Make Your Putts Roll, Not Bounce (Video) - by Pete Styles
Make Your Putts Roll, Not Bounce (Video) - by Pete Styles

One of the real keys to being a good consistent putter is making sure that when you strike the ball, the ball rolls evenly. We want to try and get a ball rolling end over end as nicely as possible. And often when you are watching the tour players, you will actually hear them comment on each of the putts and say, oh good roll, even if the putt doesn’t go in, they can tell when a putts been hit nicely and it was rolling towards the hole quite well. Now big factor of this is whether the balls skids or jumps before it starts rolling. Most putts will skid for a little bit when you strike them, purely because the ball is still, you hit it and then it has to get to the speed it wants to be and then it rolls across the green. And it might back spill or slide a little bit across the green surface to start with before it runs out, but you want to make sure that you don’t get the ball skipping or jumping or skidding more than it should be.

Now the ideal position the way you should be hitting your golf ball when you are putting is with about 3 or 4 degrees of loft now that might be a surprise to some people because a lot of people comes to the putter is a perfect flat face, well that isn't true if you look at most putters they will have a little bit of loft on them because the manufacturers know that that’s 3 or 4 degrees of loft is the ideal position to get the ball rolling most efficiently. So if your putter already has 3 or 4 degrees of loft on it you have got to make sure that when we hit the putt we keep the relevant amounts of loft at the point of impact, and we don’t decrease the loft or increase the loft due to mistakes in our stroke.

So one important factor here is ball position, the other is shaft lean. Ball position should be for me just slightly ahead of center, we don’t really want to have ball too far, back in the stance that would encourage that shaft lean you would hit down on the putt, bouncing into the surface and then it would spin from that or skip from there, likewise too far forward in the stance has too much loft lifting the putter into the areas you hit the ball, lifting the ball up and skidding it to go. So just slightly ahead of -- almost like a 6 iron time ball position, how you would place your six irons to the front side of center, that should be a good position for your putts to be hit from as well. And then try and make sure that the handle of the putter sits pretty evenly over the face and we don’t have the hands sitting too much behind or too much ahead in the address position. And then also encouraging to make a good smooth stroke without too much wrist hinge that would increase or decrease the loft and the putter as well.

Now when you are hitting these putts one of the biggest skills you can have is listening for the putt, listening for the putt to just roll smoothly off the face and not jump and jitter as you hit it. Now hopefully if you can hit the putt with the 3 or 4 degrees of loft that the putts manufacturers intended you to have on the putter, you would actually hit your ball better, smoother and get a more consistent distance out of all your putt, try it next time when you are on the practice screen and I hope that helps.

 2012-07-17

One of the real keys to being a good consistent putter is making sure that when you strike the ball, the ball rolls evenly. We want to try and get a ball rolling end over end as nicely as possible. And often when you are watching the tour players, you will actually hear them comment on each of the putts and say, oh good roll, even if the putt doesn’t go in, they can tell when a putts been hit nicely and it was rolling towards the hole quite well. Now big factor of this is whether the balls skids or jumps before it starts rolling. Most putts will skid for a little bit when you strike them, purely because the ball is still, you hit it and then it has to get to the speed it wants to be and then it rolls across the green. And it might back spill or slide a little bit across the green surface to start with before it runs out, but you want to make sure that you don’t get the ball skipping or jumping or skidding more than it should be.

Now the ideal position the way you should be hitting your golf ball when you are putting is with about 3 or 4 degrees of loft now that might be a surprise to some people because a lot of people comes to the putter is a perfect flat face, well that isn't true if you look at most putters they will have a little bit of loft on them because the manufacturers know that that’s 3 or 4 degrees of loft is the ideal position to get the ball rolling most efficiently. So if your putter already has 3 or 4 degrees of loft on it you have got to make sure that when we hit the putt we keep the relevant amounts of loft at the point of impact, and we don’t decrease the loft or increase the loft due to mistakes in our stroke.

So one important factor here is ball position, the other is shaft lean. Ball position should be for me just slightly ahead of center, we don’t really want to have ball too far, back in the stance that would encourage that shaft lean you would hit down on the putt, bouncing into the surface and then it would spin from that or skip from there, likewise too far forward in the stance has too much loft lifting the putter into the areas you hit the ball, lifting the ball up and skidding it to go. So just slightly ahead of — almost like a 6 iron time ball position, how you would place your six irons to the front side of center, that should be a good position for your putts to be hit from as well. And then try and make sure that the handle of the putter sits pretty evenly over the face and we don’t have the hands sitting too much behind or too much ahead in the address position. And then also encouraging to make a good smooth stroke without too much wrist hinge that would increase or decrease the loft and the putter as well.

Now when you are hitting these putts one of the biggest skills you can have is listening for the putt, listening for the putt to just roll smoothly off the face and not jump and jitter as you hit it. Now hopefully if you can hit the putt with the 3 or 4 degrees of loft that the putts manufacturers intended you to have on the putter, you would actually hit your ball better, smoother and get a more consistent distance out of all your putt, try it next time when you are on the practice screen and I hope that helps.