Dear JET,
Sorry for the delay!
A putt that gets "pushed" is a ball that gets rolled to the outside of the intended line. So in this discussion, we assume that the golfer had an intended line, setup with the putter face correctly aimed on line, setup with the body in its usual posture to roll the ball straight on line with the usual stroke, but nonetheless rolled the ball to the outside. After this more or less "pure" discussion of a "push" from the point of view of the stroke motion, we can backtrack to discuss the contributions of poor technique in identifying the intended line and aiming the putter and body in reference to the line and the ball position, as these flaws in technique also can result in a "push."
Stroke Causes of a "Push"
A looping backstroke can cause a push. If the backstroke is started slightly to the outside of the line going back, the tendency is either to not do anything until the forward stroke has started, in which case an outside-in "cut stroke" results and the golfer learns to "open" the putter face a little (golfer turns toe away from target) as a compensation to avoid the "pulls" that keep happening, or to try to react to the poor backstroke early with a rearrangement of the path coming forward into a compensatory inside-out "push" stroke, perhaps with a little putter face closing (toe nearer target) to avoid the pushes that keep happening. Moving the putter from the inside-out and trying to get the face closed a little to compensate is harder to do than moving the putter from the outside-in and opening the face a little. I suspect this is the case because moving the rear arm across the body and "opening" the rear hand match up with the forces of the motion, whereas closing the rear hand while moving the rear arm and hand across the body are opposing actions. An inside-out stroke path, then, ought to result in more unintentional pushes with the face open than an outside-in path results in unintentional pulls or "cut strokes" with the face open. In fact, however, think the inside-out corrective forward stroke path is fairly rare, and no correction and an outside-in path is more common, so "cut strokes" with open faces and pure pulls are VERY common, and inside-out strokes with no face opening (pure push) of some face opening (cut push) are comparatively rare.
The inside-square-inside stroke path requires repeating symmetry to work well. If the stroke comes into the ball from the inside, but fails to square up thru the impact area, a push results. This is mostly an issue of timing in relation to the bottom of the stroke and to the ball position in relation to the bottom of the stroke. If the timing of the stroke has the putter resquaring late, then it comes into the ball on an inside-out path for a push.
The pivot and shoulder alignment can get misaligned slightly closed (rear shoulder back from parallel) in the backstroke and then get "stuck" there in the forward stroke, resulting in a "blocked" push that goes parallel to the shoulder alignment just like a straight putt would do. The pivot is at the base of the neck where the clavicle joins the shoulder sockets to the top of the sternum. In some people's stroke motion, this pivot wanders in a small arc from center of stance to back and behind, then retracing back to center, then forward and behind (the alternative is for the pivot to remain steady in space but rotate like a doorknob). When the pivot wanders, this alters the alignment of the base of the neck and alters the alignment of the shoulder frame as well. Going back, the misalignment moves the rear shoulder back a bit and the lead shoulder forward a bit, hence "closing" the shoulder alignment to the intended line. Making the stroke from this shoulder alignment while "trying" to make a straight stroke, but without awareness of the pivot-driven misalignment, the golfer "pushes" the putt and has no idea why. It feels like a very straight stroke. A drill for this is to lean the top of the head against a wall and make strokes without the top of the head sliding off the point of contact. The shoulder rock at first will feel constrained, but that's because the wandering of the pivot and upper torso out of square is being prevented.
When the hands open going forward, then putter face misalignment sends the ball to the outside even if the stroke path is straight back and straight thru. Why do the hands open? In my experience, the main culprit is too fast a tempo that un-coordinates the involved joints pairs going forward: shoulders, elbows, wrists. In a well-timed and coordinated stroke motion, all three joint pairs get moved smoothly as a unit and the hands stay centered between the shoulders from beginning to end (keeping pace with the shoulder rocking). When the tempo is too fast for what the golfer is used to, the shoulders and elbows slightly outrace the wrists, and the wrists get lagged behind a little. This tends to "open" the hands to the intended line, and a push results when the open putter face impacts the ball, even though the stroke path is moving straight back and straight thru. (Actually, the lagging action also draws the putter head slightly closer in to the feet as well, so the stroke tends to make impact a little towards the toe of the face, and over time the golfer learns to push the putter head outise-in to get back to solid impact.)
