Whats More Important Putting Aim or Stroke Path (Video) - by Pete Styles
Whats More Important Putting Aim or Stroke Path (Video) - by Pete Styles

Interesting question this one about which is the most important: is it important to get the putter aimed in the right direction, or is it more important to get the path of the stroke in the right direction? And I think a lot of golfers would probably get this wrong, they would spend a huge amount of time working on their putting stroke and a lot of people would question well if you have got an arching stroke like this coming around and around its going to be very difficult to hit the ball straight and likewise if you have got a stroke that wobbles around and sort of stuff, that is going to cause a big problem, but actually, in reality the path the club takes is only responsible for around about 10% of the initial starting direction of any putt. The clubface alignment and aim, that is responsible for the biggest 90%, so if you are going to focus on one thing, when you are out there putting, you really need to focus on aiming the club, at the desired start direction, now I stress it’s the desired start direction, its not always the hole, we don’t aim at the hole very often when we are putting because most putts will have some degree of break. So its important that we read the break, we look at where we want the ball to start then we aim the putter at that point, so literally take the back line of the putter, aim it exactly in the starting direction and then make a good back and through stroke. So we are trying to make that stroke as even as possible back and through, but actually the priority, the 90% influence of where this ball starts is the clubface position and not the stroke.

2015-04-01

Interesting question this one about which is the most important: is it important to get the putter aimed in the right direction, or is it more important to get the path of the stroke in the right direction? And I think a lot of golfers would probably get this wrong, they would spend a huge amount of time working on their putting stroke and a lot of people would question well if you have got an arching stroke like this coming around and around its going to be very difficult to hit the ball straight and likewise if you have got a stroke that wobbles around and sort of stuff, that is going to cause a big problem, but actually, in reality the path the club takes is only responsible for around about 10% of the initial starting direction of any putt. The clubface alignment and aim, that is responsible for the biggest 90%, so if you are going to focus on one thing, when you are out there putting, you really need to focus on aiming the club, at the desired start direction, now I stress it’s the desired start direction, its not always the hole, we don’t aim at the hole very often when we are putting because most putts will have some degree of break. So its important that we read the break, we look at where we want the ball to start then we aim the putter at that point, so literally take the back line of the putter, aim it exactly in the starting direction and then make a good back and through stroke. So we are trying to make that stroke as even as possible back and through, but actually the priority, the 90% influence of where this ball starts is the clubface position and not the stroke.