The metre-and-a-half putt in a Saturday medal: a four-beat routine and drills with real stakes

Every Saturday medal in Australia has a moment like this. You have scrambled for a par on the 16th, the chip finished a metre and a half short, your marker is holding the card, and suddenly a putt you would rake away in a social four-ball feels like the whole round. Physically it is the easiest stroke in golf. Mentally it is the one where you know, before you take the putter back, exactly what a miss will cost.

Holing these is not about nerve. It is about having a short, repeatable sequence that you run on every green, and about practising the putt with something at stake so that the Saturday version does not feel new.

How often golfers really hole them

Shot Scope, which collects data from amateurs’ tracked rounds, has published make rates by handicap for putts of up to about 1.8 metres:

• Scratch: 92.8 per cent
• 5 handicap: 90.2 per cent
• 10 handicap: 89.3 per cent
• 15 handicap: 84.4 per cent
• 20 handicap: 84 per cent
• 25 handicap: 82.5 per cent

For comparison, Shot Scope quotes the PGA Tour make rate from inside about 1.5 metres for the season before its study at 96.7 per cent. Even the best players miss a few.

Read those numbers the right way round. The gap between a scratch golfer and a 25 marker is about ten percentage points, which does not sound like much, until you count how many putts of this length a round contains: second putts after a lag, the tidy-up after a chip, the par save after a bunker shot. Ten points across that many attempts is several shots on a card, and unlike driving distance it is something every golfer can improve without changing their body.

The gimme habit and what it costs in competition

Social golf in Australia runs on picked-up putts. Inside a putter length, most groups wave it away to keep the round moving, and that is perfectly reasonable in a friendly game.

The Rules treat the two formats very differently, though. In match play, Rule 3.2b lets an opponent concede your next stroke, verbally or by a clear gesture, and the ball can then be picked up. In stroke play there is no such thing. Rule 3.3c says a player must hole out at every hole; if you fail to, you must correct the mistake before teeing off on the next hole, or before returning your card on the last, or you are disqualified.

The practical problem is not the rule. It is that a golfer who has not had to hole a one-metre putt for months walks into a Stableford competition and meets a dozen of them. The fix costs nothing: for one social round a month, hole out everything. The Golf Australia app offers social scores for handicapping, so that round can count too; check the conditions for submitting one before you tee off.

Start reading before you reach your ball

Most of the useful information on a short putt is gathered on the walk up, not while crouched behind the ball.

As you approach the green, notice where the low side is and which way the surface drains. Watch other players’ putts that finish near the hole. By the time you mark and clean your ball, you should already have a view on the break. Behind the ball, a few seconds is enough to confirm it. A putt of a metre and a half rarely has more than one borrow, and the longer you stare, the more likely you are to invent a second.

A four-beat routine you never change

The point of a routine is not ritual for its own sake. It means the nervous version of you performs exactly the same actions, in the same order, as the relaxed version did on the practice green.

1. Decide the line and say it. “Left lip”, “inside right”, “centre”. An unnamed target produces a tentative stroke.
2. One rehearsal stroke beside the ball while looking at the hole, feeling the length rather than checking positions.
3. Putter first, feet second. Sole the putter behind the ball with the face aimed at your line, then build your stance around it. Doing it the other way round is a common source of pushed putts.
4. One look, then go. Eyes to the target, back to the ball, stroke. A second look invites doubt.

Use the same four beats on every putt inside about three metres, including the meaningless ones on the first hole of a social round. That is how the sequence becomes automatic.

Aim at a spot, not the cup

The hole is 108 millimetres wide, which is a generous target from a metre and a half and therefore a vague one. Instead, pick a tiny mark on your line about 30 centimetres in front of the ball: a discoloured blade, a healed pitch mark, a grain of sand.

Rolling the ball over something that close is a job your eyes can check while your head stays still. It also removes the urge to look up early to see whether the putt is going in.

The stroke: short back, longer through

The classic short-putt miss starts with a backswing that is too long. Your brain senses the ball will go too far and slows the putter down before impact. A decelerating putter twists, and even a degree or two of face rotation is enough to miss from this range.

