going to set my putter so it’s same distance from the stick. I’m going to set the tea in there. and I’m going to make a little hole. So now what I’ve got is I’ve got a reference point. All I’m trying to do is putt my ball over top of this second hole. So if I know the ball starts in that hole, the putter’s in the right spot, I get myself set. If I roll the ball over that dot, this ball is going to go in the hole every single time. It’s not hard. It’s not complicated. All it takes is a little bit of work. a line I like uh for something like this. It’s easy not to do, but it’s also very easy to do. I’m going to come and get set up in here again. The ball’s in the first hole. I’m going to look to this hole and then to the target. What that does, it starts to train my eyes. If I can look down this line and this dot looks like it’s right in between me and the hole or my ball in the hole, then I know my head is in a good spot to be able to see. I get set up, have a look over one hole, right into the center of the hole. Really, really simple. If you want a little bit more feedback with this, then what you can do, and this is what Jordan Spe would do, is he sets up the ball here and he makes a little gate. So, he takes two T’s and he would put them right on the edge of the ball. I’m going to give myself just a little bit of room to start here. Maybe maybe half a centimeter on either side. So, it’s not a lot. Okay. But there’s a bit of room. The ball can go through it. Now, what I’m going to do is I’m going to test myself. So, I’ll set up in here, get the putter in the right spot. Again, I’m being very, very diligent about the setup because if that part is good, and that’s something we do control. A lot of people spend a lot of time within the game of golf on things they can’t control, like a putting stroke, like a golf swing. Some are going to be good, some not as good. We control our setup. So, I’m going to make sure I get set up properly. Again, putter behind the center of the ball, nice and balanced. I’m going to look to my target and I’m going to hit my putt, trying to roll it over the dots into the hole. And what I can see, I’m not using the gates for a major focus in my stroke. They’re just for feedback. What tends to happen when we use gates like these short putts, they can constrict us because we get to feel tight. We feel like we’re trying to guide or steer the ball between these and things get really hard. The gates are just there. We want to feel like all we’re trying to do is make the putt into this hole. I’ve got a little bit of room. I’ve got a little bit of margin for error out there. I don’t have to be perfect. And that’s something that a lot of people tend to do when they’re putting is they feel like they have to be perfect. And that causes them to get tight and tense and then they can’t execute. So again, I’m setting up in here, checking my setup, checking my posture. Again, making sure I’m aimed where I want to be. I’m going to go from the dot on the ground to the hole, back to the dot on the ground, and then let the stroke go. Really, really simple. This is something you could do before a round. It takes hardly any time to set up. It doesn’t take long to work on. You spend 5 minutes on this every time before you go play golf, you’d be amazed at how much better your short putts become. Now, what you’ll see is if I get sloppy with my setup here. So, what I’m going to do, I’m going to start intentionally. I’m going to leave the putter face open, okay? because this is something I see almost every day where putter faces aren’t aimed where we think they’re aimed. So, I’m going to set up with it a little bit open, go to hit my putt, and then I’m going to try and manage it. So, I started open and then I closed it rapidly. So, these are some things that we might not do intentionally. We might not even know that we’re doing it that we can’t tell unless we give oursel a bit of a feedback station. So, that one I hit the left tee. I know that I pulled the putt even though my putter face was open to start. Again, it’s something we see all the time. The more putts you can hit with a little bit of feedback, you’d be amazed at how much easier things get. So, that’s what the station looks like with everything engaged. If you don’t have an alignment stick, you can just use a golf club. Anything that’s going to be a straight line, I can take a longer iron here, set it down, and it can provide the exact same purpose. Really simple. Then the last bit of this drill that I really like is I’m going to take everything away. Okay. So, I’m going to set up and I’ve still got the dot. Okay. And I can even see the two T marks where the T’s were. If you want, it’s not a bad idea to leave the T’s in the ground and hit a couple putts with that. What you want to make sure if you’re doing anything that has a gate, the ball has to start in the exact same spot because the gate is obviously going to be set up for a specific line. If the start line or the starting spot moves, your gate won’t be in the right spot. So, you could hit a couple balls first with the gate. Again, you’re not trying to hit the ball through the gate. You’re trying to make the putt. That’s it. Okay, there’s some good feedback. I pushed it a little bit. We hit the right tee. Now, I know what happened. Now, in an instance like that where I pushed it, try not to adjust. That’s the first time I’ve hit the tea. What I see a lot of people do is they get reactive with their practice after one miss. If you see a trend, that’s okay then to go in and see if you need to fix something. But after one miss, I wouldn’t get too worried about it. So, I’m gonna try and get set up in here again. Right to the center of the hole. Back to our dot. Everything looks good. Good. There we go. So, now I might hit a couple putts with the T’s here cuz then I can tell I don’t have the alignment stick to tell me if my face is perfectly square. So, now I have to do a little bit more work on my own. When I set up my putter face, here’s what I want to do is I want to set the putter face up first using my eyes to line it and then I’ll take my stance. One more look to the hole back and through. Oh, clip the left gate there. Okay, so really good feedback. Again, this is exactly what we’re looking for in a practice station. So, if you find that you struggle when you take the stick away, you might need to go back to it and spend a little bit more time practicing. What I would even do as we go through this, I’d spend a little bit more time with a full routine where you stand behind it and let yourself go. So, here’s what this would look like with a full routine. I use a line on my golf ball. So, if I was going to play, what I would then do is I’d take my line and I’d line it up right at the hole. Now, I stand behind it. Everything looks good. Now, I’ll walk in like I’m going to go play golf. Set up. Make my practice stroke. Line everything up. Look to the hole. Back to the ball. Right in. The more reps you can make where you have feedback, then pull your station away. See if you can do it on your own. Add a little bit of pressure like a full routine. You’ll be amazed at how much better your putting can get. You can use this drill to varying degrees. If you can’t get it through the gates at the start, make them a little bit wider. We’re not looking to punish ourselves. You want to give yourself something that you can accomplish 60 to 70% of the time. And then as you get better, you want to see if you can get the gates closer and closer and closer to the ball where there’s almost no room for error. Try this out. See if this helps your short putting. See if this gives you a little bit more confidence when you get close. What it can do is then allow you to maybe not feel good over the putt, but you your ability takes over if you’ve done it enough. Practice getting set up square, starting the ball on the perfect line, letting it go where the ball can fall into the hole. You’d be amazed at how many putts go in even if you don’t feel good. Thanks for watching. Let me know what you think of this drill. It worked for Jordan Spe. See if it can work for you. Again, do me a favor. If you enjoy this stuff, like the videos, subscribe to my channel. There’s plenty more content coming along the line. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.
