Putting 101

This thread is for preference only as I have used a face balanced putter for years. I don't think I have enough confidence to close a toe hang putter but I wanted some feedback on what works best for you.

I recently switched my putting stroke from a straight back and straight through to an in - square - in stroke. I use a face balanced putter and I seem to put a better roll on the ball. Do any of you use an I-S-I stroke with face balanced putters or do you like to have some toe hang with that stroke? I made the switch because I was starting to take the putter outside too often on high pressure putts and cutting across the ball.

As I understand it face balanced putters work better for the the straight back putt, while the toe weighted putter works better for an in-square-in putt. I also believe that except for shorter putts, you have to manipulate the arms, and shoulders to get a straight back and straight through stroke on those longer putts.

I now use a toe weighted putter with a combination of the two putting strokes. Actually I don't care what the back stroke does, but I do know the toe weighted putter suits my my putting style better. I am averaging under 30 putts per round , and of course some days are better than others.

You know when it comes to this game, I think that way too many people think way too much about way too many things way too often.

To me, putting is simple: I have to move the ball from where it is to where I want it to be in as few attempts as possible. Whether I'm face balanced, toe balanced or mentally unbalanced doesn't matter nor does the issue of whether I swing the putter straight or in an arc and the reason why is this:

I don't think about it.

When I am looking to buy a putter, I pick up one club after another and if I like the way the club looks as I stare down at it, I make a few swings with each, I putt a few balls towards the hole with each and whichever one feels best in my hands and rolls the most balls to the place I want them to go, then that's the putter I buy.

I don't think about balance, swing arcs, lengths, brand names, or what kind of swirls are on the face or how many of them there are or in what direction they swoop. I don't care who made the putter, nor do I care to know how much they're overcharging for it. And most of all, I don't think about any "science" about putting. I simply pick the club that seems to allow me to get the most balls nearest the target in the fewest attempts.

My point here is that I don't think about the minutia of putting. I don't think about the so-called "science" of putting, nor do I worry about how or why a putter is balanced. I simply hit the ball and if the ball goes where I want it to go, then all is right with the world. And if it turns out that when I putt I do a triple loop the loop during my backswing -- I don't care, because it's not important.

What IS important is what I wrote above: to move the ball from where it is to where I want it to be in as few attempts as possible. Whatever my stroke is or whatever the balance point of my putter proves to be is of no concern to me as long as I am doing that.

And if I'm NOT doing that, then I either need to practice more, or I need to go buy a putter that allows me to do that - whatever it may look like and however it may be made.




-JP

JP that is a great mentality to have but I'm stuck right now on moving my game to a single digit handicap. I have all the tools to do that, length, consistency and the proper clubs but I have to fine tune my short game more. I'm not a bad short game player by any stretch but to get to where I want to be it is requiring me to really look at my short comings. The only way to improve at golf is to see where you are lacking and fix it. So while your method works for you, you may not have the need to fine tune your game so much. And for that I say congratulations on being good enough to play golf without having to work at finding how to improve your faults.

solidkjames said:

JP that is a great mentality to have but I'm stuck right now on moving my game to a single digit handicap. I have all the tools to do that, length, consistency and the proper clubs but I have to fine tune my short game more. I'm not a bad short game player by any stretch but to get to where I want to be it is requiring me to really look at my short comings. The only way to improve at golf is to see where you are lacking and fix it. So while your method works for you, you may not have the need to fine tune your game so much. And for that I say congratulations on being good enough to play golf without having to work at finding how to improve your faults.

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An old expression is someone asking how they can get to Carnegie Hall to which someone else answers:

"Practice, practice, practice."

Golf is really a simple game that we needlessly complicate. I'm in my early fifties now, but when I was learning this game 40 years ago, I didn't know a shaft from a grip, but I understood the basics of how to hit a ball and after that it was just a case of repetition. By my early 20's, I was a single-digit handicapper and by the time I was in my thirties I played as low as a 2.

But throughout all those years, I never had a "matched" set of clubs and the putters I was using then wouldn't pass for doorstops by todays so-called "standards". But the one thing that has always remained constant is that to be good at anything, you have to do it over and over until it becomes second nature and that means -- practice, practice, practice.

When I practiced, I experimented with various ways to accomplish the "Prime Directive", which is getting the ball to the target in as few strokes as possible. WHAT I was using to do that wasn't nearly as important as HOW I used it and as far as putting was concerned, once I found the right spot on the putter face at which to strike the ball - the "sweet spot" - all that was left was to do that as consistently as possible which is all about practice.

I couldn't care less about whether I was swinging the club in an arc or taking it straight back and through. All I cared about was hitting the ball on the sweet spot and getting it to the hole, which I came to learn to do quite well.

To me, putting isn't about equipment, it's about reading greens, judging speed and hitting the ball squarely and however I came to do that didn't matter as long as I did that. It's like shooting pool; a good pool shooter can run a table with a house stick just as easily as he could with a thousand-dollar Balabushka because shooting pool is all about knowing what to do rather than the type of cue you're using.

