This simple exercise will help improve your tempo

If you’re looking for a way to improve your performance on the green, focusing on your putting is a good place to start to save strokes.

Developing a reliable and repeatable stroke can pay dividends, and Heather Angell, director of instruction at Heritage Palms Golf & Country Club in Fort Myers, Fla., has a simple test tool to help you find a stroke that matches your game’s needs.

“There are a lot of cool gadgets out there, but unfortunately, you can’t take them with you when you’re playing on the course,” he said. “I want my students to be able to shoot without the help of a gadget, so I let them focus on a few test points in the course.”

The placement of your feet can be a helpful guide, Angell says, and you can use them to go home with a comfortable stroke length.

“Focus on your feet when you pitch,” she said. “If you have your putter head in the middle of your center and your ball in front of the clubhead, the bottom of your swing arc will be where the clubhead is talking. This allows the club to make contact with the ball as the clubhead leaves the ground and helps add -a little loft on the face of the putter, which will start the end of the ball. With your putter head placed in your center, now your feet can act as reference points for your stroke.

“Putting the putter back on your back foot (right foot for right-handed golfers), then moving to the front foot creates a more repeatable stroke that will help with consistency and distance control,” he continued. “You can also figure out how far this long shot will go on the green.”

At this point, you can start practicing the distance the ball travels when you switch the putter back to one foot and forward to the other. Think of that movement as a stock tempo and distance.

“Once you get that distance, put it in your mind,” Angell said.

The next step is to practice from shorter and longer distances than your stock distance to see how much (or less) you need to swing the putterhead in relation to your feet.

“Obviously, a stroke length that’s just past your back foot and just past your front foot is going to be more forward because of the stroke length,” Angell said. “This helps you keep your stroke tempo smooth and allows you to adjust the stroke length for different lengths.”

The most important part of this practice is to establish a backswing and passing motion that comes naturally to you, and then adjust the length of that stroke to match the length of the putt towards you. So the next time you have a few minutes to spend on green practice, try this tempo practice, and enjoy your new and improved range controller.

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Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of women’s varsity golfers, Jessica knows how to beat everyone on the golf course. He can keep himself busy in the office, too, where he is primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s first Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. His first interview series, “A Round With,” released in November 2015, and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.