What are YOU doing to improve your putting?

[OldGolfer87]

[b]As for trying to solve my putting issues right handed , i have tried long putters at different lengths ,different grips, different companies, hand positions and with a standard length i tried 30 to 35 inch and heel shafted , center shafted ,mallets,blades , overlap grip ,left hand low ,one handed ,closes stance ,open stance , i have tried everything i could think of and nothing worked , or maybe one round and then back to 35-40 putts a round , so i went to Dick's and bought a Ping left handed putter and i am going to get a centre shafted one also , but since i bought it i hit about 1000 putts on my carpet in my living room and i have seem to have lost the hesitation hitch i had right handed and i will try it on the course tomorrow for the 1st time , hopefully i get some results with left handed cause it cant get any worse [/b]

[Buzzkill]

[quote name='danattherock' timestamp='1349919689' post='5779011']
Right elbow?
[/quote]

Tight/close to body with pendulum stroke (rocking shoulders only).

[jlt73]

I'm actually practicing! And guess what!? It is actually working. Who would have thought

[Apex93]

After playing 9 from the tips and shooting a 2-over 40, I counted my putts - 20.

Disgusted, I launched a multi-prong approach to get better (or at least competent), detailed below in chronological order:
1) the Hail Mary: try a new putter (went from face balanced mallet to center shafted blade). Didn't work. Shocking.
2) read Magnum and Peltz on the subject. Helpful, but realized I need to seriously practice.
3) built a 4x12 frame for a putting green in my basement with good turf that stimps comparable to my club. Confirmed I was terrible.
4) thousands of putts with many different grips. Purchased a Putting Tutor and face clips. Started to suspect my aim was off.
5) saw mike Adams, got fitted for an edel putter. The laser test was eye-opening - I asked mike honestly where my aim ranked vs everyone he's done these fittings for - " probably bottom 10 pct". I was a foot and a half right, and high. On a 10 footer!
6) hit thousands with my new putter (you should see the offset in this mid-mallet to correct for my aim - it is... unique). 4 footers and 10 footers. My make pct has definitely increased significantly. At least in my basement.
7) but, i just had acl surgery, so i wont see a course for 5 months. So that leaves me with ample time for ample practice.

[pingman1]

PING Nome!

[craz-e]

After the best season ever on the putting greens I have finally decided to stop tinkering with new putters and stick to what works.

[Wknd_Warrior]

Had a revelation today. Typically the best part of my putting is lag putting, cozying it up to the hole etc... This means sometimes good putts would drop with another turn. I'm gonna try and change my goal to be cozying it up to the back of the cup, or copzying it just in behind, that sort of thing, with the idea I might drop a few more in the in between zone.

[Jaggie99]

got me one of these Boomerang Putting Pro from daunh undah. Pretty good reviews overall.

[url="http://www.amazon.com/Boomerang-Putting-Pro-Carnoustie-Tournament/dp/B008Y6WH08/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1351009538&sr=8-3&keywords=boomerang+putting"]http://www.amazon.com/Boomerang-Putting-Pro-Carnoustie-Tournament/dp/B008Y6WH08/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1351009538&sr=8-3&keywords=boomerang+putting[/url]

[pappaf2]

My wife hooked me up with a Big Moss putting green for Christmas so I plan on putting in some serious practice time on that. Over the last few months I had been trying different grip styles including left hand low. For the time being I've gotten comfortable with a lead hand high and a double overlap on the trailing hand. It is comfortable and I feel that my hands are able to work as a unit more effectively without one hand trying to overpower the other.

[danattherock]

What are you doing lately to improve your putting?

[dlam]

What are you doing lately to improve your putting?

 

Welcome back Dan

Where you been?

Love this thread

[zetazeta]

I was always told that the putter should be in the middle of the stance and when I tried to put left hand low, it was in such a weird position that I gave up. A few weeks ago, I was bored and Youtube auto play started playing Phil Mickelson's short game full video and during the putting part, he mentioned that he has his putter and ball much more forward in his stance. I gave that a try over the past 2 rounds and have been hitting it straight and pure.

It feels much more natural to have the ball/putter more forward at address (with left hand low grip) and my confidence in < 3ft putts has increased significantly. Now I just needa work on pacing and line for longer putts

[danattherock]

What are you doing lately to improve your putting?

 

Welcome back Dan

Where you been?

Love this thread

 

 

Bad car wreck Nov 2012 on way home from work. Had back surgery, fusion with titanium rods, 18 months back. Since I couldn't play I avoided all things golf, which is hard where I live. Hah. No golf channel, GolfWRX, etc. Kind of like a guy with erectile dysfunction avoiding hot chics and strip bars, for lack of better analogy. Ha ha. I'm hoping to start back playing, however with a more compact and smoother swing. Time will tell. I miss it, badly.