This is very difficult to notice, because the putt mostly feels very straight. Even attention to the feeling of the hand has to be very keen to notice the hand opening in the lagging. More care with the stable and smooth tempo in the timing of the forward stroke seems to be the most productive way of getting this corrected, combined with attention to the feel of the inside of the hands to detect the lagging via a waggling of the handle that increases the pressure of the handle against the low part of the rear hand and the high part of the lead hand. This handle pressure inside the hands due to the lagging is what opens the hands coming forward. The unanticipated handle forces are not being managed by sufficient muscle tension in the setup of the arms and grip pressure at address, and the forces overcome the tension and lag open the hands.
Golfers who like a sense of lagging the putter forward instinctively add a little grip pressure to manage this tendency, and the better ones also keep the tempo gentle and smooth to reduce the tendency. I teach a vertical lifting of the lead shoulder thru impact that can be viewed as lagging the lead arm, hand and putter vertically up as a unit. This vertical component in the action helps keep the wrists from opening and the smooth timing of the action keeps the joint pairs well coordinated so that the handle does not exert opening pressures inside the hands. Waiting to start the lifting until the putter head returns to the bottom of the stroke arc in the middle of the stance also helps prevent "opening" handle waggle in a lagging action, at least until it is too late to affect the putt. A drill for this is to hold a sheet of cardboard between the palms at address and then make a stroke in which the sheet does not open, but stays aligned straight with the line of the neck from base of neck out top of head during the stroke.
Aim-related Causes of Pushes
Obviously, if the golfer misperceives the intended start line and aims to the outside of the target, a straight putt looks like a push. The most common cause of aiming to the outside while believing you are aimed straight is the flawed way the head-neck system is used to look to the target from beside the ball while aiming the putter face. If the head and neck are angled back from square to the line while looking to the target, this creates a conflict between the visual sense of where the target is located and the body-sense of where the action of the stroke needs to go to roll the ball straight at the target. The stroke will go where the body is aimed, and the trouble is that the eyes convince the body that there is no problem, when in fact the eyes and the body are both wrong on where the target is located.
From the flawed head-neck posture, the eyes still can "look" at and "see" the target just as they expected to do, but only by an unnoticed redirecting of the aim of the line of sight from straight out of the face to slightly peering down the nose. The eyes "get there" alright, and happily end up seeing the target, but only in an indifferent and misleading physical procedure. If the golfer sets up with eyes peering down the nose at the ball, the head turn towards the target will send the line of sight not on a straight line across the ground, but in a sweeping / arcing curl to the inside, and then the golfer will redirect his gaze up and left to get back to looking at the target and also send the top of his head back to reorient the face more at the target. If the golfer sets up with the gaze straight out of the face at the ball, ONLY a rotation of the head on its axis (base of neck out top of head) will direct the line of sight in a straight line across the ground. If the golfer nonetheless "looks to" the target by cocking the top of the head back, he will have to redirect his gaze more down his nose to "see" the target and will end up with a conflict between the lying eyes and the aimed-outside shoulders.
The eyes are made to be extremely flexible for reorienting rapidly to different directions out of the face (evolution blesses humans with this stereoscopic flexibility so that humans can take better advantage of opportunities and better detect and guard against threats -- quicker reactions to movements in visual nearby space), and the eyes are seated in pockets of fatty tissue that make the movements of the eyeballs inside these pockets nearly unnoticeable. But this flexible and varying eye movement while seeking to build a relationship for action between the body and the target is not the best way to do it. It's a quick and dirty way of reacting to things that move in our immediate neighborhood. In golf, nothing moves until you do. Keeping the gaze unchanging and straight out of the face eliminates a great source of variability in target perception during this teach-the-body-where behavior. Thus, getting the gaze straight out of the face during the setup and looking straight out of the face down at the ball before starting to build a physical relationship to the target eliminates this cocking back of the head-neck while looking to the target, and this keeps the shoulders square while building the relationship. This way, when the eyes end up looking at the target, they have not caused a conflict with the shoulders, and the eyes and the shoulders both end up with good, accurate information.
