Putting exercises with comparative rating

A lot of putting exercises you find comes with an ambiguous difficulty rating or non at all. This can make it problematic when planning practice effectively for your skill level and conditions where you practice. For instance, if your local course doesn’t have the same pure roll as you see on the TV and your putting comes in at mediocre at best, you most likely won’t get much out of a putting exercise that is too difficult. Conversely, if the flat stick is your weapon and the greens are buttery smooth, exercises may easily end up as too elementary.

The following exercises can be found and generated in tGAT. Their rating is based on 2004-2012 PGA Tour averages. The exercises shown follow the completion drill format: all putts in the sequence must be made in-a-row and after a missed putt you restart at the first distance. Distances are set in feet and are advised to be evenly spread around a hole with tees as markers. There are 3 different ratings for each exercise: average number of attempts, median number of attempts and total expected putts for completion. One way to interpret the different ratings is that “average attempts” is the actual difficulty, “median attempts” is a fit target as you complete the exercise in the best half of attempts for a PGA average and “total putts” give an indication for the time it will take to complete the exercise.

To clarify, the recommended procedure for completing a sequence, such as the Easy sequence, would be as follows: start with a 3 footer, then traverse 45 degrees CCW, hit a 5 footer, traverse 45° CCW, hit a 4 footer, 45° CCW, 5 ft, etcetera until you’ve completed all eight putts around the hole.

Give one of these exercises a try and see if you can complete the drill!

More of this style of putting exercises can be found in tGAT where you also can create new exercises with rating.