There is nothing quite like making more putts when it comes to lowering your golf scores.

Sure, things like hitting longer drives and hitting more accurate approach shots are great, but they don’t quite compare to simply knocking more putts into the back of the hole. If you manage to reduce your average number of putts per round from 30 to 25, you will immediately save five strokes. Can you think of another improvement you can make which would make such a big difference? Probably not.

To hit more accurate putts, one of the first things you should do is address the technical side of your stroke. Are there any technical mistakes you are making with your putting motion? If you can clean up your putting stroke it will become far easier to hit the ball in the intended direction over and over again. There is more to good putting than just technique but building a technically-sound stroke is a great place to start.

In this article, we are going to talk about the backswing portion of your putting stroke. This is the part of the stroke that lays the groundwork for what is to come later, so it’s important that you get it just right. Even a small mistake in the backstroke can cause your putt to miss the target line – and if you miss the target line, it’s highly unlikely that the ball will find its way to the bottom of the hole.

All of the content below is based on a right-handed golfer. If you happen to play left-handed, please take a moment to reverse the directions as necessary.

Two Important Elements

When you work on your putting backswing, you are really working on two separate things – the direction of your backswing, and the length of your backswing. You need to have both of these elements on the right track if you are going to be successful with the flat stick. Obviously, the direction of your stroke is going to go a long way toward determining the path the ball takes toward the hole. As for the length of your backstroke, that will say a lot about how far the ball is going to roll. Ideally, the path of your stroke should remain consistent from putt to putt, while the length of stroke you use will depend on the length of the putt at hand, as well as the speed of the greens.

To make the instruction in this section easier to understand, we are going to break it up into two sections. First, we will provide some tips on the path of your stroke. Then, with that out of the way, we’ll move on to the length of your putting motion.

The list you see below contains three tips we hope will help you swing the club on the right path time after time.

No hands. Okay – so saying that you aren’t going to use your hands would be a bit of exaggeration, as your hands are obviously going to hold onto the club as you make the stroke. However, you should not be using your hands actively as the stroke develops. When putting, your hands and wrists should play a completely passive role, just going along for the ride as your shoulders to the work. When your stroke is working properly, you’ll rock your shoulders back and through with a great rhythm, and your hands will do nothing more than hold on to the putter. This is an important tip with regard to the path of your stroke because using your hands actively is likely to result in the putter swinging too far to the inside. If you are going to successfully swing the putter away from the ball on a good path, you’ll want to keep your hands out of the action. When you check off this point successfully, you might be surprised to find just how easy it is to swing on a proper path. Okay for the face to open a bit. This is a point which tends to confuse many players. As you make your putting stroke, you might feel like you need to hold the face square to the target line for the duration of the stroke, both back and through. That simply isn’t going to happen, and it doesn’t need to happen. Since you are standing to the side of the ball, rather than right on top of it, your putting stroke should resemble a door opening and closing, rather than taking a straight-back-and-through path. While you don’t want the putter to move quickly to the inside of the line (as would happen if you used your hands actively), you do want to allow a natural arc to develop in the stroke. If you use your shoulders to rock the putter smoothly, it’s nearly inevitable that you will trace an arc with your stroke path. And, as a result, the face is going to open a bit relative to the target line as you swing back. That’s okay. As long as you swing the putter back toward the ball in the same way that you swung it away from the ball, you should be able to return to a square position at the perfect time. A smooth start. In addition to moving the putter back in the right direction, you also want to make sure that your stroke gets off to a smooth start. That means you allow the stroke to start up slowly, gradually moving the putter back from the ball as you pick up a bit of speed. Tempo is important when putting and starting your stroke off with a quick action is a recipe for failure. Do your best to ease the putter back and you should find that your stroke as a whole becomes more productive and reliable.

With the path points taken care of, let’s look at three keys to keep in mind when working on the length of your putting backswing.

