GOLF TIPS FROM A PRO

WITH RICHARD S. JOHNSON

Professional golfer, Richard S Johnson, was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1976 and has now resided in Jupiter, Florida since 2003.

Richard turned PRO in 1998 and has had 5 international wins. He joined the PGA Tour in 2003 after successfully negotiating qualifying school. Richard won his first PGA Tour title in 2008 at the US Bank Championships in Milwaukee, and also won the ANZ Championship in 2002 and Nordea Scandinavian Masters in 2010 on the European Tour.

Making putts from 3-6 feet is what makes a decent round to a good one or a terrible one into a decent one.

This is one of my favorite putting drills I do every week when I’m competing.

Start by finding a hole that has some pitch around it. Then you must figure out where the straight uphill putt is on the green. Step off 4 feet and put a Tee down. (If you think of it as a clock, you put the tee down at 6 o’clock).

Now put down 3 more tees 4 feet from the hole at 12, 3, and 9 o’clock (So the 6 o’clock put is going to be straight uphill, the 3 and 9 o’clock will have the most break. 12 o’clock should be pretty straight downhill).

After this is done we need to put 4 more tees out 3 feet from the hole in between the 4 tees that we already have down. You now have a total of 8 tees.

I like to change the distance to the hole on every other putt so I don’t get used to one speed.
The drill is to make 8 puts in a row (when you miss, you don’t start over from the tee that you started at. You just go to the next one and start that as your first putt).

When you accomplish 8 in a row, move every tee out 1 foot. So now you have putts from 4-5 feet. After that 5-6 feet and so on…

For me it’s a great way to get to know the greens that we are playing on that week as they all have different grasses, different speeds and breaks differently.

Lock in your 3-6 foot putts and lower your scores!