 

 

Dan

[danattherock]

Found this, finally, from thread in 2009. It's describing that tapping putter to ground tip I mentioned above. I've been doing it ever since I first heard about it, and it helped to smooth my takeaway considerably.

 

 

I have the same problem and with a one day lesson with David Orr got a tip that helped tremendously. "Squish the bug" it was called. Just tapping the putter to the ground right before my take away. It is the trigger that starts the back stoke in fact. Works like a charm. I had been taking the putter back from a resting the sole on the ground position. That led to a jerky loop to the outside, at the back of my stroke, direction changed and it worked inside out, then I pushed everything. And I do mean everything. Anyway, read more below from Geoff Mangum's website, putterzone.com as he gives a much more thorough explanation of "squish the bug". And there is tons of info on this site. Go to the site and select "Tips" and you can read for days. This guy is a putting genius and lives about one hour from me in Greensboro, NC. I am in the process of setting up a half day lesson with him. Be sure to read the "Tips" section of his website. It is among the best putting specific info I have ever seen. Article below on "Squish the bug"....

 

 

Here is a link to Geoff's "Tips" section. Tons of putting info!!

 

http://www.puttingzone.com/ziptips.html

 

 

Anyone in or near North Carolina need a top notch instructor on the full swing or putting, check out David. He literally dropped 5 strokes off my handicap in a one day lesson. He works for Campbell University and runs the golf management program there. Located in Buies Creek,NC.

 

http://orrgolf.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Bounce the Putter to Locate the Ground

 

by Geoff Mangum

 

Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone™ Instruction

http://www.puttingzone.com

[email protected]

 

 

ZipTip: SETUP & STROKE: Bounce the Putter to Locate the Ground

 

To stabilize your stroke and make sure your putterhead returns to impact in a vertical orientation for a solid roll, set the length of your putting system from pivot to turf by tapping the putterhead lightly at address and keep the pivot stable in your stroke.

 

***

 

You've seen Greg Norman gently tapping his putterhead up and down behind the ball just before he pulls the trigger. He says it relaxes him and makes the takeaway smoother. That may well be useful, if you have trouble with a smooth takeaway move. Here's an independent reason for doing this: it tells your body exactly where the ground is! Yes, you can see the ground, but tapping it with the putter communicates to your body more and better perceptions about your setup, so that when you make your stroke, the putterhead glides into impact just above the surface, skimming the tops of the short-mown grass blades. Tap the putter to sharpen up your stroke.

 

Some Theory.

 

Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and many other pros have long preached the absolute necessity of keeping your head still during the putting stroke. The usual explanation is that you do this to PREVENT early peeking, which moves the shoulders out of square and throws the stroke off line. Well, there are at least two POSITIVE reasons that are probably more important than that one: keeping your head still aids your visual management of impact between the putterface and the ball by keeping visual attention and focus where you need it and also aids your physical management of impact by keeping your stroke pivot from bobbing up or down, changing the length of your putting system, or twisting out of plane as in peeking.

 

The point about visual attention and focus is perhaps self-evident but it bears emphasizing that your putting accuracy vitally depends on solid contact with the back of the ball by a putterhead trajectory moving the putter sweetspot through the ball's sweetspot along the start line of the putt with the face surface squarely oriented to this line. If you are looking somewhere other than at the back of the ball when impact is occurring, you seriously diminish your chances of making this happen.

 

The point about the length of your stroke system ought to sound relatively novel. When you address a putt, the vertical length of the putter is effectively fixed because your grip does not move higher or lower once applied and you should not be changing the lie angle of the putter during the stroke. This means the only thing that can change to alter the length of your system is your body: you can bend lower, stand taller, or let your arms out farther in the stroke, and any of these will change the total length of your system.

 

An optimal putting stroke is not only one that can be repeated, but one that best promotes sound physics for predictable, controllable, and repeatable performance. An optimum stroke is usually said to be one that is moving pretty level and low through impact, with solid contact and a square face moving on line. The biomechanics that approaches this ideal with the greatest degree of stability is a shoulders-only stroke. But the key to a truly effective and reliable shoulders-only stroke is to make sure that the length of the total system does not vary during the stroke.

 

What to Do.

 

In assuming the address position, you should NOT hold the putter grip before you have set your eyes. This is putting the cart before the horse, since your head and eye positioning determines how low your arms will hang below the shoulders. If you hold the putter when assuming the address, you will likely hold the putter too high on the grip with the result that you fail to bend over correctly and your eyes are inside the ball with a downward gaze out of your face -- not at all optimal. Set up first, and then grip the putter based on where your arms hang. You wag the putter; not the other way around!