Enough, but not too much. The key to figuring out how far back to swing your putter comes down to trying to strike a perfect balance between giving yourself enough space and going too far. If you don’t swing back far enough, you’ll have to accelerate abruptly in order to hit the ball hard enough – and that quick acceleration will ruin the tempo of your stroke. On the other end of the spectrum, a backstroke which is too long can also get you into trouble. You’ll have so much room to work with that you will be at risk of hitting the ball too hard on the way through. You may have to decelerate in order to avoid sending the ball too far, and deceleration is going to increase the odds of missing your line. Learning how to swing the putter back the right length is a skill which you will need to develop over time. Of course, spending time working on this key in practice can accelerate your learning curve. Adjust based on speed. One of the big keys to swinging the putter back the right distance is managing to adjust the length of your stroke based on the speed of the greens you are facing. On a course with fast greens, you’ll need a relatively short backstroke to get the job done. As the greens slow down, it will take more stroke – and more speed – to reach the hole. This is why it is so important to warm up on the practice putting green before every round. That will give you a good chance to get comfortable with the pace of the greens and figure out how much backstroke you’ll need to use on putts of various lengths. Don’t think too much. Perhaps the biggest challenge you will face with regard to the length of your backswing is the fact that you can’t afford to think too specifically about this part of your stroke while it is happening. If you are actively thinking about how far back you want to swing, you are going to ruin the rhythm of your stroke and your distance control will suffer. The idea is to get so comfortable with the length of your stroke in practice that you don’t have to think about it at all on the course.

To be successful on the greens, you need to swing your putter back on the right path, and you need to swing back the right distance, as well. If you can bring those two pieces together properly, you’ll be well on your way to making more putts than ever before.

Don’t Get Stuck

In the previous section, we highlighted a number of points relevant to the direction and length of your putting backswing. Before you even get to that point, however, you need to be able to put the club in motion successfully. That might actually be a little more difficult than it sounds at first. If you wind up with too many thoughts in your head, or you feel too nervous, you might find that you are ‘stuck’ at address, struggling to move putter back away from the ball. This is a relatively common problem, and it affects professionals as well as amateurs. In this section, we are going to provide some tips for how you can work around this issue moving forward.

Don’t delay. One of the best ways you can avoid the issue of getting stuck over the ball is simply to avoid letting too much time elapse while standing at address. You don’t need to rush, but you also don’t want to give yourself so much time that you struggle to get moving again. The best putters tend to have a nice rhythm to the process they use to roll a putt. They make their read, walk up to the ball and settle into a stance, take a last look at the hole, and let it go. If you were to let several seconds go by while staring at the ball in your address position, your body will grow more tense and you’ll struggle to get started properly. Maintain a relaxed grip. Another way to steer clear of getting stuck over the ball is to keep your grip relaxed as you get ready to putt. Again, this has to do with tension. If your hands are squeezing tightly on the handle of the putter, you are going to feel tense and you may have trouble getting the putter to move. Since you aren’t going to be making a big swing with your putter, it should be relatively easy to use a relaxed grip and get the results you desire. In addition to helping you get started successfully, using a relaxed grip is also a great way to produce a consistent stroke time after time – particularly under pressure. Practice using a light grip before each round and then stick with this fundamental once on the course. Try using a trigger. If you are hitting on the first two points and still struggling to get your putting stroke started, consider adding a ‘trigger’ to your process in order to get moving in a timely manner. A trigger is nothing more than a specific move which you will use to signal the start of your stroke. Perhaps the most-common option with regard to putting is the forward press. After you have addressed the ball and taken a final look at the hole, you move your hands slightly forward toward the hole as a way to initiate the stroke. This is a subtle move, to enough to get things started and you should have an easier time continuing on from there. Of course, you might find that the forward press is not a good fit for you, so feel free to experiment until you settle on something which leads to positive results.

It's a bad feeling to get stuck over the ball when trying to start your swing. You may become self-conscious about this issue as well, knowing the others in your group are wondering what is taking so long. To get beyond this problem, you need to have a plan and you need to practice that plan consistently.

Try This Drill

If you regularly practice your golf game, you are probably familiar with the feeling of being a bit lost on the practice green or the range. Sometimes, you head out for a practice session and don’t really have a clear plan in mind for the time you are going to invest. That’s a problem, of course, because you may end up wasting this valuable time. How do you avoid such an outcome? By having a specific plan in mind, and by using some drills. Drills are great for golf practice because they help you focus on trying to improve one specific part of your game. In this case, that part of your game is the backswing of your putting stroke.

To try this drill for yourself during an upcoming practice session, please follow the steps below.

