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What Effect Will Having A Decelerating Putting Stroke Have On My Golf PuttingOne of the most common faults that occurs in putting is decelerating the putter in your putting stroke.


This will usually occur when the length of the back stroke is too long for the distance of the putt, so subconsciously you start to slow down in the forward stroke. This creates two big issues. Firstly, your putt will not have the required speed to travel the distance you need to have a chance of holing your putt. Secondly, as your putting stroke slows down, the putter head in fact speeds up and flicks through the impact area looking closed (facing the low side) to the target. This is due to the arm movement of your stroke slowing down causing the lead wrist to break down.

There are a couple of great practise putting drills that will help you to feel the putter accelerate more through the stroke, so the next time youre on the practice putting green, this is what you need to do:

First take six balls and find a flat spot on the green, pace out 10 steps and place a tee into the green. Take your normal set up, addressing the ball and when you feel that you are ready to make your stroke, put your trailing hand into your pocket so the lead hand is the only hand on the grip. Now hit your putt towards the tee peg, keeping the wrist firm and feeling the back of your hand push towards the tee. Do this with all six balls and see how close to the tee you can group them. Keep repeating this drill until you hit all of your putts approximately 12-18 inches past the tee.
Now take three more tees, sit your putter on the ground so the sole is completely flat on the green. Put a tee either side of the putter face leaving around a quarter of an inch gap from both the heel and the toe so the putter can travel through this gate. The final tee needs to be put into the green 12 inches behind the gate that you have created. Place your ball just in front of the gate of tees. Place your putter in between the gate and take your set up so you are ready to make your putting stroke. When you make your back stroke, dont let your putter hit the tee that is 12 inches behind the gate. This will stop you making too long a back stroke and decelerating into impact.

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Decelerating your putter into impact will have a negative effect on your distance control. Not only will every putt you hit finish short of the hole but the distance you will have left to avoid three putting will be different each time depending on how much deceleration occurs in each stroke.

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Deceleration into impact leads to more off centre impacts than ever. This is because your lead wrist breaks down and causes the hands to flip the putter head through impact. The result will be putts that finish short and to the low side of the hole.

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Slowing down and flipping the hands through impact will only ever lead to you holing less putts not more. The only way to hole more putts is to work on your technique, green reading and keeping the putter smoothly accelerating through impact.