6 things every bad putter does consist of habits that can be changed pretty easily. These are habits that were picked up through bad advice or just bad habits. Lets start with the positive 3 things every great player does.
Good Putting
- Every great putter has learned how to read greens, estimate the break and speed, then pick the appropriate aim line. This may sound simple but very few players accomplish this. One of the easy ways f
or someone new to golf to estimate break and speed is to visualize a 5 gallon bucket of water being poured all at once into the hole. Look to see what direction the water flows and how fast it moves away from the hole. If it all sat around the hole it would be a straight, flat putt. - Every great putter is good or pretty good at aiming. The important part is good putters pick a target line and commit to that line. Most players including good players have a hard time aiming the putter face within 4″ of their target from 10′ away. It is hard to aim properly and very few golfers practice aiming. Avid golfers aim is typically skewed to adjust for a bad putting stroke. Many putters pull the ball left when they putt due to poor fundamentals. Over time they typically adjust their aim to compensate for their poor mechanics. Practice aiming, it is important and think about fixing your stroke.
- Every great putter has a consistent, smooth looking motion before during and after making impact with the ball Great putters also tend to hit the ball in the sweet spot on the putter and have the putter pointing at the target at impact. Great putters have different style grips, different set up positions and different tempos but they repeat their motion consistently, even under pressure. A little known factoid of great putters is that it doesn’t matter if the putt is 3′, 15′ or 45′, the time the putter takes from first starting away from the ball until contact with the ball never changes. I know that sounds odd but the time it takes for the start of the stroke till impact with a 5′ putt or 30′ putt is the same with great putters. So use a metronome next time you practice and find out what your best tempo, speed is.
Bad Putting
- Bad putters try to keep their head still. This typically results in their heads moving towards the target during impact. If you do this you will identify with the fact that the harder you try under pressure the more often you choke. I don’t care what the announcers on NBC or CBS say, good putters move their head, check the film. The best putters heads move very slightly towards the target on the back swing and away from the target at impact. The more you use your shoulders in your putting stroke to put the more your head will naturally move away from the target at impact.
- Bad putters almost answer this question incorrectly. What is a good putt? I can tell you what great putters on and off the tours have answered. A great putter does not answer the question with “a ball that goes into the hole.” Almost every bad putter I have ever met answers with a good putt is one that goes into the hole, wrong. That is a good result not a good putt necessarily. Obviously we want the ball to go into the hole every time but we don’t have control of that. A good putter will answer with a good putt is one that starts on the target line I chose and with the correct speed. If you base your putting on holing the ball you will have a hard time improving. We have all had a put that we read to break left and was fast and then we pull the put 6 inches left and then the ball goes into the hole. This is not a good putt this is a good result and a stroke you don’t want to replicate.
- Bad putters move their lower body when they are putting. I don’t know this happens so often but it is a bad habit. Most good putters anchor a little more weight on the front foot closest to the target with a little more weight towards the heel.
- Bad putters have excessive wrist and arm motion. This excessive motion adds too many variables when trying to bring the putter back to the ball square to the target with the correct speed. Watch tour players and notice how little their wrist hing and unhinge and how little the arms move during the putting stroke. You will typically see good putters almost anchor one or both arms on most length putts to their chest especially with shorter putts. The primary power with better putters is a rocking motion from the shoulders with a little arm swing and almost no wrist motion.
- Bad putters have the dreaded long back swing causing deceleration at impact. Decelerating at impact is a sure sign of bad putting. You want to make sure that your back swing is short enough so that you have to accelerate the putter through impact. One of the easiest way to think about this is to take the putter back about an inch for every foot of putt you are hitting. Practice 10′ putts with placing a tee in the green 10″ behind the ball to stop the back swing. This may feel strange but it will help you get better.
- Bad putters normally align their eyes vertically inside the target line causing bad aim. If the target line extended vertically up from the center of the golf ball that is where you want your eyes aligned. The way the human brain works is if you have your eyes inside the target line you will typically aim right of your target. You will aim left of your target if your eyes are outside the target line, this is rare. So next time your on the practice green get ready to hit a putt while holding an extra ball in your hand. When you have addressed the ball and your ready putt place the ball on the bridge of your nose, between your eyes and drop it. See if it lands on the ball on the green, normally this does not happen. Continue to drop the ball until it lands on top of the ball on the ground and get used of lining up from this position.
Do your best to rid yourself of the 6 bad habits and get better at the 3 good habits. The great thing about putting is it doesn’t matter if your old, young, strong, weak, man or woman everyone can become a great putter with proper practice. Good putters are good at scoring! Good putters and chippers rarely shoot high scores!
For more tips on putter see, http://myhome4golf.com/golf-instruction/
Jim Hartnett, PGA
www.myhome4golf.com
