Short Putt, Why Do I Keep Leaving Putts Short (Video) - by Pete Styles
Short Putt, Why Do I Keep Leaving Putts Short (Video) - by Pete Styles

Why do you keep leaving your putts short of the golf hole? Is a question that should probably asked more often than it is. Very rarely the golfers understand that leaving a putt short of the hole is never going to, never going to improve their game, because they can't be aggressive enough to actually give the ball a chance to go in. So you literary have absolutely no chance of getting the ball in if it finishes short ideally you want to give the putt a chance and get it roll past the hole, so why does it finish short of the hole. There’s probably three main reasons for this, if you are consistently leaving your putt short of the hole you should considerer these three things. Firstly are you misreading the putt, if it’s an uphill putt but you are not reading that correctly then that’s one of the reasons why it would stay short to the hole. You are hitting it what you think is hard enough for a flat putt but its uphill you haven't read that and therefore it finishes short. So simply read your putts from the side on and look for any uphill or downhill angulations that would change the speed of the putt and adjust the line of the putts.

The second thing to consider is are you striking the ball correctly from the middle of the club face. Quite often we see people make quite hard and aggressive strokes but then they hit the ball from the heel of the toe the top or the bottom of the club, and that means the ball is not going to roll accurately towards the hole at the right speed and probably the biggest issue I see with a lot of people who leave putts consistently short of the hole is they have an element of deceleration in that putting stroke. They have quite a big long back swing which might actually be too far for this particular putt, then they get scared of that and they decelerate. Quite often that deceleration takes the form of the front wrist braking and slowing down so we get this short putt. So lining up to the putt here get a good line on it, big back swing decelerations as I hit it and I get scared of it and I leave it half way to the hole. So you have got really what’s trying to be a little bit more positive working on the principle of having a shorter back swing and a longer follow through. Almost feel like the follow through is two-thirds the length of the back swing. So it’s a shorter back and a more positive longer follow through. If I can make an accelerating stroke towards the hole I have a little bit more chance of being more positive running the ball up towards the hole and giving it a chance of dropping in and avoid the short putt. So leaving the ball short of the hole is always going to be critical getting the ball up to the hole gives me a much better chance of holding them, and I’ll do that better with an accelerating putting stroke. See if you can work on that to improve your putting. 2014-10-07

Why do you keep leaving your putts short of the golf hole? Is a question that should probably asked more often than it is. Very rarely the golfers understand that leaving a putt short of the hole is never going to, never going to improve their game, because they can't be aggressive enough to actually give the ball a chance to go in. So you literary have absolutely no chance of getting the ball in if it finishes short ideally you want to give the putt a chance and get it roll past the hole, so why does it finish short of the hole. There’s probably three main reasons for this, if you are consistently leaving your putt short of the hole you should considerer these three things. Firstly are you misreading the putt, if it’s an uphill putt but you are not reading that correctly then that’s one of the reasons why it would stay short to the hole. You are hitting it what you think is hard enough for a flat putt but its uphill you haven't read that and therefore it finishes short. So simply read your putts from the side on and look for any uphill or downhill angulations that would change the speed of the putt and adjust the line of the putts.

The second thing to consider is are you striking the ball correctly from the middle of the club face. Quite often we see people make quite hard and aggressive strokes but then they hit the ball from the heel of the toe the top or the bottom of the club, and that means the ball is not going to roll accurately towards the hole at the right speed and probably the biggest issue I see with a lot of people who leave putts consistently short of the hole is they have an element of deceleration in that putting stroke. They have quite a big long back swing which might actually be too far for this particular putt, then they get scared of that and they decelerate.

Quite often that deceleration takes the form of the front wrist braking and slowing down so we get this short putt. So lining up to the putt here get a good line on it, big back swing decelerations as I hit it and I get scared of it and I leave it half way to the hole. So you have got really what’s trying to be a little bit more positive working on the principle of having a shorter back swing and a longer follow through. Almost feel like the follow through is two-thirds the length of the back swing. So it’s a shorter back and a more positive longer follow through. If I can make an accelerating stroke towards the hole I have a little bit more chance of being more positive running the ball up towards the hole and giving it a chance of dropping in and avoid the short putt. So leaving the ball short of the hole is always going to be critical getting the ball up to the hole gives me a much better chance of holding them, and I’ll do that better with an accelerating putting stroke. See if you can work on that to improve your putting.