Eye dominance can also cause misperceptions of target location while standing beside the ball, but not due to eye dominance by itself, and only in conjunction with head-neck movement. A cross-dominant right-handed golfer (e.g., Jack Nicklaus, who is left-eye dominant but putts right-handed) will want to lift his left ear out of the way when looking from ball to hole with the left eye. A right-eye, right-hand golfer will want to roll his right ear down and under toward the ball in order to "look" to the target with the right eye. Because for a right-hander the target is off to the left side, the left-eyed golfer moves his dominant eye FURTHER from the center of his body and further out targetward from a vertical plane that is oriented flush to the surface of the putter face in order to look to the target, whereas the right-eyed golfer moves his dominant eye in CLOSER to the middle of the body and closer to the plane of the putter face. Combined with the fact that the untrained tendency in rotating the head is for the chin to roll closer to the shoulder as the turn progresses, rather than for the chin to remain equi-distant from the line of the shoulders in a good head turn on the axis, the left eye often ends up looking from inside to out at the target, moreso than the right eye does, with the axis of the head-neck slightly "closed" to the real line (top of head closer to target than it should be). This combination at first will generate a "pull" stroke, as the body alignment trumps the eyes initially. As the pulls accumulate, however, the golfer compensates by introducing some "push" action into the setup and stroke. This is why Jack Nicklaus has a "push" stroke.
Nicklaus' neck is square or perpendicular to his "open" shoulders (and feet) (left side sligtly back from parallel to line), and his stroke action is slightly inside-out askew his shoulder alignment. is setting of the left eye above or behind the ball at address tends to minimize but not eliminate the extent to which the left eye cuts askew the line of the putt when he turns his head or the extent to which the left eye moves in front of the plane of the putter face. This is just something he has adopted over the years, but I don't believe this is really necessary.
From beside the ball, eye dominance should not matter one lick. The golfer should not really be hunting for a relationship between the putter and the target when aiming the putter face from beside the ball, but should aim the putter face based on sighting the line from behind the ball facing forward using the dominant eye. But once the putter face is aimed, the golfer should setup the head, neck, eyes, shoulders, and rest of the body to the aim of the putter face without regard to the target's location, and only after squaring up to the putter face does the golfer check to see whether the putter face is in fact aimed at the target. This checking procedure works simply and accurately if four physical things are true: the skull line of the head across the tops of ears, temples and eye sockets matches the aim of the putter face; the gaze is directed straight out of the face and not down the nose; the head turns on a rotating axis from base of neck to top of head without the top of the head altering location; and the golfer simply waits to find out what location at or near the target ends up occupying the "aim spot" of whichever eye he chooses to look with (which usually happens to be the dminant eye, but is not necessarily so). The "aim spot" is used accurately simply by just looking at the target by aiming the face at it, without altering the straight-out gaze of the eyeballs.
A golfer well-trained in this technique ends up setup square to the putter face with the putter face accurately aimed on line, and with a no-compensations stroke that rolls the ball parallel to the shoulder and feet alignment and on a stroke path perpendicularly crossing beneath the neck, with the hands tracking on a line straight across the line of the toes. No guesswork, nothing to get used to over years of compensatory learning.