Shorten the backswing until it feels almost too small, then let the follow-through be longer than the backswing. An accelerating putter keeps the face stable, and a ball struck with a little authority holds its line through the last few centimetres, where footprints and imperfections do the most damage.

On many short, flat or gently breaking putts you can take some of the break out by aiming inside the edge and striking firmly. A slightly overhit putt aimed at the centre can still catch the hole; the same pace aimed at the edge often lips out.

When firm is the wrong answer

Fast greens change the recipe. On firm bent greens such as those on the Melbourne Sandbelt, where Kingston Heath lists A1 bent on its greens, a downhill putt struck firmly can finish two metres past if it misses. From above the hole, play more break, soften the pace and aim to have the ball die just past the cup.

Speed also changes across the year. A green after a dry late-summer week and the same green after winter rain are different surfaces, and the renovation weeks after coring are different again. That is why the ten minutes on the practice green before you tee off matter more than any read you remember from last season.

Rules on the green you can use

• Repairs. Rule 13.1c(2) lets you repair damage on the putting green, including ball marks, shoe damage such as spike marks, and scrapes from equipment or the flagstick. You may not repair aeration holes, grooves from vertical mowing or natural wear of the hole, which matters in the weeks after a club’s greens renovation.
• Your stance. Rule 10.1c says you must not make a stroke from a stance with a foot deliberately on each side of, or touching, the line of play or its extension behind the ball.
• Help with aim. Under Rule 10.2b a caddie must not stand in the restricted area behind you once you begin taking your stance, and nobody may set an object down to help you aim.

A broader refresher on the rules club golfers get wrong is worth ten minutes before your first competition.

Drills that add consequence

Knocking in loose one-metre putts proves nothing, because the missing ingredient is pressure. These three put it back.

Two-tee gate. Push two tees into the green about 30 centimetres ahead of the ball, just wider than a ball apart, on your start line. From 1.2 metres, roll putts through without touching either tee. A clipped tee tells you the face was open or closed at impact. Two minutes at the start of every session is enough.

The ladder. Holing ten in a row from a metre and a half, starting again from zero after any miss. By the eighth or ninth putt you will feel your grip tighten, which is exactly the sensation you are learning to play through.

Around the clock. Place six balls in a circle one metre from the hole, then six more at a metre and a half. Hole every ball in the inner ring before you move out. Each putt has a different break, so you are practising reading and committing, not grooving a single stroke.

Twelve minutes of this twice a week will do more for your Stableford total than a large bucket of 7 irons.

Where to practise short putts in Australia

At the course, before you play. The practice green tells you today’s speed, which is the only speed that matters. At Moore Park Golf in Sydney, for example, the putting and chipping greens next to the golf shop are free for members and anyone playing the course, and cost A$11 if you only come to practise.

At home, on a mat. Mats are poor for long putts because they run at one speed, but at a metre or two they train start line and stroke length well. In September 2026 an Australian golf retailer listed the GolfCraft Hazard Deluxe Putting Mat at A$65.95, the PuttOut Slim Putting Mat at A$84.95 and the GolfCraft Fast Slow Putting Mat at A$94.95, plus a GolfCraft putting mirror at A$37.95 for checking eye position.

In your stats. The Golf Australia app lets you record putts alongside your score. A few rounds of honest numbers tell you whether short putts are genuinely the leak.

If the gate drill keeps showing the face open or closed, that is a mechanical fault rather than a nerve problem, and it is worth a lesson with a coach, or a check of your putter’s length and lie. Panxis Golf has no commercial relationship with any retailer or facility named here.

Your next-round scorecard

• Tally the putts you miss from inside 1.8 metres. Compare the rate with Shot Scope’s figure for your handicap.
• Run the same four beats on every putt inside three metres.
• Roll the ball over a spot 30 centimetres ahead, not at the hole.
• Shorter backswing, longer through, unless it is a quick downhiller.
• In stroke play, hole everything, and practise that way once a month in social golf too.

No new putter, no swing change, no talent required. Just ten minutes on the practice green and the discipline to do the same four things every time.

Make rates come from Shot Scope. Rules references are to the R&A Rules of Golf, applied in Australia by Golf Australia.

How this page was put together

Putting mat and mirror prices were recorded in September 2026 at Drummond Golf (Australia). Panxis has no commercial link with this retailer.