THE PLAYERS COACH

Evaluate, gather feedback from your test results
Every player that I have tested shows a strength and weakness in certain distances. If you scored a higher percentage compared to PGA Tour average on short putts than you did on long putts, I would say your long putts is your area of weakness, your short putts are your strength. 

Make a plan based on your results
I will use the baseline test shown below (click image to see larger image) for my example of how to make a plan for improvement based on your results.

Putting Baseline TestThe 60/40 improvement plan
I have to admit, I copied this formula during my time coaching at Ohio State University. On Sunday night we would have our players make a 60/40 plan for each day of the weak. They would break each practice down per day and 60(weakness)/ 40 (strength). This allows you to focus on improving the weakness while maintaining your strengths. Too many times, golfers are very 1 sided with their practice. You need to have balanced practices, in this case we are balancing our practice time on the putting green by working on both our strengths and weaknesses.

We will pretend you are doing this test on your own (test shown below has my notes while observing the student putt). I want you to pick out which distance seemed to be the weakness. In the example below, 4 foot putts scored lowest in relation to PGA Tour average. You will make this distance 60% of your putting practice until we retest and find a different result. 

If you notice, I said 60% of your next putting practice not your full practice. For example, say you only have 20 minutes to practice your putting your next time at the course, 12 minutes of that time will be spent hitting short putts 3-5 feet. Yes 4 feet was your weakness, but I would have you work on “short range” putts so you are not hitting the same exact putt every time. When practicing putting, I recommend players use only 1 ball and go through your routine each putt. You will get a lot more out of it rather than just hitting multiple balls from the same spot – you don’t get re-do’s on the course!

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