Golf with a Family of Goats + Beat the Tour Pro 68% Avg. Make Rate with This Putting Drill

TIPS & DRILLS
By Completing This Drill, You’ll Be Better Than Most PGA Tour Putters
Max Kettler is confident he can get you there

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To Recap…

This is a fantastic drill to improve putting from 4-8 feet from Altus Performance Golf Instructor, Max Kettler. You may never ultimately achieve “2% better than the PGA Tour” status, but the drill is still rock solid. We’ve always found putting drills to be incredibly challenging due to their repetitive nature, but Max’s drill offers variety and plenty of challenge:

-STEP 1: With 5 golf balls in hand, first count out a distance of 8 feet and drop a ball.
-STEP 2: Next, move 1 foot in and to the right at each subsequent distance of 7 feet / 6 feet / 5 feet / 4 feet. This will create a crescent shape around one side of the hole.
-STEP 3: Follow the same pattern on all 4 sides of the hole, dropping 20 balls in total.
-STEP 4: Putt all 20 balls, aiming for a make percentage of 70% (or 14+ putts made). If you can accomplish this, you’re beating the PGA Tour average 68% make rate for putts of 4-8 feet.

PRO TIP: Once you’ve performed the drill a few times, establish your make percentage baseline. Let’s say it’s 60% as an example. To prevent yourself from just going through the motions, add some pressure with stakes. If you don’t make at least 65% on your text round, you will need to start all over and try again until you achieve this new level. Then ratchet it up again to 70% when ready.

COURSES
Play Alongside Goats in the Blue Ridge Mountains
One of the more memorable experiences you’ll have visiting a new course

Ballyhack Golf Club
Roanoke, Virginia

In 2001, Lester George unveiled a masterpiece at Kinloch Golf Club outside of Richmond, VA (#66 on Golf Digest’s Top 100 in America list). Dual fairways (and even a triple-fairway on the 9th hole) give players numerous options as to how they can play the course. So in 2009 when he was given a more expansive property to experiment with in Roanoke, he took full advantage. Ballyhack Golf Club (the #5 course in VA) is “Kinloch on steroids,” with joined fairways, center bunkers and numerous double greens. Dependent upon the tee box and pin locations, you might think you’re playing a totally different course from one day to the next.

Ballyhack has been called the “Ballybunion of Southern Virginia,” and one of the most striking portions of the course sits around the 14th hole, where a family of African Boer goats reside. With a forced carry into the elevated 14th green, the goats actually laugh at you as you attempt to hit the smallest green on the course (kidding of course, but that would be epic). Traditionalists might say Lester George went a little too far in trying to make the course memorable, but in a world where remark-ability and Instagram-worthy photos matter, George succeeded in spades. With Tour-quality conditions and hospitality, “this course could host a tour event tomorrow without having to change a single thing,” as one reviewer wrote.

Rates: Part of the Dormie Network collection of courses, so it’s private, but you can often find stay-and-play packages via auction sites and travel planners

Check out this video from @dormienetwork

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STATISTICS
Stat of the Day: Average Number of Holes Played Per 3-Putt (by Handicap)
presented by…

The Stat: A Scratch golfer will only 3-putt once per 39.2 holes played, on average (i.e. 0.46x per round), while the ~average 15 Handicap golfer will 3-putt once for every 10.4 holes played (i.e. 1.73x per round).

The Takeaway: The biggest difference between Scratch golfers and 15+ Handicaps is typically frequency of play/practice, not the ability to hit the ball 300+ yards. Unlike long drive competitions where physical limitations come into play, there’s no reason we can’t all become top 50% putters with enough practice. And 3-putts don’t just rear their ugly heads on longer distances from the hole. Be sure to practice both lag putting and shorter, accuracy-focused putts.

TODAY’S TRIVIA
Answer to Win a Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor 
(1 winner chosen on 8/30/24 across all August trivia entries, 1,000 respondents minimum)

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