Two Ways You Can Practice Putting On Your Porch

We have a solution for those evenings you can’t get to the course after work, or those busy weekends that leave you without the chance to tee it up. You can practice on your porch.

First up: putting. Jason Guss, a Golf Digest Best Young Teacher who teaches out of his golf academy in Bath Township, MI, says you can practice your putting stroke on your porch. Grab your putter, and line up with your putterhead along the perfectly straight line that the 2x4’s of your porch make.

“If your putting path is straight back, straight through you can follow the lines of the wood exactly," says Guss. "The toe will move to the inside back and through if you’re an arc person.”

It’s a simple drill that you can do without a ball, if you want. Repeating a correct stroke in practice will help you build some muscle memory that’ll allow you to put better strokes on the ball when you’re back on the course.

Guss says you can also practice your full-shot alignment. Get on your porch and choose a plank. Take a stance and put a ball or some other marker down. Walk in a straight line out from that spot and drop a head cover 10 or 20 yards out into your lawn. Go back to your starting point on that board and take your stance again, with the ball and your feet lined up on the boards you had started at.

Believe it or not, you’re set up straight at your target: the headcover.

“For a lot of people, the target is going to appear to be to the right, but that’s OK,” says Guss. “That’s what it’s supposed to feel like.”

Practice aiming square at the target, and you might realize you’ve been aiming a bit left. Get comfortable with a squared up setup that’s aligned correctly, and you’ll know what it’s supposed to feel like when you line yourself up at the course.