Dear HUE,
Padraig Harrington's wide putting stance came about when he was tested on a balance platform by Harold Swash and the Quintic biomechanics experts in England. This platform records the player's center of gravity and any movement of the center during the stroke. Padraig learned that his normal (narrower) putting stance allowed his COG to wiggle about a bit in a small arc. The COG is below the navel inside the gut about 4 inches deep, usually. The platform indicates the X-Y motion of the COG, and ignores the Z (vertical) dimension. When Padraig tried out a stance just a bit wider than his driver stance, the COG stopped jiggling. This was all about a year ago. Since that time, Padraig has taken it as an article of faith that a stabilized COG results in sharper putting.
I have four questions about this --
1) does it really?
2) at what trade-off?
3) is it really necessary to stabilize the COG to optimize putting? and
4) is there a better way than a wider stance to stabilize the COG during the stroke?
My views right now are:
1) yes;
2) stiffness;
3) probably not; and
4) probably not.
My response that ought to look the most '"fishy" is number 3, especially since I probably agree that a wider stance is the best way to stabilize the COG. Basically, a lot depends on the individual. Padraig is a large person physically, at over 6' 3" tall. When he widens his stance, he gets his knees and ankles outside his hips, so his legs slant inward like the legs of a stool. This is clearly a more stable setup, at least laterally in the same direction that the shoulder frame motion challenges balance during the stroke. Balance from back to front is not greatly affected by a wider stance, and this is handled mostly by the torso and head bend and the rear sticking back like the counter-weight on a construction crane's boom.
What does stabilizing the COG do to improve putting? If the COG wanders in a small arc during the stroke, it basically means that the hips are in motion, opening a little going back and then closing a little going forward. If the shoulderframe motion in the stroke were simply lateral (only) with no motion in the front-to-back dimension, the COG might slide in a little line back and forth, but should not curl open and then closed. A little "slide" of the COG does no harm, so long as the line of slide stays parallel to the line of the putt. And a little curling of the COG really doesn't do any harm either, so long as it is symmetrical and returns to the starting point in a timely manner. What happens with the COG is not really different, except in degree, from what happens with the putter head depending upon whether the stroke motion proceeds in a vertical plane or in a tilted plane. But when the stroke motion is NOT planar, but involves independent armsiness so that the torso as a whole comes out of square, then that sort of motion is different in kind, and produces a more sever and different sort of COG motion -- one harder to return to the starting position consistently and accurately.
If you think of the torso as a cereal box facing straight ahead square to the line of the putt, a planar stroke (vertical or tilted) of the shoulderframe (with the pivot at the base of the neck stationary-even-if-rotating) leaves the box of the torso facing square, even if the COG slides or arcs a little. But an armsy stroke twists the box (torso as a whole) out of square orientation with the pivot at the base of the neck curling open and then closed, so the torso itself opens and then closes in the stroke. This torso action of the upper body mass moves the hips out of square, and this results in the COG wandering in an arc open and then closed. The wider stance affects this sort of non-planar stroke by confining the hips a little more, to resist (if not eliminate) the COG movement. But the COG movement is not really the problem -- it's the forces of the armsiness affecting the torso as a whole that is the real culprit undermining accuracy and consistency. If the forces of the arms twisting the torso open in the backstroke are not sensed closely enough, the forward motion is not symmetrical. When the golfer overdoes it going forward, he probably pulls the putt. If he undercooks the armsiness (with the accompanying torso and hip action) going forward, he loses the putt to the outside. Stiffening up the hips with a wider stance tends to reduce the variables -- if the hips don't open or close in response to the armsiness, then the armsiness becomes more symmterical like a tether-ball wrapping back and then forth around a fixed pole. This does not eliminate the problem of making the back and forward motions symmetrical, but mostly converts the problem to one of timing only, and not one of timing and motion amplitude in the torso and hips as well. So, for this sort of stroke, if you are armsy, the wider stance serves a limited function.
The image I've seen of Padraig Harrington's wandering COG before widening his stance indicates a small arc. This is not enough information to tell whether Harrington's COG motion is traceable to an armsy stroke or a tilted planar stroke action, but I suspect the latter, since he is a student of Harold Swash, and Swash teaches what is essentially a straight shoulder action (even if tilted a bit out of vertical). Interestingly, one could use the same balance platform in order to assess the verticality of a player's stroke, watching the COG to see the absence of arcing, even if the COG is not perfectly still in the stroke but shows a little lateral sliding back and forth along a line. I have not seen anything to indicate that Paul Hurrion at Quintic has noticed this use of the balance platform or taken advantage of it this way.
Ultimately, the tendency of the COG to move in the stroke is merely a reflection of the interaction of the upper torso with the lower torso during the stroke. The more the stroke action moves into planes or realms not lateral and parallel to the line of the putt, the more likely the COG to move out of position and also out of line with the putt. And a nice even, slow tempo keeps the challenge to the posture system and balance to a minimum. When the COG moves out of line, as it does in an arc, the issue for accuracy becomes one of symmetry: Does the stroke motion create the correct form of symmetry that produces a straight putt on a consistent basis by returning from the backstroke to the starting position, and indeed, on the most consistent basis? Altogether, it's best not to have the problem by keeping the COG still or by allowing only a modest lateral sliding of the COG. Next best is to restrict the hip and COG arcing to a mild arc resulting from a tilted stroke plane about a still pivot. The worst is when the stroke motion is armsy and the torso as a whole twists open and closed with the pivot moving as well -- too many variables for the long haul.
The bottom line for Padraig Harrington is that he needs a little clearer focus on his stroke motion and a little less on his COG. Other people with different body sizes and proportions will encounter different variables -- different in degree but not in kind. A more compact golfer with a nice smooth and slow tempo probably has less motion in the COG.
This issue of body control is not really separate from keeping the head still. The real point is to keep the PIVOT at the base of the neck still. Keeping the head still is extra -- nice but not absolutely critical. The head is held still is space even when the torso moves by keeping the neck orientation the same as set in relation to the hips orientation. The hips establish the reference orientation for the inner ear and eyes, which in turn control how the neck holds the head even though the shoulders are moving right beneath the neck. This correlation between the hips and neck-head can feel a little stiff and mechanical. That's OK, but some golfers prefer the "feel" of a more "natural" movement. Ben Crenshaw, for example, has some knee and hip action in his putting and a little head movement too. A more arcing-back sort of stroke corresponds with a greater tendency for the hips to react open and then closed, and Crenshaw just goes with this rather than fights it, and has learned his own accuracy and consistency as a matter of symmetry and timing. But it's not the best way in general -- the better way does not create the need for front-to-back symmetry or reduces the need to the point it can be ignored for the most part.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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