The Best Putting Drills for Breaking 90

Why Putting Is Your Fastest Route to Breaking 90

Here is a truth most mid-handicappers ignore: you are not losing strokes off the tee. You are losing them on the green. The average golfer shooting in the low 90s takes somewhere between 34 and 38 putts per round. Tour players average under 29. That gap — five to nine strokes — is sitting right there on the putting surface, waiting to be collected.

The good news is that putting improvement does not require athleticism, flexibility, or a new driver. It requires focused repetition with the right drills. Below are four drills pulled from our coaching database that specifically target the problems keeping you above 90.

1. The Gate Putting Drill

This is the single best drill for face alignment at impact, and face alignment is responsible for roughly 80% of your starting line on putts inside 10 feet.

How to set it up

Place two tees in the ground (or on your carpet) creating a "gate" slightly wider than your putter head, about 2 inches in front of the ball. Your goal is simple: putt the ball cleanly through the gate without clipping either tee.

Why it works

Most golfers who miss short putts are not misreading the break. They are delivering the face open or closed by 2-3 degrees at impact. That is invisible to the naked eye but enough to miss a 6-footer by several inches. The gate gives you instant binary feedback — you either made it through or you did not.

How to practice it

Start with 10 putts from 4 feet on a straight line. Once you can roll 8 out of 10 cleanly through the gate, narrow the tees by a quarter inch. When you can consistently thread the tighter gate, take the tees away and notice how much more confident your stroke feels.

2. The Putting Distance Control Drill

Three-putts kill scores. And three-putts almost always come from poor lag, not poor reads. This drill trains your internal speedometer.

How to set it up

Place 4 tees at 15, 30, 45, and 60 feet from your starting position. You are going to hit to each distance in sequence, focusing on controlling lag — not on holing out.

Why it works

Most amateurs never practice putts longer than 15 feet, which means their brain has no reliable reference for how hard to hit a 40-footer. This drill builds a distance ladder in your muscle memory. After a few sessions, your body starts to calibrate automatically.

How to practice it

Hit three balls to each tee, working from shortest to longest. Your target is getting every ball within a 3-foot circle of the tee. Once you finish the sequence, reverse it — 60 feet back down to 15. The descending sequence is harder than you expect and forces real touch.

3. The Coin Putting Progression Drill

This drill sharpens your precision and gives you a smaller target than the hole, which makes the actual cup feel enormous on the course.

How to set it up

Set a coin on your carpet or practice green. Practice rolling the ball directly over it from varying distances. Start at 3 feet and gradually extend out to 10 feet.

Why it works

A coin is roughly one-eighth the width of a golf hole. When you train your eyes and stroke to hit something that small, a 4.25-inch cup starts to look like a bucket. This is a well-known psychological trick, but it also genuinely improves your aim because it demands more focus per stroke than putting at a hole.

How to practice it

Do sets of 10 from each distance. Move back one foot only after you hit the coin (or come within a ball-width) on at least 6 out of 10 attempts. Keep a simple tally so you can track your progression over days and weeks.

4. The Carpet Putting Track Drill

Stroke path matters, especially if you have a tendency to cut across the ball or push putts to the right.

How to set it up

Lay two alignment sticks (or two clubs) parallel on your carpet, about one ball-width apart. Practice stroking the putter between them without touching either stick.

Why it works

This is a rails drill. It constrains your stroke to a straight-back, straight-through path and gives you immediate tactile feedback if you deviate. After 50 strokes between the rails, your hands start to groove the correct path without conscious effort.

How to practice it

Spend 5 minutes stroking without a ball first — just back and through between the sticks. Then add a ball and hit 20 putts. If you are clanking the sticks frequently, widen the gap slightly and narrow it over time.

Building a Practice Routine From These Drills

You do not need to do all four in every session. Pick two, spend 15 minutes total, and rotate. A realistic weekly schedule might look like this:

• **Monday**: Gate Drill + Coin Progression (accuracy focus)
• **Wednesday**: Distance Control Drill (lag focus)
• **Friday**: Carpet Track + Gate Drill (stroke path + face alignment)

Fifteen minutes, three days a week. That is less time than you spend scrolling your phone on the couch, and it is enough to cut 3-5 putts per round within a month.

Take It Further With Golf Goose

These four drills are part of Golf Goose's free library of 248+ drills covering every part of the game — putting, chipping, full swing, course management, and more. Each drill includes setup instructions, difficulty ratings, and progression targets so you always know what to work on next.

If you are serious about breaking 90, stop buying new equipment and start putting with purpose. The strokes are there. You just have to go collect them.