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Putting - Eight key tips

Stand facing a wall. Put your putter head down with the toe touching the wall and take your stance so that the top of your forehead touches the wall. This puts your eyes directly over the target line. Practice your stroke swinging the head back and forward along the wall. This helps get your stroke working in the correct manner straight back and through. And, gets your posture correct.
Most amateurs I see have the putter head firmly on the ground at the moment they want to start the swing. Then they have to lift at the same time as their back swing starts resulting usually in a jerky wristy stroke. Try holding the putter head up clear of the green before you start your back swing, in this way when you want to pull the trigger there is no impediment and the stroke will be much smoother.
The best putters hold the putter so lightly it is almost falling out of their hands and that tension level does not change during the stroke.
There are no fixed rules for putting. If it works, cherish it. Some great putters have been ‘wristy’ or ‘poppers’ but if you are having trouble, try to take the hands and wrists out of the stroke. All your hands should do is hold the putter. The stroke, in pure theory, should be a rocking motion of the shoulders creating a pendulum type swing of the putter head.
The putter head must accelerate during the stroke, even on a very short putt.
Judgment of distance is the most important thing in putting and that can only be learned through practice.
Practice short putts (up to 1 metre) until you can’t miss and then long putts with two or three balls for distance judgment. Practicing from 2 metres to 4 metres can be counter-productive because even a machine misses some from that distance and you get a different mind set. If you are bullet proof from 1 metre you will hole nearly everything from 2 metres but more importantly you will expect to. If you practice from outside that distance you get used to missing so you do not ‘expect’ it to go in so it probably won’t.
You should not see the ball rolling on the green and you should never see it go into the hole. Your eyes should be fixed on the ball until you hit it and then they should be fixed on where the ball was until well after the stroke has been completed. Most short putts are missed because of body/head movement. Keep still and more putts will fall.

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Putting - Eight key tips

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