But that's not to say that you wouldn't play better with a custom cue, but that's more about feel than performance, which relates to what I said about choosing a putter. I can pick up ten putters at a golf shop and I might find two that really feel good, but I can putt with any of them. Like anyone else, I'd rather have a club that feels good, but that's not as important as knowing HOW to putt and that comes from practice.

By all means, I think that everyone should have a golf club that feels good in their hands. But all of the other nonsense like specs and angles and materials and weighting all relate to feel rather than performance because performance comes from the person swinging the club, not the club itself.

The reason I got down to a low handicap had little to do with the clubs I used and had everything to do with the countless hours, days weeks and months I spent hitting one shot after another and one putt after another until I got to a point where I could count on the results. And to this day I couldn't tell you how my putter swings or what the balance point of the head is because it doesn't matter. All that matters is getting the ball from where I'm standing to where I want it to go in the fewest strokes possible.

And the only way to do that well is to practice, practice, practice.


-JP

practice is something I'm familiar with. I try to practice my short game 3 days a week. As I said its the one part of my game that is truly keeping me from moving from decent to good. I agree that practice makes perfect but practicing wrong doesn't always make right if you know what I mean.

JPsuff said:

You know when it comes to this game, I think that way too many people think way too much about way too many things way too often.

To me, putting is simple: I have to move the ball from where it is to where I want it to be in as few attempts as possible. Whether I'm face balanced, toe balanced or mentally unbalanced doesn't matter nor does the issue of whether I swing the putter straight or in an arc and the reason why is this:

I don't think about it.

When I am looking to buy a putter, I pick up one club after another and if I like the way the club looks as I stare down at it, I make a few swings with each, I putt a few balls towards the hole with each and whichever one feels best in my hands and rolls the most balls to the place I want them to go, then that's the putter I buy.

I don't think about balance, swing arcs, lengths, brand names, or what kind of swirls are on the face or how many of them there are or in what direction they swoop. I don't care who made the putter, nor do I care to know how much they're overcharging for it. And most of all, I don't think about any "science" about putting. I simply pick the club that seems to allow me to get the most balls nearest the target in the fewest attempts.

My point here is that I don't think about the minutia of putting. I don't think about the so-called "science" of putting, nor do I worry about how or why a putter is balanced. I simply hit the ball and if the ball goes where I want it to go, then all is right with the world. And if it turns out that when I putt I do a triple loop the loop during my backswing -- I don't care, because it's not important.

What IS important is what I wrote above: to move the ball from where it is to where I want it to be in as few attempts as possible. Whatever my stroke is or whatever the balance point of my putter proves to be is of no concern to me as long as I am doing that.

And if I'm NOT doing that, then I either need to practice more, or I need to go buy a putter that allows me to do that - whatever it may look like and however it may be made.




-JP

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Scary as it may seem I'm 100% with JP on this. With putting, you don't analyze.... you FEEL. This cannot be stressed too much. I've read all of the theories about mechanical putting... take the club back "x" inches for "x" feet of roll. BUNK!!!!!!! That can never take into account the varying speed of the greens combined with the grain, slope, etc. Learn to FEEL the putt, from reading the line to stroking the putt.... that is the only sure way I've ever heard of to become an accomplished putter. Look at the ball, look at the hole, feel the line between them, then feel the stroke required to hit that line.


If your stroke is not fundamentally sound, then fix that before you even think about the putter. If you know that you have a fairly solid foundation for your putting stroke, then from there it's all feel, and that means practice. Practice feeling distance from more than 20 feet, and practice stroking the short putts from about 5 or 6 feet in. Improving these 2 areas will result in better overall putting more than anything else you can work on.

Now you may have reached the point where you can actually feel the difference between putters sufficiently that you can choose the one that's right for you. I've putted with just about everything at one time or another, now I use a weird spaceship looking thing that is face balanced, has an odd, half dead feel when striking the ball, yet it putts like a dream for me. It can be built from Golfsmith components for under $60. If you go into a shopping trip with any preconceived notions, then you may well miss the one putter that's best for you. Be willing to experiment... try everything you can get your hands on. Like JP says, don't look at the brand or the price... shop by feel.

One more comment... if the putter in your hands doesn't feel like it's a flesh and blood extension of your hands, then it probably isn't right for you.

