How Should My Set Up And Stroke Change For Long And Short Putts Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
How Should My Set Up And Stroke Change For Long And Short Putts Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

It’s a great question this one, how should you set up on your stroke change for long and short putts? We take it into two parts, how should your setup change for long and short putts? Easy answer is it shouldn’t change. The stance, the width, the ball position, the grip, the head position, everything should be exactly the same because I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm trying to deliver the club to the back of the ball in an exact straight line pointing at my intended target.

So whether I'm trying to do that over three feet, whether I'm trying to do that over 30 feet, my setup, my grip, my stance, my posture doesn’t change at all for long and short putts. In fact the only thing that does change when I'm taking long and short putts is simply the length of the back swing and the length of the follow through. It's not even a case that I'm trying to hit these putts harder and softer. So I definitely don’t want to bring them all back to the same position, tap on and wipe the other one. That might give me a different distance but it's going to be very difficult to control that. So what I want to do here is for short putts, have a shoulder back swing and a follow through for long putt at least longer back swing and follow through. I'd often work on the principle of my back swing under my follow through. My back swing is one third, my follow through is two thirds. So the follow through is always longer, but it's in relation to how far I've got to go. So for short putt, short swing and for longer putt, a longer stroke and that’s the thing you should be considering changing. So don’t change your grip, your stance, your posture, your head or body position, change the length of your stroke. Vary the length of your stroke to vary the length of your putts.
2014-10-15

It’s a great question this one, how should you set up on your stroke change for long and short putts? We take it into two parts, how should your setup change for long and short putts? Easy answer is it shouldn’t change. The stance, the width, the ball position, the grip, the head position, everything should be exactly the same because I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm trying to deliver the club to the back of the ball in an exact straight line pointing at my intended target.

So whether I'm trying to do that over three feet, whether I'm trying to do that over 30 feet, my setup, my grip, my stance, my posture doesn’t change at all for long and short putts. In fact the only thing that does change when I'm taking long and short putts is simply the length of the back swing and the length of the follow through. It's not even a case that I'm trying to hit these putts harder and softer. So I definitely don’t want to bring them all back to the same position, tap on and wipe the other one. That might give me a different distance but it's going to be very difficult to control that.

So what I want to do here is for short putts, have a shoulder back swing and a follow through for long putt at least longer back swing and follow through. I'd often work on the principle of my back swing under my follow through. My back swing is one third, my follow through is two thirds. So the follow through is always longer, but it's in relation to how far I've got to go. So for short putt, short swing and for longer putt, a longer stroke and that’s the thing you should be considering changing. So don’t change your grip, your stance, your posture, your head or body position, change the length of your stroke. Vary the length of your stroke to vary the length of your putts.