Side-Saddle Putting and Putters (Video) - by Pete Styles
Side-Saddle Putting and Putters (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now if you want to attract some funny looks and some quizzical glances from your playing partners when you're warming up on a golf putting green before you play, here's a way to do it. It's going to be the side saddle putting stroke.

It's not something that you come across everyday on the golf course or even when you watch the best plays in the world play, but if you've got a really bad case of the yips and you're struggling to make putts, particularly the shorter putts, the little three and four-footers, putting side saddle is so different from what you've normally been doing. Your body just won't have the opportunity to sort of do the yippy thing that it normally does. It will feel very different and hopefully, you'll be able to iron out the mistakes in your stroke.

Basically the side saddle putting is where you face directly towards the hole here but play the ball from the side of your body. So, you would take a putter and try and get the putter to sit and pretty much vertical to the ground here, vertical straight up. You would place the ball outside and opposite your little toe of your right foot. You then position your left hand at the top of the grip, just below your right shoulder and your right hand would sit pretty much vertically downwards at the base of the grip.

The putting stroke is then straight back and straight through, just removing the ball there. And hopefully you can see how the club comes straight back and straight through and it doesn't have a great deal of kind of curve around the body. And because the hands are doing something completely different, there's no real opportunity to get the yips or the flick of the right hand that might have been plaguing you in the past.

So if you fancy a big change to your putting game, and you can cope with the side saddle putting method, maybe that's something you could go ahead and try and hopefully eliminate those three putts or those yips.

 2012-08-07

Now if you want to attract some funny looks and some quizzical glances from your playing partners when you're warming up on a golf putting green before you play, here's a way to do it. It's going to be the side saddle putting stroke.

It's not something that you come across everyday on the golf course or even when you watch the best plays in the world play, but if you've got a really bad case of the yips and you're struggling to make putts, particularly the shorter putts, the little three and four-footers, putting side saddle is so different from what you've normally been doing. Your body just won't have the opportunity to sort of do the yippy thing that it normally does. It will feel very different and hopefully, you'll be able to iron out the mistakes in your stroke.

Basically the side saddle putting is where you face directly towards the hole here but play the ball from the side of your body. So, you would take a putter and try and get the putter to sit and pretty much vertical to the ground here, vertical straight up. You would place the ball outside and opposite your little toe of your right foot. You then position your left hand at the top of the grip, just below your right shoulder and your right hand would sit pretty much vertically downwards at the base of the grip.

The putting stroke is then straight back and straight through, just removing the ball there. And hopefully you can see how the club comes straight back and straight through and it doesn't have a great deal of kind of curve around the body. And because the hands are doing something completely different, there's no real opportunity to get the yips or the flick of the right hand that might have been plaguing you in the past.

So if you fancy a big change to your putting game, and you can cope with the side saddle putting method, maybe that's something you could go ahead and try and hopefully eliminate those three putts or those yips.