Dear Glen,
Tough questions are great questions!
The term "release" in putting is another sad example of how conventional golf instruction is deeply infected with a terminal case of "jargonitis." Everytime I ever see this word used in golf putting instruction, the writer does not explain what he means. So I assume he doesn't know what he means.
In the context of the full swing, the term "release" is usually meant to describe how the wrists are "holding the angle" in the downswing and then "releasing" the angle of the wrists thru impact so that the hands are square at impact but thereafter the right hand covers over the left. The term is also used sometimes to refer to a "release" in the thighs and knees momentarily during the impact phase of the swing (they are holding against lateral sway at the top of the backstroke and at the top of the thrustroke for balance, but at the bottom of the stroke the body is symmetrical laterally and the lower body is resisting only the earth and the vertically downward forces of the swing). Sometimes, these full-swing notions bleed over into putting discussions.
Since there's not an agreed-upon definition, if we want to use the word precisely, we better make up our own. Afterall, if conventional golf instruction had already explained it to you, you wouldn't be asking about it. So it's up to me and you to figure something out.
To me, the word "release" means "letting go of control." In the context of a body movement like the putting stroke, that would imply a "relaxing" of muscles used to "control" the movement.
Is there a "release" in an optimal putting stroke? How about in strokes that may or may not be optimal? Who uses something like this and how does it seem to work for them? Should you use this sort of release?
My personal answers are 1. no, 2. yes, 3. well enough, 4. probably not.
1. No, the optimal stroke does not have a release. By "optimal" stroke, I mean the one I use and recommend for everyone, which is a simple pendulum stroke from a good setup with smooth tempo. A pendulum stroke is powered by the abdomenal and lower back mucles ONLY, and not the shoulder muscles, pecs, upper arms, forearms, wrists, or hands. The gut moves the lead shoulder straight down and slightly back in a vertical plane and then it comes back up and slightly forward -- in a good setup with a smooth tempo. Once the top of the backstroke is attained (the shoulderframe's "downstroke"), the thrustroke ITSELF is a "relaxing" down plus a slight uplift of the lead shoulder once the bottom is reached. The putter just "drops" naturally from the top of the backstroke into the bottom region of the stroke and then it gets a little assist going up so it won't stall out and makes the arms flap. There's absolutely nothing whatsoever for the wrists to do.
In this stroke, the management of the pivot plus keeping the shoulderframe movement in a symmetrical pattern is what is responsible for returning the putterface square thru the ball. The closer this movement is to staying inside a "vertical" plane of motion, the straighter the stroke path and the longer the putterface stays square before and after impact. The pivot in the base of the neck always has to stay where it starts, in space, like the rod upon which a coathanger hangs and rocks.
If I think about the hands at all, I think about a grip pressure that does not change and about not letting the the shoulderframe movement send the hands inside or beyond their plane of motion. The plane of motion of the hands is a certain distance from the plane established by the thighs at address. If I laid a sheet of plywood across my thighs, the plane of the hands is just off this sheet and just about parallels it. I don't want me hands getting closer to this sheet or farther away -- at least within one foot of the ball on either side of the ball.
If the pivot is steady in space during the stroke, the shoulder move back is retraced coming forward, and the "triangle" is not active but held in a "tonic" stasis during the stroke, the putterface impacts the ball aimed squarely as aimed at address.
2. Yes, some golfers do allow the wrists to fold and unfold ("release") in the stroke. The main current example that comes to mind is Bob Heintz. Bob is the number 1 putter on Tour this year, and his stats for putts per green hit in regulation have SHATTERED anything anyone else has done since stats were first regularly kept in 1986! He will likely end the year with a stat around 1.670 putts per GIR. The previous best annual stat has been 1.704 by Brad Faxon. I've watched Bob putt for hours, and the one thing he does is allow his wrists to flip going thru impact! Just like they tell you NOT to do! he really has a nice smooth pendulum stroke with his wrist flip really just "finishing" off the business of sending the ball where he intends for it to go -- both in terms of direction and distance. He's unquestionably the best putter of 35-footers I've ever seen so far.
I can't really recommend his technique, because it is a very specialized and individual style that banks on Bob's very stable and repeating sense of tempo and timing. However, he has convinced me to walk thru the Shadow of the Valley of the Left-wrist Breakdown without fear of any kind. I still don't DESIRE this action in my stroke, but I'm much more comfortable about the hands now that I don't worry much about the wrists.
