Drills to Improve Green Reading

Three drills that transfer

The best drills for green reading are simple enough to use before a round. You want a process that holds up when the putt matters, the pin is tucked, and there’s no time for a second walk around the hole.

1. Fall-line walk: identify the fall line on every green before reading the putt — start there, not with the break.
2. Speed-first rehearsal: make three practice strokes to a distance, not a direction, before committing to any line.
3. Last-six-feet focus: read the final six feet from directly behind the hole before committing to a full line.

Take it to the course

Use the fall-line check on every green for one full round before judging whether the approach is working. One consistent habit applied across eighteen holes outperforms three half-learned reads applied randomly.

Putting it in focus

FocusGolf captures the putting context that paper cannot. The watch app, running on Wear OS, Apple Watch, or Garmin, tracks pace and consistency through a round — so if your green-reading approach is improving, you’ll see steadier rhythm and tighter motion data alongside the made putts. No putter sensors are needed.