 

When you take hold of the putter, keep a watch on your elbows. When the arms hang properly, there's not much crook left in the elbows and so there is little chance the arm length will increase. So get your arms hanging ALL THE WAY out of the sockets before taking hold of the putter. There's about one to two inches of excess play here for everyone.

 

After you have taken hold of the putter, you will probably see that the putter sole is resting, perhaps even pressed, into the ground. This presents a danger of a jerky takeaway, a loss of focus, and a stubbed downstroke.

 

There are four ways to remedy this. First, your can inhale. This will raise your torso (and head) ever so slightly, and you can let the putter get pulled up as your torso lifts your arms and hands a bit. Again, watch the elbows. If they cave inward, your putter will stay down. A second way is to lift a little of the bend out of your knees. A third way is to straighten up the back a bit, raising the pivot of the putt in your neck area, along with the shoulder sockets. Finally, the fourth way is to BOUNCE the putterhead lightly on the ground and CATCH IT in your hands on the up-bounce. Personally, I like to combine the inhaling and the bouncing-putter catch.

 

What Good Is It?

 

When you tap the putter and bounce it lightly, it has several beneficial effects. First, you get a definite knowledge of the position of your arms and hands in the setup. This makes your "triangle" a more definite system that you can control better.

 

Second, you get a knowledge of the location of the bottom of the stroke both as an absolute spot and as a distance from your stroke pivot point in your neck. This helps your arms find their way away and back to impact with better precision and also makes you conscious of not altering the location of your stroke pivot during the putt. Keeping stock of your pivot will practically eliminate unwanted head movement.

 

Third, you get a little help in knowing the weight of your putter, especially the putterhead. This helps on distance control.

 

Finally, when you know where the bottom of your stroke system is in relation to the ground, and you plan on avoiding any lengthening of the system during the stroke, you are freed from any concern of stubbing the putt. This makes you more positive on the through-stroke and also has the effect of cutting down on those odd occasions when out of fear you raise the putterhead too much and top the putt! Ugh!

 

Make This Part of Your Game.

 

On the practice green, or whenever you get ready to putt, stop worrying about peeking ... instead, make a positive effort to keep your system the same length during the stroke. Adopt your setup before taking hold of the putter; hang your arms fully out of the sockets and relax away the excess play in bent elbows; hold the putter lightly and inhale to raise your system a touch, and then play catch the lightly bouncing putter. Even if you choose not to tap the putter this way, make sure your pivot point stays pretty much where it is when you start the stroke until after you have managed the impact with precision. That is the fundamental part, and applies whether your stroke is a shoulders-only move or something else.

 

© 2001 Geoff Mangum. All rights reserved. Reproduction for non-commercial purposes in unaltered form, with accompanying source credit and URL, is expressly granted. For more tips and information on putting, including a free 10,000+ database of putting lore and the Web's only newsletter on putting (also free), visit Geoff's website at http://www.puttingzone.com, or email him directly at [email protected].

[YoungJedi]

1- learned aimpoint

2- built putting green in basement

3-groove stroke on said putting green with "perfect putting machine"

4- practice at course with "perfect putter" for stimp meter and aimpoint training

 

Never putted so good in my life

[danattherock]

Nice. I can almost hear your scores lowering. Sounds like a ball falling in the cup from 8 feet.

 

I just got a 37" Rife Antigua customized by Kevin Colbert with UST frequency graphite/steel shaft out of my bag of putters. I normally use 34.75" putters, but had back surgery last year, curious to see if longer putter is more comfortable. Goal being longer practice sessions. If it works, I will have my Yamada Emperor lengthened and apply a new Ping blackout. Also reviewed over my SAM putting lab results from a few years ago. Dusted off the Can't Miss gyroscope. I'm reading Geoff Mangums "Optimal Putting" e-book again. After three years off, car wreck and back surgery, I'm reviewing lots of stuff.

 

 

 

Dan

[dlam]

What are you doing lately to improve your putting?

 

Welcome back Dan

Where you been?

Love this thread

 

 

Bad car wreck Nov 2012 on way home from work. Had back surgery, fusion with titanium rods, 18 months back. Since I couldn't play I avoided all things golf, which is hard where I live. Hah. No golf channel, GolfWRX, etc. Kind of like a guy with erectile dysfunction avoiding hot chics and strip bars, for lack of better analogy. Ha ha. I'm hoping to start back playing, however with a more compact and smoother swing. Time will tell. I miss it, badly.

 

 

Dan

 

Hope you have recovered and doing well

Too bad about the accident.