In comparison, some other golfers allow the wrists to hinge ONLY going back. Loren Roberts does this, as does Gil Morgan, and probably many others. Roberts says he does this to allow a little "swing" freedom into his stroke. To me, he is saying that the inertial forces generated in the backstroke are allowed to propel the wrist change when he stops the backstroke with his upper torso -- so the putterhead and hence the wrists go on back a bit even though his shoulders and arms have said "stop." BUT, he then fixes the wrists as positioned at the top of the backstroke and keeps that relation all the way thru the rest of the stroke. The end result is a slight delofting of the putter and a wee bit of a hands-ahead position at impact.
Interestingly, both Bobby Locke and Harold Swash have a related and similar technique. Locke froze the wrists from the top of the backstroke for the rest, and had a slight up-hit thru imapct. Harold Swash teaches that the putterface should impact the ball not just square, but "tangentially" with the hands a wee bit forward and the putterhead moving slightly up at the impact. I think by "tangentially" he means the point of impact is a tiny bit above the equator of the ball and the putterface is flush to the tangent of the ball at that point (ie, aimed to the center of the ball, not aimed level thru the ball's equator since the impact point is higher than that). Presumably, if the putterface actually hits the equator, the putterface in Swash's system would then be aimed along a level trajectory.
But in the Roberts-Swash sort of action, there is not really a "release" because nothing about the wrists changes thru or past impact.
Ben Crenshaw has some "release" action in his knees thru impact that is interesting. This is the result of the relation of his upper torso to his hips during putting. In effect, his torso twists laterally more than the straight pendulum putting style, and this twist carries his knees with it, and he allows this. That's part of Crenshaw's genius -- to accept the setup positioning and movement patterns he has and use them as well as he can, but not to impose rules on his movements that are not fundamentally required. He keeps his motion simple and relaxed.
3. This pattern of "release" for Heintz, setting the wrists and holding them for others, or a little knee release for Crenshaw certainly works well enough for them. But perhaps these golfers would do even better with better technique. And I certainly believe that the simpler the technique, the better. These wrsist and knee actions are not at all simple to master or to repeat. Where would these golfers be today if they had a simpler technique combined with their superior targeting reflexes?
4. The vast majority of golfers -- probably including you -- should not try to incorporate wrists action into your stroke. First, it's too complex to learn and repeat. Second, it makes targeting more problematic from putt to putt. Third, it's not necessary for putting a good straight roll on the ball -- a roll that is as good or better than the ones described above.
What motivates people to ask about a "release" is probably a concern about fluidity in the stroke and about accuracy in delivering the putterface thru the ball. From a physics point of view, "release" is not needed for either "fluidity" or for accuracy of the "send" of the ball. Fluidity is simply good tempo without extraneous body parts motion and with those parts that do move being kept in an integrated and coordinated relationship. The pendulum stroke is symmetrical back and thru not only in space, but in the time pattern of the backstroke and the thrustroke, AND the only changing relationship to keep up with is that between the upper torso and the lower body. With a "release" in the wrists, in contrast, the upper torso movement must be coordinated with the lower body AND the wrist motion must be coordinated with the upper torso's movement of the arms. Roberts' action is sort of letting the putterhead "lag" behind the arms coming forward. This "lagging" has to be kept happening smoothly or you're in the soup with a twisted putterface. The reason why Roberts doesn't do the 'flip" like Heintz is partly because Roberts likes the putterface delofted a bit and also because he doesn't want the added complication of timing the wrists to change right at the bottom.
Really, if you examine Heintz and Crenshaw very very closely, I will bet that right thru impact NEITHER has any action at all in the wrists or knees, and the only action that happens only is allowed substantially AFTER impact has been handled squarely. This would take some high-speed camera work to document, but I'm quite sure of it anyway.
The accuracy consists in returning the putterface thru impact in the orientation it had at address. If the backstroke and thrustroke don't trace the same path thru space, that's tough to accomplish. When the two strokes are the same thru space, there's comfort and stability. To make this happen requires simplifying which body parts are moving and how. The pendulum stroke is VERY simple but the "how" is not exactly straightforward or obvious. If thje shoulderframe motion is symmetrical going back and coming thru, the hands have no role to play in returning the putterface to impact. The issue is optimizing the symmetry to prolong the part of the putterface's path where it is actualkly square. This requires the shoulderframe to rock in a vertical plane. The verticality prolongs the squareness, but the symmetry alone is the guarantee (which is why Crenshaw can have a very accurate "gating" stroke path).
