Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

If you’re looking to improve your putting stroke and to hold more putts and get a much better roll on the ball as you putt on the green, then work on keeping your putter head low during the stroke. If the putter head is raising too much on the back swing it will really cause you to strike down quite aggressively on the ball and as the putter strikes down it will make the ball jump up and it will start bobbling and lifting and moving too much in the air rather than it rolling and hugging the green. So keeping the putter head low allows you to move the putter head back a better angle, a much shallower angle to the ball and as such the ball won’t lift into the air, because it’s not being hit down on so much.

So, a great way to work on that would be to use a string or all we’ve got set up here is an alignment pole between two baskets. If you set up with the alignment pole only just above your putter head and go into a good putting position, so fit shoulder with the part you’d have the ball centered in the stands, arms nice and long, very relaxed position and the eyes over this line or just inside and then work on keeping the putter head nice and low to the ground, so its stays underneath the alignment pole or the string if you were using it. You could do that between two knitting needles and push the knitting needles into the green, so the string is just a couple of inches above the ground.

That will show you if you’re keeping your putter head nice and low. So if you’re lifting the putter head too much on the back swing, you’ll hit the pole, you’ll get the feedback and you’ll know that you’re going to hit down too much on the ball. That will make the ball jump into the air and it won’t roll correctly along the green. On the follow through if you find that you’re lifting the putter up during the follow through again you’ll get the feedback because you’ll hit the pole or hit the string and what’s happening there is more likely that you’re topping the ball and pulling the putter head up away from the ball, so you’re not going to strike from the middle of the clubface and that’s going to give you issues of distance control and hitting the ball short.

So, make sure that you keep the putter head low to the ground to really ensure you got a good solid contact, you’ll start to get a much better roll on the golf ball and you’ll improve your putting.