Lag putting: pace, grain and fast summer greens

Three-putts are a pace problem, not a stroke problem. On fast, sloping greens the golfer who leaves every long putt inside a metre will beat the one with the prettier action who runs it two and a half metres past.

From distance, line matters less than you think

From twelve metres the hole is effectively a metre wide as far as your second putt is concerned. Miss the line by thirty centimetres and you have a tap-in. Miss the pace by two metres and the line was irrelevant.

Aim at a corridor, not at the cup

Push a tee a metre behind the hole and try to leave every long putt between the hole and the tee. That corridor is achievable, and it ends the habit of dying every putt short, which removes any chance of one dropping.

The ladder, ten minutes before you hit off

Drop balls at six, nine and twelve metres from the same hole, putt them in order, then reverse. You are not trying to hole anything. You are calibrating how far back the putter goes for a given distance, the only variable that matters from long range.

Do it on the practice green of the course you are about to play. Greens run faster at two in the afternoon than they did at seven, and in summer that difference is large.

Read the slope with your feet

Walk from ball to hole along the line. Your feet register uphill and downhill long before your eyes do, and that changes pace far more than any borrow you can see. On a green with real fall, the same ten-metre putt wants double the stroke one way and half of it coming back.

Look at the hole, not the ball

Try five putts from twelve metres while looking at the hole. Almost everybody finishes closer. The long putt is a distance-judging task, and the brain judges better when it can see the target, the same way it does when you roll a ball underarm.

Grain, and why it matters here

On couch and kikuyu greens the grass lies in a direction, and a putt running with the grain is materially quicker than the same putt against it. Look at the sheen: shiny means down grain and fast, dull means into the grain and slow. On bent grass greens the effect is much smaller.

Three things for your next round

• Count your three-putts rather than your total putts.
• Try to finish every putt over eight metres past the hole rather than short.
• Ten minutes on the practice green before every round, all of it from long range.

Nobody holes long putts on purpose. Leaving them close on purpose is a skill, and it is the cheapest three shots a round most golfers will find.