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LPGA Short Game Secrets Every Golfer Should Steal

LPGA golfer aiming at putting apex spot

LPGA pros build their scoring advantage on three repeatable habits: disciplined tempo, an intermediate target instead of the hole, and contact that never varies under pressure. Raise your up-and-down conversion rate and the rest of your scorecard follows. Pick one LPGA-style drill from this guide, give it 10 to 15 minutes today, and you will feel the difference by your next round with these golf at home practice drills.

TL;DR:

  • Most LPGA short game success relies on consistent tempo, apex targeting, and contact that remains steady under pressure, which amateurs often neglect.
  • Practicing with varied lies, targets, and shot types for just 30 minutes per session significantly improves up-and-down rates and decision-making.
  • Fixing common mistakes like wrist flipping, poor line aiming, and rushed tempo can drastically reduce wasted strokes around the green.
  • Smart shot selection involves choosing the safest miss based on lie and green conditions, not always going for the flag or aggressive lines.
  • Incorporating tour-level drills and deliberate weaknesses in practice helps translate LPGA techniques into consistent scoring improvements.

Table of Contents

LPGA Short Game Fundamentals: Putting Tempo and Target Selection

Watch any LPGA pro line up a putt and you will notice she is not staring at the cup. She is staring at a spot a foot or two in front of her ball, on the line, called the apex. That single habit turns a vague hope of “get it close” into a concrete stroke with a real target, and it is one reason Lilia Vu’s putting tips emphasize picking a spot on the line over staring down the hole.

Tempo does the rest of the work. Many LPGA pros swing their putter on roughly a 2:1 backswing-to-through ratio, a rhythm Hannah Green has openly built her practice around. A short, quick backswing paired with an accelerating stroke causes chronic three-putts. A longer backswing that decelerates through impact does too.

Three drills build these habits fast:

  • Apex drill: Place a coin two feet in front of your ball on your intended line and roll putts over it, not at the hole.
  • Gate drill: Set two tees just wider than your putter head and stroke putts through them to groove a square face.
  • Tempo count: Count “one” on the backswing and “two” on the forward stroke, keeping the ratio identical on a 3-foot putt and a 30-foot lag.

Pro Tip: Rehearse your tempo count away from the ball first. Feeling the rhythm in a practice stroke before you step in makes it far easier to repeat under pressure.

Split practice time evenly: half on 3 to 6 foot putts for confidence, half on 20 to 40 footers for speed control. Lydia Ko’s two-drill approach to holing more putts follows this same split, and it is worth building your own routine around reading greens correctly before you ever pull the putter back.

Chipping and Pitching Mechanics LPGA Pros Rely On

Golfer practicing short game chip shot

Crisp contact starts before the club ever moves. LPGA instruction consistently points to a narrow stance, the ball positioned back of center, and hands pressed slightly forward to create a steeper, more vertical shaft angle at address, a setup detailed in Golf Digest’s breakdown of the tour’s best short games.

From there, three moves separate a clean chip from a chunked one:

  1. Rotate your body, not your wrists. Let your chest and hips turn through the shot while your hands stay quiet. Wrist flip is the single biggest cause of thin and fat contact around the green.
  2. Match the club to the shot. A 52 degree wedge gets the ball up quickly over a bunker or rough between you and the green. A bump-and-run with a 7 or 8 iron is the safer play when you have open ground to work with, since it takes the flop shot’s risk out of the equation.
  3. Practice touch, not just technique. Drop three balls around the fringe and chip each one, then putt it out. Track how many finish inside three feet.

Pro Tip: Choke down an inch on your wedge for any chip inside 20 feet. It shortens the swing arc and makes distance control almost automatic.

That one-ball chip-and-putt routine is the fastest way to build touch that actually shows up on the course, and it pairs well with a broader look at why short game separates scores more than driving distance ever does.

How Do LPGA Pros Escape Bunkers Consistently?

Bunker play intimidates amateurs because it looks like a power shot. It is not. LPGA players open the clubface, set their weight slightly forward, and keep their hands back at address, letting the wedge’s bounce glide through the sand instead of digging into it, a technique Golf Digest highlights among tour players.

  • Draw an imaginary line an inch behind the ball and practice hitting that exact spot every time, ignoring the ball itself.
  • Commit to an accelerating swing through impact. Deceleration is what leaves balls buried in the lip.
  • Play aggressively at a back-of-green pin with room to work; play conservative and center-of-green when the flag sits close to the edge.

Pro Tip: If you only fix one bunker habit, fix your entry point. A consistent inch-behind-the-ball strike matters more than swing speed.

Building a Practice Routine That Actually Transfers to Scoring

Building a Practice Routine That Actually Transfers to Scoring — overview diagram

Most golfers practice the wrong way: same club, same distance, same shot, fifty times in a row. LPGA pros do the opposite, and it shows up in results. Elite players convert up-and-down chances at rates far higher than the average amateur, largely because their practice sessions build in variety instead of repetition.

