Teaching golf to children, and particularly to adults, requires a very subtle approach. If you use the usual method – that of giving advice – you limit the learning experience. This is so because the best way to improve at golf is naturally by playing and more specifically, by immersing yourself in games. Here’s a series of fun exercises to increase and perfect your natural putting skills.

Start your session without the help of a hole. Use four balls and execute your swing as naturally as possible, and above all, without looking where your ball stops. The goal of the game is to be aware of your natural swing, which is the one you can repeat with ease, constancy and without excessive tension. Give yourself a point every time your perception of the natural movement is in accordance with the constancy of the distance of your putt.

Take your position over your ball and, rather than looking at it, look at the hole or close your eyes as you take your swing. Give yourself a point every time you achieve the distance desired.

Place your balls in the centre of the practice putting green and give yourself a point for every putt that ends up on the edge of the green. Now repeat the exercise aiming for the four cardinal points of the green for two points.

Instead of using a hole, place a coin on the ground and try to putt past it by at least 20 centimetres. If you succeed with your first ball at a distance of one metre, move so that you eventually make a circuit around the hole.

Place two tees at the ends of your putter and two others a few centimetres in front of your ball in line with the track (or line, or course) of your putt. The goal of the game is to avoid the tees as the swing passes across the ball (testifying to the appropriate track of the club) and to make the ball roll between the second tees (confirming that the face of the club is square at the moment of impact).

Place your ball on two guides on the ground, and place a third guide above your putt line. Take your position directly above the guides. During your movement, keep your eyes above the guide and your ball on the rails.

By the same author: Golf: attention and concentration (Click the image below)