You might note that Harold Swash teaches that in order to get the shoulderframe motion optimized, the golfer needs to get the top of the spine horizontal so that the shoulders (like a coathanger) hang off a level rod. I don't quite go that far, because I beleive the verticality of the motion can be achieved even if the top of the spine is angled up a bit. So I can ignore another "rule" and just putt. It's probably easier and more consistent if the top of the spine is level, and this actually happens if you set the back of the head flat with eyes directly above the ball and gaze straight out of the face, which I preach!, but it's not as fundamental as the verticality of the motion, which in turn is not as fundamental as the symmetry of the motion, which in turn is not as fundamental as just getting the putterface somehow back squarely thru impact! So we should try not to lose sight of reality when coming up with "rules" for putting!
Fluidity comes from a smooth coordinated motion, and accuracy comes from a putterface moving squarely thru impact along the trajectory planned for at address. The only remaining "quality" to consider is the "character" of the roll. This is where Swash and Locke and Roberts all agree. In each of these actions, there is a movement of the putterface up thru impact, and each has a slight delofting of the putter from a set wrist position. The combined effect is probably something close to striking thru the top quadrant of the ball with an energy transfer that is level thru the upper quadrant. If so, then this action approximates what happens with a "true roll" billiards shot of the cue level thru the ball 5/7ths the way up from the bottom (a little less than halfway up from the equator to the top). The energy transfer is not as "solid" as a level equator blow with a flush no-loft putterface, and so in a sense the precise golfer can be a little more decisive in the stroke while also being a little delicate in the control.
Personally, while I like hitting up thru impact, I'm not all that sold on going beyond this with putterface or loft manipulations in the action. I simply play the ball about two inches forward of the bottom of my stroke's arc (middle of my body or stance) and then just don't worry about it. My pivot management insures that the stroke bottoms out and then heads up before impact, and I send the ball off with the lower half of the putterface, pretty close to the center of the putterface but not higher. The roll looks pretty good to me and seems to run true on line. If there is something to be gained by the other stuff, I haven't seen HOW MUCH of a gain OR whether any gain would actually matter! I just haven't seen it.
So, sticking to the simple stuff -- I would advise you to learn a very good shoulderframe action with good tempo, and let the hands remain DEAD. That is, the upper body is relaxed, the shoulders are relaxed, the arms are relaxed, the wrists are relaxed, the hands are relaxed, the mind is relaxed, and the lower body is relaxed. The smoothness of the tempo KEEPS everything relaxed and inactive, except for the gut. The verticality of the shoulderframe motion with the "triangle" fixed gives you an accurate "send" of the ball. Playing the ball forward and managing the pivot gives the ball a good roll.
The objective is to move the putterface sqaurely thru impact and a little beyond the precise location of impact. Once this region of the stroke has been cleared, however, you are free to "release" your control. When you do, what happens is that the "default" movement commanded by human biomechanics and the way tissues are connected and the whole responds under forces takes over. This means the upper torso goes left / inside, taking the arms and hands with it. Dave Stockton teaches NOT to let this happen, but to keep the hands headed down the line. And I teach that the verticality of the shoulderframe stroke continues vertical in the upstroke or thrustroke, which keeps the lead elbow headed down the line in a square setup. But after a respectable distance past impact, you can give it up and let the putter wrap around to the left. Thos golefrs who have an exaggerated follow-thru and then "hold it" with the putter suspended out there down the line look weird and unnatural to me. I think the fluidty of the stroke should combine with the accuracy of impact in a simple, natural way. In this sense, Crenshaw and Bobby Jones are very much alike.
In the final analysis, I recommend starting the stroke with the gut to move the lead shoulder from a level position straight vertically down with good tempo, which sends the hands back in plane to coast to a stop at the top of the backstroke, then let ting gravity start the downstroke gradually into the bottom straight-hitting area with natural acceleration, and then finishing the stroke past the bottom by moving the lead shoulder straight back up higher than it started, still in plane.
Except for green reading and targeting for line and distance, and setting up squarely to promote the stroke, and handling pressure, etc etc etc, what else is there to putting?
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
The PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
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