Putting Drills and Games for Junior Golfers

Rolling putt after putt with no target and no way to measure success feels productive but rarely builds skill. Kids especially need a feedback loop: something that tells them clearly whether that putt worked, and a bit of competition, even if the only opponent is their own last attempt.

Each drill below targets a specific skill, either start line, distance control, or composure under pressure, and each one has a simple way to progress as your junior improves. For how much of total practice time putting deserves relative to short game and full swing, see our practice time allocation guide.

Mix these drills rather than running the same one every time. A session that only ever drills start line will not fix a player who leaves everything short or blows every putt past the hole, and a session that only ever drills speed will not fix a player who starts every putt off line. Rotate through a couple of different drills each week so all three skills, line, speed, and composure, keep improving together.

Push two tees into the green just wider than the putter head, a few inches in front of the ball, aimed at the target line. The goal is simple: roll the putt through the gate without touching either tee. A putt that clips a tee means the face was open, closed, or the path pushed the ball offline.

This is one of the best drills for building an honest, repeatable start line, because the gate gives instant, physical feedback rather than a guess about where the putt started.

How to progress: narrow the gate as accuracy improves, extend the putt length once short putts through the gate are reliable, and eventually add a second gate farther down the line to check that the ball is still tracking straight well past impact.

Place golf balls around a single hole at three, four, and five feet, like numbers on a clock face. Starting at the shortest distance, the player must make every ball around the clock before moving out to the next distance. A miss anywhere sends them back to the start of that distance, not back to the beginning entirely.

This builds confidence on the putts that matter most for scoring, the makeable ones inside five feet, and introduces a small, manageable dose of pressure since a miss costs real progress in the drill.

How to progress: add a step-back rule where two consecutive misses anywhere restart the whole clock, or extend the outer distance to six or seven feet for more advanced players.

Lay tees or clubs on the green at increasing distances, for example 10, 20, 30, and 40 feet from a starting point. Rather than aiming for a hole, the goal is landing each putt within a defined zone around its target distance, such as a three-foot circle. This trains speed and distance control directly, which is the skill that actually prevents three-putts, far more than precise aim on long putts does.

How to progress: shrink the target zones as control improves, add more distances to the ladder, or introduce uphill and downhill sections of the green so the player learns to adjust speed for slope, not just distance.

Place five or six balls in a circle around a single hole, all at the same distance, for example six feet, and putt each one in turn. Because every putt breaks differently depending on where it sits relative to the hole, this drill builds feel for reading uphill, downhill, and sidehill putts around one target without needing to walk to a new hole for each rep.

How to progress: increase the circle’s radius as makes become routine, or require two full trips around the circle without a miss before the drill counts as complete.

This drill is also a natural place to introduce simple green reading. Before each putt, have the player call out which way they think it will break before they hit it, then compare the call to what actually happens. Over time this builds the habit of reading a putt with intent instead of just reacting to whatever the ball does.

Mechanics-focused drills build the stroke. Competitive games build the nerve to use it when it counts. A few that work well for junior golfers:

• Make 10 in a row. Pick a putt length the player makes most of the time, then count consecutive makes. A miss resets the streak to zero. Chasing a personal best streak simulates the weight of a single putt mattering.
• Putting horse. Borrowed from basketball’s HORSE: one player calls a putt (distance, break, or both), and anyone who misses it collects a letter. First to spell a full word loses. This works well with siblings or practice partners.
• One putt to win. Set up a single putt as a scenario, such as a putt to win a match, and let the player feel the buildup of one shot mattering. Doing this occasionally in practice makes the real version far less unfamiliar.

A well-rounded 25 to 30 minute putting session might start with a short warm-up of easy makeable putts to build rhythm, move into one distance-control drill like the ladder, add one accuracy or pressure drill like the gate or the clock, and finish with a competitive game to end on a bit of fun rather than a grind.

Putting is only one piece of the short game. For how it fits alongside chipping, pitching, and bunker play, see our short game development plan. And if a coach can help fix a specific mechanical issue before these drills go into heavy repetition, browse the coach directory for someone who works with junior players.