Fat Shots With A Golf Putter – Yes It Happens (Video) - by Pete Styles
Fat Shots With A Golf Putter – Yes It Happens (Video) - by Pete Styles

There’s never a good time to fat the golf ball on the golf course, generally fat shots aren’t what we want to see, they’re never going to hit the ball any better. The worst time to fat a ball is with this club, the putter. Yeah you’ve got this nice little 20, 40 trying to cozy it down to the hole to two putt. And as you strike the ball you strike the ground too much at the same time and that's quite a big problem, because the ball is going to go nowhere near and it’s embarrassing as much as anything. Now the putting technique is a relatively simple technique when we compare it to everything else that’s going on here. So I don’t ever think this is too much of a technical issue, I think this is much more of a psychological issue with the golfer almost trying to get the club underneath the ball, because that’s what we’ve practiced doing with every other club in the bag. Every other club in the bag hits quite a long way below the equator of the ball almost to catch the ground at the same time as the ball. But a putter has no requirement to do that because the putter face has very, very limited loft, effectively no loft, it doesn’t matter really if the ball hits, the middle, the top, the bottom of the club face, it’s going to roll the ball a very similar distance. But what we can’t afford to do is let the club hit the ground before the ball, because clearly that’s going to slow it down.

So generally speaking it’s a psychological problem if you’re fatting your putter more than anything else. But just a couple of things to be very conscious of, when you’re setting up to the putt we want to make sure we’ve got this feeling that yes, the club is touching the ground now but actually when the club comes back to the ball it’s not going to touch the ground, it going to lift slightly. Now, if you’re struggling with that idea of starting at one level and coming back slightly higher up, what you might consider doing is actually hovering the club at setup. So you line everything up, you’re comfortable and then you just raise the club up just by an inch not even that, half an inch, quarter of an inch, lift it up a tiny bit so it’s not on the ground, then go ahead and make your stroke. And hopefully that just helps you feel that you are at the right level to start with and you bring the club back to exactly the same height. A couple of other key elements to work on, just control your eye movement, don’t go looking around, don’t go watching the club just focus on your impact position focus on the back of the golf ball where you want to hit, so your eyes stay down, you make your stroke and you’re not going to turn your head and watch what goes on with the club. Keep a nice wide stable platform with the knees so the knees aren’t rocking too much or moving too much, that’s not going to do you any good. And make sure the rocking motion in the putting stroke comes from the shoulders. The shoulders are nice big consistent motions that will keep the club doing the right thing over and over again. If we got a little bit handsy on it there’s a danger that we just drop the hands into it and we just catch the ground before the golf ball. So hopefully fatting your putter is never something that comes to pass in your game, but if it is try and copy those three or four different techniques there. Just practice this at home on the carpet, it’s the easiest shot in golf to practice, do it on the carpet, just concentrate on getting a really good strike, no fats and hopefully that fat putting shot doesn’t ever embarrass you on the golf course again. 2016-04-18

There’s never a good time to fat the golf ball on the golf course, generally fat shots aren’t what we want to see, they’re never going to hit the ball any better. The worst time to fat a ball is with this club, the putter. Yeah you’ve got this nice little 20, 40 trying to cozy it down to the hole to two putt. And as you strike the ball you strike the ground too much at the same time and that's quite a big problem, because the ball is going to go nowhere near and it’s embarrassing as much as anything. Now the putting technique is a relatively simple technique when we compare it to everything else that’s going on here. So I don’t ever think this is too much of a technical issue, I think this is much more of a psychological issue with the golfer almost trying to get the club underneath the ball, because that’s what we’ve practiced doing with every other club in the bag. Every other club in the bag hits quite a long way below the equator of the ball almost to catch the ground at the same time as the ball. But a putter has no requirement to do that because the putter face has very, very limited loft, effectively no loft, it doesn’t matter really if the ball hits, the middle, the top, the bottom of the club face, it’s going to roll the ball a very similar distance. But what we can’t afford to do is let the club hit the ground before the ball, because clearly that’s going to slow it down.

So generally speaking it’s a psychological problem if you’re fatting your putter more than anything else. But just a couple of things to be very conscious of, when you’re setting up to the putt we want to make sure we’ve got this feeling that yes, the club is touching the ground now but actually when the club comes back to the ball it’s not going to touch the ground, it going to lift slightly. Now, if you’re struggling with that idea of starting at one level and coming back slightly higher up, what you might consider doing is actually hovering the club at setup. So you line everything up, you’re comfortable and then you just raise the club up just by an inch not even that, half an inch, quarter of an inch, lift it up a tiny bit so it’s not on the ground, then go ahead and make your stroke. And hopefully that just helps you feel that you are at the right level to start with and you bring the club back to exactly the same height. A couple of other key elements to work on, just control your eye movement, don’t go looking around, don’t go watching the club just focus on your impact position focus on the back of the golf ball where you want to hit, so your eyes stay down, you make your stroke and you’re not going to turn your head and watch what goes on with the club.

Keep a nice wide stable platform with the knees so the knees aren’t rocking too much or moving too much, that’s not going to do you any good. And make sure the rocking motion in the putting stroke comes from the shoulders. The shoulders are nice big consistent motions that will keep the club doing the right thing over and over again. If we got a little bit handsy on it there’s a danger that we just drop the hands into it and we just catch the ground before the golf ball. So hopefully fatting your putter is never something that comes to pass in your game, but if it is try and copy those three or four different techniques there. Just practice this at home on the carpet, it’s the easiest shot in golf to practice, do it on the carpet, just concentrate on getting a really good strike, no fats and hopefully that fat putting shot doesn’t ever embarrass you on the golf course again.