What is the Best Type of Putting Stroke A Long Swing or a Short Pop Senior Putting (Video) - by Dean Butler
What is the Best Type of Putting Stroke A Long Swing or a Short Pop Senior Putting (Video) - by Dean Butler

So if I gave the choice out of the following two which one would you choose before I kind of give you the answer? Do you think it’s easy to have a short pop or do you think it’s better to have a longer swing for putting? So I want to give you just a – a few seconds to think about that before we actually give you the answers. You have short pop or long? Well a short pop would basically put you in a situation where it would be more a case of take the club back short and then pop it through. Keep it short and pop, you might think ‘Well that’s good, it’s acceleration’. But if you look at the other one, which is a longer swing, they go about longer. And the thing that you should notice straight away is that it’s much smoother. The tempo is the same but it’s nice and smooth. So we have got a much, much better feel.

So straight away you must be saying hopefully, it got to be the longer swing and it is, the longer swing is – makes sense. You know one of the things in golf that we come across is panic, yips. That’s the sort of situation where we miss a putt from here and take two or three more putts. And the – the shorter – one of the things that I was always told when I was first coming into be a professional golfer was; if you are going to play somebody a match, and they are on the putting ring, and they’ve got a very, very, short swing, don’t give them anything. And it’s very true, if someone has got a very, very, short swing, then believe me, it’s more of a yip, a push as you get – It’s all on the very, very short putt but all putts aren’t short they are most probably medium-to-large, most putts. So a short stroke is one where you’ve got to put the foot on the gas pedal. You got to put the foot into accelerate, and of course putting is predominantly about feel not about accelerating. It’s about feel. So to answer the question, it’s all about just giving yourself a little bit of a longer swing than something which is short and jerky. Look, give yourself space going back and space going forward. And if you want a sort of drill to kind of think, ‘how should I go about it?’ Maybe just put a couple of head covers down. You put a couple of head covers down like so and you put the ball in the middle and keep yourself maybe, there’s about one and a half feet of space in between each one. If I set myself up with the ball slightly further forward, don’t let yourself see the ball positioned in the middle of the stance but keep it between the heel and the middle, eyes over the top. If you just look at this sort of swing here, you can see I’ve gone back to, just outside the foot and as I come through here, I’m going to go through. And it’s a nice pendulum, it’s a nice smooth swing, there’s no jerk in this, there’s no prodding, poking, jiving, yipping. Okay but as soon as we bring those head covers in for those people who think I’m all right, but you’ve got to put that head cover here, then you end up with a follow-through where – If I move that out of the way like this, too short and we end up with a push. Too short and we end up with a push and you can see, it is jab, it’s nervous, it doesn’t breathe confidence. So short pop? No. A longer swing creates a smoother swing and from that you get a lot more control for your putting. So hopefully, you got it nice and clear in your mind, longer swing not a short pop. 2014-04-03

So if I gave the choice out of the following two which one would you choose before I kind of give you the answer? Do you think it’s easy to have a short pop or do you think it’s better to have a longer swing for putting? So I want to give you just a – a few seconds to think about that before we actually give you the answers. You have short pop or long? Well a short pop would basically put you in a situation where it would be more a case of take the club back short and then pop it through. Keep it short and pop, you might think ‘Well that’s good, it’s acceleration’. But if you look at the other one, which is a longer swing, they go about longer. And the thing that you should notice straight away is that it’s much smoother. The tempo is the same but it’s nice and smooth. So we have got a much, much better feel.

So straight away you must be saying hopefully, it got to be the longer swing and it is, the longer swing is – makes sense. You know one of the things in golf that we come across is panic, yips. That’s the sort of situation where we miss a putt from here and take two or three more putts. And the – the shorter – one of the things that I was always told when I was first coming into be a professional golfer was; if you are going to play somebody a match, and they are on the putting ring, and they’ve got a very, very, short swing, don’t give them anything. And it’s very true, if someone has got a very, very, short swing, then believe me, it’s more of a yip, a push as you get – It’s all on the very, very short putt but all putts aren’t short they are most probably medium-to-large, most putts. So a short stroke is one where you’ve got to put the foot on the gas pedal. You got to put the foot into accelerate, and of course putting is predominantly about feel not about accelerating. It’s about feel. So to answer the question, it’s all about just giving yourself a little bit of a longer swing than something which is short and jerky.

Look, give yourself space going back and space going forward. And if you want a sort of drill to kind of think, ‘how should I go about it?’ Maybe just put a couple of head covers down. You put a couple of head covers down like so and you put the ball in the middle and keep yourself maybe, there’s about one and a half feet of space in between each one. If I set myself up with the ball slightly further forward, don’t let yourself see the ball positioned in the middle of the stance but keep it between the heel and the middle, eyes over the top. If you just look at this sort of swing here, you can see I’ve gone back to, just outside the foot and as I come through here, I’m going to go through. And it’s a nice pendulum, it’s a nice smooth swing, there’s no jerk in this, there’s no prodding, poking, jiving, yipping.

Okay but as soon as we bring those head covers in for those people who think I’m all right, but you’ve got to put that head cover here, then you end up with a follow-through where – If I move that out of the way like this, too short and we end up with a push. Too short and we end up with a push and you can see, it is jab, it’s nervous, it doesn’t breathe confidence. So short pop? No. A longer swing creates a smoother swing and from that you get a lot more control for your putting. So hopefully, you got it nice and clear in your mind, longer swing not a short pop.