A 30-minute short-game session that mirrors tour habits looks like this:

  1. Five minutes of tempo putts using the 2:1 count on putts from 3, 10, and 25 feet.
  2. Five minutes of gate drills to lock in a square face at impact.
  3. Ten minutes of one-ball chip-and-putt from three different lies (fringe, light rough, tight lie).
  4. Ten minutes of bunker entry-point reps, alternating an aggressive pin and a conservative one.

Change your lie and target on every single rep. Danielle Kang reportedly practices from intentionally bad lies to build comfort with imperfect setups, which is exactly the kind of shot that shows up mid round. Track your up-and-down percentage over ten practice sessions and treat any improvement above your baseline as real progress. A structured LPGA-style practice routine gives you a template to build from if you want to go deeper than this 30-minute version.

Common Short Game Mistakes and the LPGA Fix

Three faults account for most wasted strokes around the green, and all three have a simple correction.

  • Overusing the wrists. Flip in the hands is the top cause of inconsistent chip contact. The fix is a quiet lower body and a rotating chest that carries the club through impact.
  • Aiming at the hole instead of the apex. Staring at the cup on a breaking putt causes players to misjudge the line. Pick your apex spot first, then commit the stroke to that point rather than the hole itself.
  • Letting tempo break down under pressure. A rushed backswing or a decelerating forward stroke both wreck distance control. A simple count or metronome rehearsed away from the ball keeps the ratio honest.
  • Practicing the same shot on repeat. Fifty identical chips from the same lie build false confidence. Real improvement comes from varying lie, distance, and target on every rep.

Smarter Shot Selection: Playing for the Best Miss

Good short-game players make their decisions before they ever swing. Ask three questions: What is the lie? How much green do I have to work with? Where is the safest place to miss? A tight lie with plenty of room favors a bump-and-run. A tight lie against the green’s edge often calls for a pitch. A flop shot should be your last resort, reserved for when nothing else clears the trouble.

  • Choose your “best miss” before you commit. Hole-high and short of a false front beats long every time.
  • On fast greens, favor a cozy lag that leaves a stress-free two-putt over an aggressive run at the cup.
  • Rehearse your decision process in practice, not just your swing, so shot selection becomes automatic under pressure.

Pro Tip: Say your target and shot choice out loud before every practice rep. Verbalizing the decision trains the same habit you need standing over a real shot on the course.

Shorter hitters especially benefit from this discipline. Lizette Salas has built a competitive career largely on short-game precision rather than distance, proof that smart decisions around the green close the gap a driver never will.

Where Golf Blab Fits Into Your Short Game Development

Golf Blab’s partnership with LPGA pro Mariel Galdiano keeps this instruction grounded in tour-level technique rather than generic tips. That connection, paired with the site’s growing instructional library, gives golfers a real path from reading about apex targeting to actually training it.

  • Innovate Tour Performance Golf Balls give consistent spin and feedback so your chip and pitch practice reflects real course behavior, not a worn range ball’s dead response.
  • Custom Golf Club Labels keep your bag organized by wedge loft and lie, which matters when you are drilling multiple short-game clubs in one session.
  • Apparel built for range and course wear keeps you comfortable through a full practice block.
  • Play Golf with a Tour Pro puts you on-course with tour-level coaching to see these mechanics applied under real conditions.

What the Data on LPGA Short Games Actually Tells You

Here is what gets lost in most short-game advice: technique matters less than most golfers think, and target selection matters more. The single biggest gap between a scratch player and a 15 handicap is not swing speed or ball striking. It is decision-making, apex targeting, and tempo consistency, three things that have almost nothing to do with athleticism.

The conventional wisdom that amateurs need to “practice more” misses the point entirely. Volume without variety builds false confidence. Fifty identical chips from a perfect lie teach you nothing about the awkward, sidehill, half buried lie you will face on Saturday. LPGA pros practice imperfect lies deliberately because the course never offers a perfect one.

If you take one thing from this guide, make it apex targeting on the greens. It is free, it takes ten minutes to learn, and it changes how you commit to every putt you hit. Everything else, tempo, contact, club selection, builds on that same principle: give yourself a real target, then trust the stroke.

— Michael Marini

Ready to Train Like an LPGA Pro?

Reading about tempo ratios and apex targets only gets you so far. Golf Blab turns that instruction into a plan you can actually follow, starting with Play Golf with a Tour Pro, a chance to work through these exact short-game habits on-course with tour-level coaching instead of piecing it together alone. Pair that experience with Innovate Tour Performance Golf Balls for practice sessions that give honest feedback on spin and roll, and keep your wedges and putter organized with Custom Golf Club Labels so every drill starts with the right club in hand. Browse the full shop for apparel and gear built for range days, or book your session with a tour pro now and put apex targeting to work on real greens.

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