All of today’s best players display an extremely consistent putting stroke and they achieve this by ensuring that their wrists are very passive during their putting action.
Having a putting stroke where your wrists are passive, simply means that you do not use your wrist during the stroke. The wrists and the angle that is created in each during the set up, remain the same throughout the putting stroke.
If you use your wrists during the putting action, you will experience a flicking action and as a result of this the putter head will rise from the putting surface and strike the golf ball on the up swing. The putter head will strike the upper part of the golf ball on the lower area of the putter face and this will produce an inconsistent contact and give you issues with being able to control the distance of the putts that you are playing. You will tend to leave your putts short with this type of stroke and contact. However, due to this you will make a bigger and firmer stroke, trying to compensate and create more speed to strike the ball further, but with a slightly better contact this will now strike the ball too far past the hole. Distance control becomes extremely difficult with a wristy putting action.
Excessive use of your wrists during your putting stroke also makes it difficult to control the aim of your putter face as you strike the ball. Making a flicking action with your wrists will cause the putter face to rotate left of the target line as you are striking, so hitting putts accurately along the target line now becomes much more difficult.
To improve your putting and allow it to become much more consistent, work on controlling your wrists and maintaining your wrist angle throughout the stroke in order to deliver the putter head and face more consistently to the golf ball.
A great drill to work on to help you to improve keeping your wrists passive throughout your putting stroke, would be to hold about three to four inches lower down on the handle. This will now allow you to place a golf ball between your left forearm and the upper end of the putter handle (right handed golfers). Make your putting stroke and work on keeping the ball between your left wrist and the putter handle. If you flick your wrist during the stroke, the gap that the ball is in will increase and the ball will fall out of that position, indicating clearly that you have flicked your wrist.
If you are able to putt and keep the golf ball between the putter handle and your wrist, you will find that your stroke becomes much more consistent and you more consistently deliver the putter face to the side of the golf ball. You will also notice that the tempo of your putting stroke improves and becomes more consistent. Any flicking action in your wrist will impart more speed into the club head, so keeping your wrists passive and swinging more from your shoulders will allow you to keep the speed of the putter head much more constant. As a result you will deliver a more consistent putting stroke.
