Why Do Some Players Practice Their Golf Putting With One Hand Only (Video) - by Pete Styles
Why Do Some Players Practice Their Golf Putting With One Hand Only (Video) - by Pete Styles

Here is a great question about why do people putt with only one hand when they are practicing? Quite often with the best players in the world on the PGA Tour even the best players at your club you might see them just standing up to the ball one hand behind their back just knocking in little short putts just with one hand. And people always say, “Well, why is he doing that? It’s got to be more like hard work isn’t it?” But quite often in your putting stroke you’d feel that your hands and arms are almost fighting against each other. We don’t actually need both hands to work together in terms of generating enough power you know maybe for a drive we do and in flying shot we do, but we are only rolling the ball 20 or 30 feet across the green, we generate enough power quite adequately with one hand. So sometimes using both hands can cause the hands and arms to fight particularly if one hand is more dominant than the other. So practicing putting with one hand gives us the feeling, being able to control that hand better without the influence of the other hand. Here is an old thing for you, just consider that you were going to try to throw a dart with two hands, you are going to be better or worse? You know dart with one hand bet easy, dart with two hands got to be hard work. Try brushing your teeth with both hands, that’s got to be hard work because the hands are fighting, they are trying to do a different job, do with one hand that’s simple.

So when we are putting quite often we get great results just putting with one hand because we got loads of control from that hand, rather than both hands having a go and arguing with each of them and fighting, left hand says “go back”, right hand says “go forwards” and that’s the sort of thing that twists the club face. So what I would encourage you to do is start off relatively close to the hole, three feet, five feet away, something like that and just with one hand just stroke in about a dozen balls and then swap over, go to the other hand. The hand that’s the weakest, the hand that misses most putts practice that hand again, repeat that exercise until you can get pretty consistent. And you should find at three and five feet there’s actually not a great deal of difference between one-handed and two-handed putting. When you practice one hand on its own, we you putt both hands back together they should feel really consistent, really stable, and really like they are trying not argue and not fight with each other; and practicing with one hand putting should improve your two-handed stroke. 2014-10-10

Here is a great question about why do people putt with only one hand when they are practicing? Quite often with the best players in the world on the PGA Tour even the best players at your club you might see them just standing up to the ball one hand behind their back just knocking in little short putts just with one hand. And people always say, “Well, why is he doing that? It’s got to be more like hard work isn’t it?” But quite often in your putting stroke you’d feel that your hands and arms are almost fighting against each other. We don’t actually need both hands to work together in terms of generating enough power you know maybe for a drive we do and in flying shot we do, but we are only rolling the ball 20 or 30 feet across the green, we generate enough power quite adequately with one hand. So sometimes using both hands can cause the hands and arms to fight particularly if one hand is more dominant than the other. So practicing putting with one hand gives us the feeling, being able to control that hand better without the influence of the other hand. Here is an old thing for you, just consider that you were going to try to throw a dart with two hands, you are going to be better or worse? You know dart with one hand bet easy, dart with two hands got to be hard work. Try brushing your teeth with both hands, that’s got to be hard work because the hands are fighting, they are trying to do a different job, do with one hand that’s simple.

So when we are putting quite often we get great results just putting with one hand because we got loads of control from that hand, rather than both hands having a go and arguing with each of them and fighting, left hand says “go back”, right hand says “go forwards” and that’s the sort of thing that twists the club face. So what I would encourage you to do is start off relatively close to the hole, three feet, five feet away, something like that and just with one hand just stroke in about a dozen balls and then swap over, go to the other hand. The hand that’s the weakest, the hand that misses most putts practice that hand again, repeat that exercise until you can get pretty consistent. And you should find at three and five feet there’s actually not a great deal of difference between one-handed and two-handed putting. When you practice one hand on its own, we you putt both hands back together they should feel really consistent, really stable, and really like they are trying not argue and not fight with each other; and practicing with one hand putting should improve your two-handed stroke.