There are way too many golfers who either don't know how to repair a ball mark on a putting green, or they're too darn lazy to take care of the golf course that they and thousands of other people are playing every year.
It doesn't matter the reason why a golfer doesn't repair their ball marks. There's no good excuse. Not only is repairing ball marks better for the health of the golf course and every golfer's experience at that course, it's also easy to do.
In fact, for every ball mark you make on the golf course, you should fix that one and one more. But let's just get started with fixing your ball marks on a putting green.
How to properly repair a ball mark on a putting green
If you're going to correctly repair ball marks on a putting green, you're going to need some kind of tool to help out. However, that doesn't mean you need a $30 switchblade-style divot repair tool. All you need is a whole tee with a pointy tip at the end, and then you can repair a ball mark.
The most common misconception about fixing a ball mark is that you're using your repair tool of choice to lift up the ball mark back to level with the ground of the putting surface. While that may repair the mark in terms of making a smooth surface, it damages the roots of the grass on the green and makes it harder for that grass to recover.
What you really want to do is nudge the grass around the ball mark toward that ball mark to bring it all together, and then go ahead and flatten it out so that the grass can fill in that mark and recover quicker.
Repairing a ball mark, then, requires using a tool to push (or pull) grass and soil toward the center of the ball mark. You're going to do this by taking your divot repair tool and putting the tips or tines into the green about a quarter-inch to a half-inch behind the circumference of the ball mark. You'll start at this spot and start pushing that grass and dirt toward the middle. You'll do this in several places around that circumference -- maybe two or three. Be careful to simply push the grass and soil toward the middle, rather than lifting up on that organic matter.
For a small ballmark, this should do the trick to bring it together. For a bigger ballmark, you will still probably have some gaps to fill behind those places where you used your repair tool. If that's the case, then you'll need to do a second circle of the same motion from behind those initial marks.
After you're done moving the dirt and grass to fill in that mark space, then you're going to get out your putter and tamp down the repaired area with the bottom of your putter blade. Tamp it down several ways to make sure the repaired space is smooth and as level can be with the green.
All of this should take no more than 10-15 seconds, and it helps out the golf course tremendously.
