You're Correct!

The putting stroke should be the most simple of actions to repeat and see great results from, yet rolling the ball into a hole with a motion that hardly moves is the most difficult of the actions you will produce in the game of golf. The biggest reason for this during the putting stroke is that golfers struggle to keep the lower half of their bodies stable.

Having stability in the legs and keeping the knees firm is vital if you are to be consistent with your putting stroke. This not only gives you the base to keep your strike close to the middle of your putter face but also keeps you free from tension making it easier for you to control your speed and distance.

A fantastic drill to help you keep your knees and legs stable is to practise your putting with a ball trapped in between your knees. You can use either a soccer ball, a small gym ball or a beach ball and pinch it right between your knees. Feel the pressure of the inside of both knees pushing into the ball. Hit some putts like this and you will instantly feel the difference, it will feel really restricted, almost like your legs are set in concrete.

Move the ball and hit some more putts. Try to keep the same feeling in the knees and legs. This will help you to feel your stroke move easily back and through while maintaining the impact in the centre of the putter face. The more you practise this drill, the greater the consistency of the impact on the putter face.

If your legs and knees rotate a little towards the target then your putter face will be rotating into a position that is closed to the arc of your path. This will result in you missing a lot of putts to the low side of the hole, and even struggle with seemingly easy, straight putts too.

If you lock your knees in a straight leg position in a bid to stop them from shaking then you will only create tension in your lower body. This tension can then spread to the upper body, shoulder, hands and arms resulting in an unnatural stroke that jabs at the ball. It can also cause you to fall back on your heels, which will have a massive effect on the quality of your impact.

If you start to slide your knees back and through in the same manner as your putter during your stroke, you will only create an unstable base that will have disastrous results. The more movement you have in your body, the more often you will impact the ball towards either the toe or the heel of the putter. This will result in you missing a lot of putts and shooting scores that are way too high.