Improve Your Short Putting with the Ring of Fire Drill

The Ring of Fire drill is one of the best ways to sharpen the putts that save rounds. Short putts may not look dramatic, but they are often the difference between steady scoring and unnecessary doubles or triples. This game adds pressure to putts inside six feet, forcing you to focus, reset after mistakes, and build the habit of holing the putts you should expect to make. If you want to become more reliable on the greens, this is an excellent drill to put into your practice routine.

How the Drill Works

In Ring of Fire, you place a series of balls in a circle around the hole at a set distance. Most players begin at three feet, then move to four feet and five feet. You can use one ball and move around the hole, or use multiple balls to create the full circle at once. Using several balls tends to create more pressure because every putt feels like part of a streak you do not want to break.

The goal is simple: make every putt from that distance before moving back. If you miss one, you start over from the beginning of that round. That restart is what gives the drill its value. It teaches you to handle tension and to recommit to each putt, even when the last few have already raised the stakes.

You can also play it in a “banked” format, where once you complete all the putts from one distance, that level is locked in and you move on. A stricter version is to require a perfect run through all the putts at three feet, then all the putts at four feet, then all the putts at five feet without giving yourself any easy shortcuts. That version is especially useful if you want your practice to feel more like tournament preparation.

One important detail is that not every putt should be perfectly straight. As you move around the hole, you will face different amounts of break. That matters because short putts become much harder when the read changes from one station to the next. Ring of Fire trains both your start line and your green reading under pressure.

Step-by-Step

Choose your distance. Start with putts at three feet. That is the ideal place to begin because the make rate should be high, but the pressure still builds quickly.
Set balls around the hole. Place as many balls as comfortably fit around the cup at equal distance. Eight balls is a common number, but use whatever fits your practice area.
Putt each ball from around the circle. Go one by one, treating each putt as its own task. Read the putt, settle in, and roll it with full attention.
If you make them all, move back. Once you complete the full circle at three feet, move the balls back to four feet.
Repeat the process. Make every putt from four feet before moving back again to five feet.
Restart after any miss. If you miss at any point in that round, begin again from the start of that distance. If you are using the stricter version, you may even restart the whole progression.
Stop at five or six feet. Most golfers get plenty of benefit from working out to five feet, though you can extend it to six if you want a tougher challenge.

What You Should Feel

This drill should make you feel progressively more locked in as the streak builds. Early in the circle, the putts may feel routine. By the final few balls, you should notice more internal pressure. That is exactly what you want. The drill is teaching you to perform with consequences.

In your stroke, you should feel:

Quiet hands and wrists through impact
Stable face control, so the ball starts on your intended line
Consistent pace, especially on slightly breaking putts
Commitment to the read instead of steering the ball

Mentally, the key checkpoint is whether you can stay present on the current putt. As soon as you start thinking about finishing the drill, moving to the next distance, or avoiding a restart, your attention shifts away from the stroke you actually need to make. Ring of Fire exposes that immediately.

A good sign that you are doing the drill well is that each putt still gets a full routine. Even though they are short, you should not rush them. The point is not just to knock balls in the hole. The point is to build a repeatable process you can trust on the course.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Rushing through the circle instead of giving each putt a proper read and routine
Setting all the putts on perfectly flat ground and avoiding realistic breaking putts
Getting careless at three feet because the putts seem easy
Changing your stroke under pressure by jabbing, steering, or decelerating
Ignoring pace and focusing only on line
Making the drill too easy by allowing misses without restarting
Practicing without consequence, which removes the pressure that makes the drill effective

How This Fits Your Swing

Ring of Fire is a putting drill, but its value reaches well beyond the green. Golf is a game of managing mistakes, and short putting is one of the fastest ways to keep a round from getting away from you. If you become dependable inside five or six feet, you clean up more pars, save more bogeys, and prevent the kind of three-putts and missed comebacks that lead to big numbers.

This drill also supports the bigger picture of your performance by improving your competitive focus. Full-swing mechanics matter, but scoring often comes down to whether you can convert the putts that your ball striking gives you. Ring of Fire trains that scoring skill directly.

It also teaches an important lesson that applies to every part of your game: pressure reveals whether your fundamentals hold up. On short putts, that means your setup, face control, and commitment have to stay stable when the stakes rise. The same principle carries over to your irons, your wedges, and your driver. When your process remains solid under tension, your game becomes much more reliable.

If you use this drill consistently, you will start to expect to make short putts rather than hope to make them. That shift in belief is a major step toward better scoring.