You're Correct!

Over the past 10 years, a growing number of golfers have turned to longer length putters, not as a last resort in a bid to improve their putting or cure them from the dreaded yips, but as an effective method of holing more puts.

Some of the best golfers in the world have even admitted to using one in practise to help them improve their putting stroke with a normal length putter. But what benefits would the best players in the world see?

First of all, lets take a look at the normal putting stroke. You would see your arms hang freely from the shoulders, your hands and wrists are free to influence the direction of the club or the speed of the stroke in either direction. Then if you look at the way some of your putts miss the hole, you realise that some are due to the hands and wrists moving more than they need to during your stroke, causing misses off line while also providing inconsistent speed control.

If you had a belly putter, you would see a difference in your set up with the butt of the grip anchored into an area around your belly button. As everyone differs in height, getting the correct length is critical so that the butt sits in the right spot. You can place your hands on the handle. Take care to run the handle through your life lines. From this position, your hands and wrists will only have a limited degree of movement. This will enable you to create a controlled stroke that repeats time and again due to the arms and shoulders being the only moving parts around a fixed point.

The biggest benefits from this are a constant path of your putting stroke which would enable you to start more putts on the line you choose while having the ability to control the speed of your putts too. When it comes to those knee knocking two and three footers, the fact your putter is anchored to your body keeps everything steady and helps you hole out more often.

Potentially, this could be the case but in reality if your speed control and alignment is not good and constant then you will only ever hole the same number of putts regardless of the type of putter you use. The only way you can hole more putts is to create a solid routine that aligns you every time to the line you choose.

No matter what the length of your putt, or how straight it is, if you dont have control of the speed of the putt then you will either see your putts run past or stop short of the hole. Changing from a normal putter to a belly putter will not make the slightest difference to this.

The longer the length of your putt, the more difficult it is to control your speed. Your arms hanging freely gives you the opportunity to create a little give in your wrists, helping you gain a little more natural acceleration to your stroke. This is impossible when the putter is anchored to the belly and forces you to hit at the ball more creating an inconsistency in your speed control.