WHEN it comes to putting there are three main areas to work on – direction, distance and green reading.

I am going to show you how to control the distance the ball goes.

The two things that we need to pay attention to when you are trying to control the distance the ball goes are swing length and the rhythm or tempo that you swing the putter.

The most common error when putting is to see the distance as either hitting the putt harder or softer.

It is very difficult to gauge hitting putts harder and softer as it is easy to just swing the putter longer and quicker or shorter and slower, or a mixture of both, which is changing two variables instead of one, making for a tougher job.

When faced with a putt of distance try to keep the rhythm of the stroke the same and change only the swing length.

The swing length should be the same either side of the ball. For example if you have a six-inch back swing you should have a six-inch through swing.

If you want to go further you should make the back swing longer and the through swing longer, say eight inches either side of the ball.

This is an easy skill to work on, using tees either side of the ball to gauge swing length.

The much harder skill to practice is rhythm, that is the relationship between the time taken for the back swing versus the through swing to hit the ball.

The best putting strokes work on a relationship of 2:1, backswing to hit.

So if a back swing took two seconds the hit would take one second.

To work on this remember this simple tip – in your backswing say ‘ONE THOUSAND’ followed by ‘ONE’ to hit the ball.

This will give you the correct relationship between back swing and through swing to control your distance whilst putting.