Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his “Late Scratch?” series here.

Last week, I talked about why my mental coach, Josh Nichols, gave me some homework following a (tough) tournament round. This week, I want to talk about how I followed through on that—and some helpful putting advice I learned in the process.

You should read the entire story about the helpful three-in-one journal method Nichols recommends, but the broad strokes are you highlight three things you did well, one thing you could improve on and one specific way you’re going to improve that one thing. Here’s a reminder of what mine looked like in which I highlight wanting to improve my “pace of putts”:

And the way I wound up working on that reshaped my overall putting philosophy.

A couple days after that qualifier, I met with Quaker Ridge head pro and one of Golf Digest’s Best in state teachers Mario Guerra and told him I felt like I was putting well, but burning a lot of edges or lipping out. He identified my “pace problem” and gave me a drill that PGA Tour pro Max Greyserman, who finished second on tour in strokes gained: putting in 2024, passed along to him. Hence, why it says “Max Greyserman” drill on there for the specific way I’m going to improve my speed on the greens.

What you do is place a tee in the middle of a green and putt to it from four different points in a circle around it (Think North, South, East and West). Putt three balls from each spot and don’t worry about hitting the tee, but rather having the proper pace.

Once you get all three balls within a foot—either long or short—of the tee, you move to the next spot. Once you do that at all four spots, you then putt from four spots 15 feet away, then 20 feet away, etc. Ideally, you’d run through a shortened version of this before a round on greens you’re not familiar with to get your speed dialed for that day. Obviously, there are plenty of speed drills out there, like Golf Digest’s three-tee speed putting test. Just find one you like, because this skill is crucial.

“Your goal should be perfect pace on every putt,” Guerra told me. And there’s a scientific reason for that.

I’ve worked a lot on my start line with putting coach Bill Smittle, especially during the winter. But to hole putts, you need to match up your aim with the proper pace. And Mario believed some of my putts weren’t dropping because they were carrying too much speed at the hole.

Effectively, the hole gets smaller as the speed of a golf ball traveling toward it increases. Mario calls this capture size and others refer to it as capture speed, but it means the same thing. Here’s how short-game coach Gareh Rafleski described it to Golf Digest in 2023.

“We call it capture speed, which basically measures the size of the hole at the speed the ball is traveling toward it. The hole is 4.25 inches wide, so if the ball were to travel and get to the hole with zero speed, the full size of the cup would be utilized,” Raflewski explained. “But if the ball were traveling with one foot of extra speed, the hole in effect shrinks to 2.7 inches wide. For two feet of speed, it shrinks to 1.9 inches wide. What this means is that her distance control is so good, most of her second putts are within a foot.”

I’ve talked about trying to maximize margins a lot and this is literally doing that with the hole. To get a better feel for this concept, check out this really cool video from putting coach Jake Stevenson in which he rolls seven golf balls at the outside edge of the cup, first with perfect pace and then with an extra foot of speed:

As you can see, the golf balls rolling at perfect speed drop in or are captured by the hole. But the ones with even just slightly more pace roll by. Margins!

Of course, even putts stroked with perfect pace will still miss, either due to a bad read or a bad start line or even a bad bump along the way. That’s why Guerra likes that Greyserman tip so much. You get to give yourself credit for getting it in that two-foot zone on either side, which builds your confidence on the greens.

We also practiced on a few real greens, focusing just on speed. And that change in focus actually frees you up a bit when you’re not thinking as much about trying to make the putt. Besides, putting, especially lag putting, isn’t all about makes anyway. Guerra said he’d gladly sign up for never making a putt outside of 15 feet again if it guaranteed he could lag every long putt to within tap-in range.

As Mario explained, everyone is capable of missing from even two feet (I can attest from my qualifier!) every once in a while. But an actual tap-in is virtually impossible to mess up. Anyway, I started to prioritize having perfect pace at my next round and immediately saw results, improving 2.6 shots from that rough qualifier to actually gaining 1.1 shots on a scratch golfer, according to Arccos Golf:

That’s a small sample size, but more good putting continued in my next round, including an eight-footer for par and an 18-footer for birdie on the first two holes of a company match-play tournament that literally dripped into the cup from the side edge. Had those putts not been perfect pace, they wouldn’t have gone in—and I might not have advanced. Baby steps.

Anyway, give that Max Greyserman drill a try and start thinking about capture size/speed more when you’re on the green. Your number of three-putts should go down, and, hopefully, a few more of your first putts will go down in the hole as well.