I agree. you need to learn to putt before you blame it on the stick. First thing to do is learn to hit it straight where you aim. What works for me and may not for you. I square the putter to the ball and line I want to roll it at address. I take note of that visual. I stare a hole in the top of the ball. I take the stroke and without taking my eyes off the ball I look for the exact same picture as the putter comes through that I saw at address. If it's the same it's straight. I worked on that until I could do it almost all the time at any width of stroke. I decided that's my stroke. Sure you miss but the thing is I can see the miss before I even look up because the visual of that just wasn't right. Once I had a stroke that worked I started hitting 4 and 5 footers the same way. Line it up and stroke and not look up. Just listen for the magic. Now I know I can hit it where I aim. Speed. I throw down balls 10, 15 and 20 feet away. I look at the hole and stroke. Now my line is off but I'm trying to get a FEEL for how far the ball rolls and get it to the hole. You will be surprised at how accurate you can be if you shoot while looking at the hole...on speed. You have to practice this a lot until you develop a FEEL for the roll. Like you was going to roll it up there with your hand. Once they start lagging real close....Ha! Time to putt. I address the ball and stand off and while looking at the hole I swing at air trying to get the FEEL of how much stroke I need to roll it to the hole. I then stand over the ball and get the square club face to the ball and my line visual. Now I only have two things to think about. Hitting it straight and distance. I already know what I need to see so that it's straight and I have already decided what I need for speed. So I stroke it trusting my line and trusting my speed never looking up until the shot is complete. Works for me anyway. Reading the green? Good luck with that. That's the level where my putting is at. Reading the green. The thing is...you can putt with damn near any putter if you PRACTICE enough with it. Once you can putt...then go looking for a sweet stick. imo. I firmly believe that on the green any man can have pro game. He just has to PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE.

I have several different styles of putters that I interchange. It only seems to take a few practice strokes to find out what the putter wants to do, arc or SBST or somewhere in between, and that is what I try to do. I do not want to 'fight' my putter!

Fred Shoemaker has a great book on understanding the mental or "feel" dynamic of putting called "Extraordinary Putting." Can't stress how good his books are. I went from being a frustrated 12.5 Handicap to a joyous 10 this summer and it has nothing to do with my handicap. My improvement while small was in between my ears and had little to do with my stroke change. Honestly, with all of the things we get caught thinking about, hitting the ball square and online becomes almost secondary. Try taking a few different putters and line up 10 balls spaced one foot from each other. Hit one, go to the next, with only enough time to get your balance and make your stroke. Try this with the putters you think you might be interested in owning more than once. The one you feel at the end that you feel less fear and more faith in is the one for you... another person called this "being an extension of your flesh and blood" I think.
Putting is at a basic level a slow, deliberate, instinctive reaction to a stationary object, and your thoughts and your worries stop you from making a committed stroke. JP made a point that he never worried about all of the technical stuff on the way down to a 2. It then stands to reason that this stuff is all subjective to feel! Do what feels comfortable and then do it over and over until it becomes what you do and who you are.
I had a friend blindfold me and place different putters in my hand and then set the ball up in my stance, after that we did the same thing without the blindfold, then I took the two remaining: a Yes! blade and a 2-Ball and this time looked at the target and hit a bunch of balls until I landed on the Odyssey. I know this sounds crazy, but I have been putting way better the last two weeks and its because I have faith in what I am holding in my hand and I am not distracted by junk in my head. Hope this helps, read the book, it is changing my whole game and how much I enjoy it incrementally!

lobshot said:

Fred Shoemaker has a great book on understanding the mental or "feel" dynamic of putting called "Extraordinary Putting." Can't stress how good his books are. I went from being a frustrated 12.5 Handicap to a joyous 10 this summer and it has nothing to do with my handicap. My improvement while small was in between my ears and had little to do with my stroke change. Honestly, with all of the things we get caught thinking about, hitting the ball square and online becomes almost secondary. Try taking a few different putters and line up 10 balls spaced one foot from each other. Hit one, go to the next, with only enough time to get your balance and make your stroke. Try this with the putters you think you might be interested in owning more than once. The one you feel at the end that you feel less fear and more faith in is the one for you... another person called this "being an extension of your flesh and blood" I think.
Putting is at a basic level a slow, deliberate, instinctive reaction to a stationary object, and your thoughts and your worries stop you from making a committed stroke. JP made a point that he never worried about all of the technical stuff on the way down to a 2. It then stands to reason that this stuff is all subjective to feel! Do what feels comfortable and then do it over and over until it becomes what you do and who you are.
I had a friend blindfold me and place different putters in my hand and then set the ball up in my stance, after that we did the same thing without the blindfold, then I took the two remaining: a Yes! blade and a 2-Ball and this time looked at the target and hit a bunch of balls until I landed on the Odyssey. I know this sounds crazy, but I have been putting way better the last two weeks and its because I have faith in what I am holding in my hand and I am not distracted by junk in my head. Hope this helps, read the book, it is changing my whole game and how much I enjoy it incrementally!

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Great post!

I especially liked the "blindfolded" part because I'm a big believer in "eyes closed" practice from time to time. I practice that way whenever I need to clear my head and focus. I usually set up with a generally flat and straight putt and I'll roll one or two balls until I get a feel for the stroke and distance. Then I'll set up and just close my eyes and stroke the ball and I won't open them until I either hear the ball drop into the cup or feel that the ball has had enough time to roll to the hole.

I think a lot of people would be amazed at how steady and focused they would become if they couldn't see what they were doing and just had to feel it. I've even done this with full-swing wedge shots. Once I get a good cadence going, I'll set up at address, close my eyes and swing. Once I'm in a groove, I can hit shot after shot - all of them nearly identical - without seeing anything. It's amazing how much more aware one becomes when the visual cues are removed and instinct takes over.



-JP