The Living Room Putter Drill
The Living Room Putter Drill is a scoring skills drill in The Adaptive Golfer app. Putt ten balls at a coin six feet away on carpet and count how many finish on it, so you can measure your speed control without leaving the house. It trains lag distance, and your result is measured as Practice Strokes Gained against your handicap band.
How to do The Living Room Putter Drill
- Find a flat stretch of carpet or a rug with at least eight feet of run.
- Put a coin down six feet from where the ball starts.
- You need a putter and three balls.
- Run your normal putting routine and hit ten putts at the coin.
- The goal is to stop the ball on the coin, not to roll it over the coin.
- A ball that finishes on the coin or touching it scores.
- Record all ten as on the coin, short, or long, so you can see which way your speed misses.
Watching the ball instead of the coin, then decelerating through the strike to keep it short. Pick your speed before you take the putter back and accelerate through with the same tempo every time.
▲ LEVEL UP
Once you hold the top of your benchmark across three sessions, move the coin to nine feet. After that, swap in a smaller coin at the same distance and hold the same benchmark.
How The Living Room Putter Drill is scored
Count your successful attempts out of 10 on the coin.
Here is what each handicap band should be hitting (on the coin, higher is better):
| HANDICAP BAND | TARGET |
|---|---|
| Scratch (0–2) | — |
| 3–7 | 6–8 |
| 8–13 | 5–6 |
| 14–19 | 3–5 |
| 20+ | 2–3 |
This drill is not from the book. The bands above are ours, derived from the standard the book sets for comparable drills, so every level has a target to clear.
Your result is converted to Practice Strokes Gained against your band, so you always know if you are above, at, or below where you should be.
Log each rep and see whether you are above, at, or below your band — not just the target.
The 5-pillar diagnosis tells you whether this drill is even the thing costing you strokes.
A four-week plan picks your drills and recalculates as your numbers move.
The Living Room Putter Drill FAQ
Putt ten balls at a coin six feet away on carpet and count how many finish on it, so you can measure your speed control without leaving the house.
A mid-handicap golfer (8 to 13) should aim for 5 to 6 on the coin.
It builds your scoring skills, specifically lag distance.
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Log The Living Room Putter Drill in The Adaptive Golfer and see your Practice Strokes Gained against your handicap band.
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