IF you have been tuned in to the last couple of articles and worked diligently, your address position and general movement of the putter head path should be pretty sound now.

I did mention last week that just because the club is swinging along the correct path it doesn’t make starting a putt online a dead cert.

The putter face still has to point in the correct direction in order to roll the ball on the intended line.

The following drill is one I use regularly. Many players assume that because they are not hitting the hole as often as they’d like, the stroke must be poor. This drill can help to challenge that belief.

All you need are two tees or something to create a gate for the ball to run through. This should be conducted on a flat level piece of green or flooring so that the slope does not interfere.

Place the tees a couple of feet away from your ball and slightly wider than the ball (picture one). Two inches apart is as small a gap as you’d probably want. Make your stroke, focusing on the rhythm of the stroke (so there’s less likelihood of trying to ‘steer’ the ball through the gates). If this is too tough, you could start with a wider gap and gradually reduce it. There needs to be a challenge, but not so tough you can’t ever achieve the desired outcome.

The ball should roll through the gap without touching the gate posts (pic two). If it’s easy enough for you to roll the ball through the gap, start to introduce a hole beyond the gates, eventually progress to some slopes too.