Golf Putting for Kids

Jay Golden: Hi! I am PGA member, Jay Golden and the purpose of this series is to teach parents how to get their children to enjoy golf, to play their whole life and to love it. Right now, I am going to talk about putting in this segment. I am going to start out with something that I call the pendulum stroke.

This is true with every shot in golf. A great way to learn how to do it with your natural movements is just by swinging it back and forth without stopping. This might sound too simple, but you see pros do it on the tour before they putt. You could do it smaller for shorter putting, bigger for longer putting. Pendulum putting, back and forth, back and forth. The more you do this, the more natural it would become and the better putter you will become.

Parents, a great way to get your children to improve the direction in their putting is to have them putt to a couch leg, chair leg, bench leg. That will give them an idea where they want to hit the ball, how to aim and the direction that, that ball is going to travel. Additionally, when they are on the golf course on a straight putt, if they visualize that leg in the middle of the hole or on breaking putts, visualize that leg to the left or to the right of the hole and then putt to the leg, they are going to significantly improve their putting.

Mummy, Daddy, Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle, Aunt, you want a little one to get the feeling of getting a ball in a hole from different angles? Put balls around the hole, five to ten of them, and without taking too much time, putt one in. The next, the next, the next. Believe me from 6 inches away, for a young child, it is not too easy. In fact, it is not easy at all. Make ten putts in a row, put them around the hole and they are going to improve their putting and get a feel for making putts.

A great way for a child to learn distance is what I call, putt to the baby. We have a doll on the putting green and in general, if it really was a baby, you don't want to hit that ball so hard that you are going to hurt the baby. You don't want to hit it so short, that the baby has to crawl and get the ball. So if you can hit the ball nicely to the baby, roll the ball to the baby, a child will improve their distance for long putting. Well, that wraps up our tips on putting. The next segment, golf rules.