Ben Hogan came back from a car accident and played golf as well as ever

 

Good luck

 

 

[smellysell]

Working on setting up a practice area for the winter that week include a boomerang.

 

Had far less intense back surgery last May and am back to playing mostly pain free, hoping everything works out for you, Dan.

[Pretzel]

To improve my putting I'm focusing on learning to read greens better and trying to get myself able to feel the break with my feet (ala Aimpoint). I've found that, even if it turns out my read is wrong, I still putt better when I hold out my hand with however many fingers and pick a definite spot to aim at, so that I'm not changing how I want to hit the ball as I stand over it like I used to.

[iTried]

I've had an artificial practice green in my backyard for years and it has payed dividends on my short-game. I definitely use it more for chipping than putting, which now sounds like a huge mistake.. hmmm..

 

As for putting green practice, I use the gate drill on putts from 5-15 feet, as well as the string drill to work on stroke path. A chalk line is also a necessity for any golfer's bag!

[CEPHAS]

Nice. I can almost hear your scores lowering. Sounds like a ball falling in the cup from 8 feet.

 

I just got a 37" Rife Antigua customized by Kevin Colbert with UST frequency graphite/steel shaft out of my bag of putters. I normally use 34.75" putters, but had back surgery last year, curious to see if longer putter is more comfortable. Goal being longer practice sessions. If it works, I will have my Yamada Emperor lengthened and apply a new Ping blackout. Also reviewed over my SAM putting lab results from a few years ago. Dusted off the Can't Miss gyroscope. I'm reading Geoff Mangums "Optimal Putting" e-book again. After three years off, car wreck and back surgery, I'm reviewing lots of stuff.

 

 

 

Dan

 

how do you like the ust freq shaft/ I thought about getting one. does it make contact feel too soft? I use a non insert putter.

 

peter

[danattherock]

Love it. It was an experiment of sorts. Very unusual feel, love it or hate it I suspect. It feels more solid, vibrations that normally travel up shaft (feedback) is reduced. Initially I hated it, although I putted well with it. But the more I used it, the more I liked it. It's on an older Rife Antigua I had Kevin Colbert customize. Distance control is freaky good. Can't say why, an engineer may be able to.

 

All I know is I own 22 putters, half of which are customs and refinished and modified SC TEI3's, and this Rife with UST allows the best distance control, particularly with longer putts. That's where it shines. Not sure why to be honest. Had it out the other day after a three year hiatus from golf and was within 6-12" on many 20+ foot putts. It's just a solid shaft. Worthy of trying I would tell anyone. I highly suggest a thin grip, Pingman blackouts are on most my putters. Again, it's just a $7 experiment.

 

 

Dan

[Graymulligan]

I've always been a pretty solid putter, which has actually hurt my game. (stay with me, I promise this makes sense) Because I can pretty much putt with whatever, I tended to change putters a lot, because I like new, shiny things. Which sort of left me as a decent putter, who never really got any better because I was always messing around with something different.

 

Last winter, sunk some serious money (for me) into a custom putter, and let me daughter pick the stamping, thereby eliminating my ability to sell it. I love it, and after a full season of putting with one putter, I'm kicking a** on the greens. I realize it's really un-WRX-like, but getting rid of the backups and only owning one putter has allowed me to move from a decent putter to honestly not remembering my last three putt, and making so many more of those 5-15 footers that take good scores and make them better. My handicap went from 8 to 7 this year, and if I play well this weekend, my trend will move into the 6's for the first time in my life. And it feels freaking fantastic.

[danattherock]

Kari Lajosi makes a great putter, saw your sig.

 

Had him make my wife a heavily customized putter about seven years ago. Nice stuff.

 

 

Dan

[orangeology]

keep buying and selling, to improve my putting. #itswrx

[glensmithis]

I have been tinkering around with putting side saddle for the past week. I have been through fittings, bought over a dozen putters, changed grips, changed hand positions, pretty much anything and everything that I could think of or that was recommended to me or that I witnessed work for someone else. All of this to no avail. I just cannot find consistency.

[danattherock]

Can't fix what you don't know is broken.

 

Get a SAM putter lab fitting asap.

 

Here's a few images from one of mine.

 

TONS of info, on your stroke, good points, faults, and putter fit.

 

 

Dan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[danattherock]

Want something nice?

 

http://www.torreyrat.com

 

I had this Scotty TEI3 refinished about four years ago by Dawn Patrol. Easiest process ever, great communication, fast turn around, impeccable quality and workmanship. It's a piece of art, and my crown jewel of 6 SC TEI3's. He's a forum member here also. Top shelf.

 

Dan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[danattherock]

Must read book photographed above:)

[super20dan]

not a thing -my stroke is pure and i use a killer putting grip that cant be beat