Short putts are the fastest way to lower your score. Not the driver, not a new expensive club. The three-foot putt you leave short, or push past the hole. Fix that, and the whole round feels easier.
Here is the good news. The best players in the world make about 96% of their putts from three feet. You will not reach that this month, but you can get much closer than you think. These three drills are how I teach it.
Why do so many golfers miss short putts when they really shouldn’t?
Because the short putt looks easy, so we stop respecting it. Then we get tense, we peek at the hole too early, and the face of the putter turns a tiny bit. That tiny bit is everything.
Look at the numbers. A 15-handicap golfer makes only around 47% of putts from three to five feet. A scratch golfer makes nearly 97% from the same spot. That is the biggest gap between good and average players anywhere on the course. Not driving. Not iron play. The short putt.
And it is not luck. The angle of your putter face at impact decides more than 80% of where the ball starts. On a ten-foot putt, one single degree open or closed is enough to miss. We do not need more power or more talent. We need a steady face and a quiet head. Drills give you both.
Drill 1: The gate drill — two tees that fix your path
Stick two tees in the green, just a little wider than your putter head, a few inches in front of your ball on your target line. Now putt through the “gate” without touching either tee. That is the whole drill.
Simple, but it works on the exact thing that matters. If your face is open or your stroke wanders, you clip a tee and you know instantly. Clean putts roll straight through. Tommy Fleetwood uses this same gate in his warm-up before rounds, because it keeps his face square when the pressure is high. If it keeps a tour player honest, it will do wonders for you.
Do ten in a row through the gate before you move on. When it starts to feel boring and easy, good. That is the feeling we want.
Drill 2: Around the world — confidence from every angle
Put six balls in a circle around the hole, all about three feet away. Your job is to sink all six, one after the other. Miss one, and you start the circle again.
I love this drill because every ball comes from a slightly different slope and a different look. Real putts on the course are never all the same. This teaches your eyes and hands to adjust quickly. PGA.com lists it as a go-to drill for exactly this reason: it builds confidence you can carry under pressure. When six from three feet feels comfortable, step back to four feet and do it again.
Drill 3: The Mickelson 100-in-a-row challenge
Phil Mickelson does something a little crazy, and it is brilliant. He sets ten tees in a circle three feet from the hole and holes 100 putts in a row. If he misses even one, he goes back to zero. He does this three or four times a week during tournament weeks.
His secret is tempo. Jackie Burke Jr. taught him a stroke that is 25% back and 75% through. The short backstroke stops the face drifting open on the way back, which is where most misses are born. Try it. Small takeaway, confident forward roll.
One hundred is a lot for a beginner, so start with a version many college players use, the “3-6-9”: ten from three feet, then six feet, then nine feet, with a target to hit before you leave the green. One golfer told me the strict pass mark was the whole point. It made short putts feel automatic once he got to the course, because he had already proved it to himself hundreds of times.
What actually causes most short putts to miss
It is rarely the read, and rarely bad luck. It is the head moving and the eyes peeking. A writer who spent two years testing every putting tip found the single biggest fix was almost silly in its simplicity: keep the head still and the eyes on the spot where the ball was, until the ball has already gone. The little peek towards the hole was quietly costing putts for years without being noticed.
So when you practise these drills, add one rule. Do not look up until you hear the ball drop. Let your ears tell you it went in. This one habit alone will save you strokes.
Getting your grip, stance and posture right helps here too, because a stable base makes a quiet head much easier. If that part feels shaky, start with the grip, stance and posture basics and come back to putting after.
How long do you really need to practise short putts each session?
Less time than you expect, but spent in the right place. Coaches suggest putting 60 to 70% of your putting time inside ten feet, because those are the putts that actually save your score. Around 40 to 65% of all your shots happen within 50 yards of the hole. That is where the game is won.
Fifteen focused minutes on a putting green beats an hour of hitting long putts you will rarely face. In the cold months you do not even need the course: the gate drill works fine on a flat carpet at home, and it slots nicely into a set of winter practice drills to keep your stroke sharp until spring. And a small bonus for my Dutch beginners: fewer three-putts means lower scores on your GVB qualifying round, which is often the one thing standing between you and the course.
When these short putts start to feel safe, the next place to save shots is just off the green. A clean little chip that stops the ball close makes the whole hole simpler, so chipping without scooping is a lovely next step.
You can do all three drills with nothing but a putter and a few tees. Both greens where I teach, at Chi Chi Golf in Utrecht and Golfschool Hoenderdaal in Driebergen, have practice putting greens perfect for this. Bring your putter, and I will show you how to make the short ones feel routine. If you would like to work on it together, my lesson options are a warm place to start.
Come and putt with me. The short game is where golf gets fun fast.