The setup for this drill is quite simple. You are going to need your putter, a few golf balls, and a place to hit some putts. The putts you will be hitting are going to be rather short – less than 10 feet – so you don’t need to have a big section of the practice green available. Find a hole which is cut in a relatively flat section of the putting green and place your few golf balls down on the ground. To get started, pull one ball from the group and take your stance as you would for any other putt. It doesn’t matter exactly how far you are away from the hole. So, there’s no need to measure or anything like that. Giving yourself a putt in the 5’ – 10’ range will work just fine. Take your aim based on the slope of the green, settle into your stance, and get ready to hit the putt. However, before you actually hit the putt, you are going to make one key change. Instead of keeping your hands together, as you would for a normal putt, you are going to slide your right hand well down the grip of the putter. Keep your left hand up near the top of the grip and move your right hand down near the bottom. You will now have what is commonly known as a ‘split grip’. While this is probably not a technique you would want to use on the course anytime soon, it can help you to get the feel for a proper putting stroke. Now that your split grip is established, go ahead and hit your first putt. Of course, your stroke is going to feel a bit awkward at first, having made such a dramatic change to your grip. So, what are you trying to learn with this drill? The goal here is to learn that your hands and wrists don’t need to be active in order to complete a proper backswing. With your hands so far apart, it will be nearly impossible to actively use them while swinging back. You’ll be forced to control the club with your shoulders, which is what you should be doing in the first place. Feel free to hit as many putts as you like while using this drill. Once you are done with the drill, move your hands back together and hit a few more putts. When you return to your normal grip, be sure to remember what you have learned and keep your hands out of the backstroke.

It's a good idea to have a few drills in your ‘toolbox’ so you can make sure to get the most out of your golf practice sessions. If you like this drill, and you find that it works well for you, be sure to keep it in mind and put it into action from time to time.

Other Putting Keys

To wrap up this article, we want to go in a different direction and simply offer a few general putting tips to help you lower your scores in upcoming rounds.

Pick your spots to be aggressive. Not every putt is going to be suitable for an aggressive attempt. For example, if you are putting downhill from twenty feet on fast greens, you should not take an aggressive approach. Instead, you’ll want to use cautious speed and attempt to leave the ball as close to the hole as you can for an easy tap in. You can allow your mind to switch into an aggressive mode when you are putting uphill, or when the greens are slow enough that you don’t have to worry about too much run out beyond the cup. Practice your green reading. Most golfers take the time to practice their putting stroke on occasion, but few actually work on their green reading. During practice, focus on developing accurate reads before hitting your putts. This is a skill just like anything else, and you should improve over time if you put in the effort. Play more break. Have you noticed that most of your putts seem to be missing on the low side? If so, you aren’t alone. It is common for amateur golfers to miss on the low side, as most golfers fail to read enough break on the average putt. During your next practice session or round, try adding a bit more break to all of your reads and see how your results change.

It’s going to be difficult to produce great putting results if you don’t have a quality backswing in your putting stroke. You need to get off to a good start with your stroke each time, as there simply isn’t time during the stroke to make up for early mistakes. We hope the tips in this article will help take your putting performance to a new level. Good luck!

When you’re putting how should the back stroke move away from the ball for the most accurate results? Well I think what we can do here, we can learn from other sporting activities that produce a lot of accuracy consistency. So if we look at somebody for example playing darts, they would take the dart they would bring it straight back and deliver it straight through and straight back straight through is going to deliver the most accurate results. Likewise somebody playing snooker can bring the snooker cue straight back and straight through to produce the most accurate results and any curving in darts, or any curving in snooker or pool isn’t producing any great results.

So the same thing needs to happen really in golf. You could imagine that the line on the back of your putter, that’s your pool cue. You want to bring that pool cue straight back and straight through as regularly as possible to produce the most accurate roll on your putts. So particularly looking at this in the back stroke now, I set up nicely, I’ve got everything nicely on line, I want to bring that club straight back so my line is pointing exactly at the golf ball, and exactly at my intended target line. For example if I made a bad stroke, got my bottom elbow tucked in a little bit too much that could pull the club inside the line.

So I’m off line opening the face like if it I lifted my hands, my hands would take the club outside the line potentially hitting the face as well and any mistake in my stroke in the back swing is probably going to be compounded by a compensatory motion in the follow through. So it’s really important that I work hard taking the club straight back and taking the club straight through keeping them between these two rails. These two rails you can practice at home with two spare clubs. Take out your putting wedge and your sun wedge lay them on the carpet and in the lounge, put the club right in between and just and get that club rocking straight back and straight through, straight back as you possibly can. Remember the dart thrower, and the pool player, straight back and straight through. As much as you can do that, you’ll improve the accuracy of your putts.