Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

If you get that your ball you’ve hit on to the green and it’s right against the collar and the fringe of the roof and the green, it can be a really difficult shot to hit. The reason being is because the collar of the green is so high compared to the green that the putter is going to get tied up in the grass as you have made your backswing. And you can demonstrate that if you just put another club on the floor here and have the ball next to that club, you can see that’s going to be really difficult for me to hit this ball even if I set it correctly here.

It’s going to be really difficult, I’ll tend to hit the shaft so that would be me making the putter head move through the longer grass. And it’s going to be really difficult to get consistent hit and to control the distance. So try this as a tip if you do find yourself in that position; actually hit the ball with the toe of the putter. So rather than with hitting with the face what we are going to do is we are going to turn the putter head around and we are going to hit with the toe but remember this only works if you’ve got a flat toed putter. If your putter is curved, it’s more of a mallet style it’s going to be difficult to do this. So only try this with a flat putter to get the ball to come off at the correct angle.

So again we are going to set the ball up to represent, with this club to represent the collar and what will happen is as you set the toe of the putter to the ball you can see the heel is really high and off the floor. If you set yourself up ready to putt because you’ve already got the heel up in the air, as you swing the putter back it will lift out of the longer grass, lift up over the shat that we are representing the collar here. And it’s going to come out of the grass so it’s going to be much easy to swing back and get a better connection. So it’s a bit like hitting the toe poke really. Keep the swing smooth but because the heel is already elevated off the floor the putter is going to move up above the grass rather than the thread and it will be much easier for you to make the stroke. The ball will bounce as you do this because obviously the putter is swinging down at the ball but you should get a much better and more consistent connection. If you do find yourself in that position where the ball is right next to the collar there’s a lot of grass and it’s difficult to make a backswing without pinning the grass, turn the putter head around and just try that stroke as though you are hitting a toe poke; you get a much better result.