Leave it close: lag putting lessons from Weir’s Glen Abbey playoff to your spring greens

At the 2004 Canadian Open at Glen Abbey, Mike Weir had a 10-footer on the 72nd hole to win his national championship. He missed it. In the sudden-death playoff against Vijay Singh he then missed a 25-foot eagle putt on the 18th and a 5-foot putt on the 17th, and lost on the third extra hole. Even the best putter in the country cannot hole everything. What every golfer can do is leave the long ones close enough that the next putt is simple.

That is lag putting, and for most club golfers in Canada it is the fastest way to lower scores. Three-putts rarely come from an ugly stroke. They come from a first putt that finishes eight feet short or six feet past, followed by a second putt that feels much harder than it should.

Why distance beats direction from 40 feet

Think about what a long putt actually has to achieve. From 40 feet, if your ball stops anywhere within about two feet of the cup, the next putt is a tap-in. In practical terms the hole has become a circle four feet across. A line that is off by a foot barely matters; a pace that is off by six feet ruins the hole.

Most golfers divide their attention the wrong way. They study the break of a long putt for a minute, then hit it with whatever speed shows up. Flip that. Give the read a few seconds and spend your focus on how far the ball has to roll.

Make “past the hole” your target

Push a tee into the green about three feet beyond the cup. Now your target is the strip of grass between the hole and that tee. Every long putt that finishes inside that strip is a success.

This does two useful things. It gives you a goal you can actually hit, so practice builds confidence instead of frustration. And it cures the most common habit in amateur golf: the putt that dies short. A ball that never reaches the hole had no chance of dropping. A ball that rolls a foot past held its line through the slow final few feet, where slope has the most effect, and gave itself every chance.

A ten-minute routine before your tee time

Pick one hole on the practice green. Drop balls at 20, 30 and 40 feet. Putt them in order, from the shortest to the longest, then go back the other way.

• Keep the rhythm constant. Only the length of the backstroke changes. A putter that swings like a pendulum repeats; a putter driven by a hit with the hands falls apart on a nervous first tee.
• Do not try to hole them. You are matching a length of stroke to a distance, on today’s surface.
• Use the course you are about to play. The speed of that practice green this morning is the only speed your hands need to learn.

If the routine makes you feel rushed, arrive earlier rather than skipping it. On a busy municipal tee sheet, the starter will not wait for your last ball.

Feel the hill before you see it

On a long putt, uphill and downhill matter far more than left and right. A 30-footer up a tier can need twice the stroke of the same putt coming back down. Your eyes are poor at judging that; your feet are very good at it.

While others in your group are putting, walk along the line from your ball toward the hole and notice whether you are climbing or descending. It takes no extra time, and it will tell you more about pace than crouching behind the ball. Our full method for reading greens covers the break side of the question.

Try putting while looking at the hole

On the practice green, hit five putts from 40 feet with your eyes on the cup rather than on the ball. Most golfers finish closer than usual.

The explanation is simple. Judging distance is a visual task, and the brain does it better when it can see the target, which is why nobody throws a ball to a friend while looking at their own hand. You do not have to putt that way on the course. The experiment shows how much your hands have been steering the stroke instead of simply sending the ball a distance.

How a Canadian season changes the pace

Canadian greens do not stay the same speed from opening day to closing day, and the difference shows up first on long putts.

• Spring. Greens that have just come out from under winter snow are usually softer, slower and more receptive. A stroke calibrated on those surfaces will send the ball well past the hole on a firm August green. In Calgary, where the April normal includes over 20 cm of snowfall, early rounds can look very different from summer ones.
• Morning versus afternoon. Wet, dewy surfaces early in the day roll slower than the same greens once they dry. Poa annua, common on many older greens, keeps growing during the day, so a late tee time can bring bumpier roll and needs a slightly more assertive stroke.
• After aeration. Punched greens are slower and bouncier for a while, and under the Rules aeration holes are not damage you may repair.
• Dry late summer. A dry spell in August can make greens far faster than anything you putted in May.

Skip the practice green and your first three long putts of the day are guesses. Guesses cost strokes. The information is free.

Leave the flagstick in if it helps you commit

Under Rule 13.2a, you may putt with the flagstick left in the hole, and there is no penalty if your ball hits it. On a long putt across a big green, the flagstick gives you a clearer target for distance, and you do not need to wait for someone to tend it. Decide before you make the stroke; you cannot change your mind while the ball is rolling.

Treat the second putt as a real shot

The typical three-putt is a mediocre lag followed by a missed four-footer, and the four-footer is often missed because the golfer walks up irritated and hits it quickly.

Give that putt the same routine as the first: mark, clean, read, commit. Golf Canada’s pace policy for its championships allows 40 seconds for a stroke, with an extra 10 seconds for the first player to play on or around the green, and the clock starts only after players have had reasonable time to mark, lift, clean and replace their ball and repair damage. In other words, a proper routine on a short putt fits comfortably within the time that national championship players are allowed. If nerves make you rush, a set routine is the cure.

Rule out a face-angle problem

Speed is the main issue for most golfers, but check one exception. If your long putts finish at about the right distance but always miss on the same side, the problem is the start line, not the pace. The putter face is slightly open or closed at impact, which you cannot see but which is huge over 40 feet.

Test it in two minutes. Push two tees into the green a foot in front of the ball, just wider than a ball apart, and putt through that gate from ten feet. If you keep clipping a tee, the face is not square at impact, and speed drills alone will not solve it. That deserves a lesson, and our guide to getting value from lessons explains how to use one well.

Where to work on lag putting in Canada

In season, use the practice green at your own course, which almost every facility includes with the green fee. At the Markham Golf Dome, north of Toronto, the outdoor short-game and putting areas are available to golfers who buy a bucket of balls that same day.

In winter, a few domes keep a putting surface under cover. The National Golf Academy’s Golf Dome on 50th Avenue SE in Calgary, a 50,000-square-foot air-inflated structure that was new in 2022, is open year round and includes a putting green alongside its 32-stall range. Remember that no indoor surface will match the speed of your home course in May, so use winter putting to groove rhythm and start line, and relearn distance on real grass in spring.

A home putting mat works the same way: useful for short putts and the start line, useless for distance, because a mat rolls at one speed and golf courses do not.

If you cannot tell whether your problem is pace or the stroke, a PGA of Canada professional, found through the association’s Find a Pro directory, can usually tell you quickly, and a putter fitting that measures face angle removes the guesswork. Make sure the putter itself suits your stroke before you blame your hands.

Panxis Golf has no commercial relationship with any retailer, coach or facility mentioned here.

Your next round

• Count three-putts, not total putts. Log them in the free Golf Canada app so you can track them over the season.
• On any putt over 25 feet, aim to finish past the hole, never short.
• Spend ten minutes on long putts before you tee off.
• Walk the line while others putt and let your feet judge the slope.
• Give the four-footer the full routine.

No one holes long putts by design. Leaving them close by design is a skill anyone can learn, and it saves more strokes than any new putter.