The misuse of eye dominance while sighting from behind the ball can also create misperceptions of the line. Standing behind the ball facing the target, the golfer's eyes are separated in the head by about 2 1/4 inches. So they are looking askew the ball at the target. Dave Stockton teaches (correctly I believe) that the golfer must position his dominant eye in line with the ball and target when sighting from behind the ball, and not the nose or center of forehead. A right-eyed golfer centering the nose when sighting behind the ball is likely o misperceive the line a little right-to-left or a "pull" line from outside-in in relation to the address setup when putting right-handed (same for a left-eyed golfer putting left-handed -- a "pull" tendency). A left-eyed golfer putting right-handed or a right-eyed golfer putting left-handed will have a tendency to perceive the line incorrectly along a "push" direction. I find it important to be aware of one's eye dominance when sighting behind the ball, and often use only the dominant eye (by closing the non-domnant eye) when getting a good bead on the line.
Setup Causes of Pushes.
Equally obviously, setup flaws can result in a "push" putt that feels straight. If you check your feet to make sure the feet are the oriented the same into the line and the toes are the same disance back from the line for each foot, you might often notice that one foot tends to creep forward closer to the line than the other. When the rear foot creeps closer to the line, it is probably the same side foot for the side of the goldfer that is dominant, sort of like that side wants to cheat the line a little to control the stroke and get into the act a little earlier than the other, more passive side. This rear-foot-creep will work its way up the joint pairs of hips to reorient the shoulders so the rear shoulder is closer to the line than the front shoulder ("open"). This shoulder alignment promotes a looping stroke path that starts outside the line, and can lead to either a "pull" or a "push" as described above.
Other golfers have lead-foot-creep, which tends to "close" the hips and shoulders, and then a straight putt is a "push." (Some people use this setup with a looping stroke that starts back inside and then "comes over the top" in a corrective effort going forward from outside-in, combined with an opening of the putter face to compensate for the "cut" path -- and it works well for them!)
Finally, ball position combined with your stroke dynamics can cause a "push." If you use a "gating" inside-square-inside stroke dynamic combined with the ball being too far rearward in the stance, a "push" results from contacting the ball while the putter is still moving inside-out and before it squares up. This "early" impact due to ball position too far back in stance resulting in a "push" is matched by a "late" impact due to ball position too far forward in stance resulting in a "pull." The stroke is not really "early" or "late" in squaring up -- it's just that the ball is not where it needs to be in relation to the body when the stroke squares up. The straight-back, straight-thru stroke path does not suffer from this ball-position criticality, as there is a range of acceptable ball positions -- at least forward of the bottom of the stroke in the middle of the body -- from centered to about 6-7 inches forward without serious "push" or "pull" problems, with the optimum coming in the 1-2 inch range forward of the middle.
There are a few other minor causes of pushes, such as putter design and the way you grip the putter, but these are pretty odd in occurrence.
Your exact question of whether standing too far from the ball causes pushes prompts a qualified "yes, but" answer. The reason standing too far from the ball promotes a push is not really from the biomechanics of the setup messing up the stroke dynamics. IF a golfer uses a vertical stroke action in the shoulders, the putter face will mirror whatever the lead shoulder does in the three dimensions of space, so long as the arms and hands are symmetrically arranged and inactive. A golfer can crouch low to the ground and extend the putter head way out away to the back of a ball and THEN move the shoulders straight in a rocking action oriented vertically and parallel to the intended line, and the putter face will move straight back and thru square the whole time in a mirroring arc oriented vertically. This same setup can be used to putt straight with a tilted-plane shoulder action, in which the motion of the shoulders proceeds in a plane that is tilted to the surface rather than vertical, so long as the shoulder action remains parallel to the intended line. The reason having the ball too far from the feet promotes a push is that this setup prompts a roundhouse baseball-batting style swing out to the ball, and this inside-square-inside stroke path is often a push "out" to the ball on an inside-out trajectory thru impact. In this action, the upper torso as a whole pivots closed going back and open going forward, as opposed to a vertical-plane action or a tilted-plane action in which the shoulders stay parallel to the intended line and the upper torso sits like a cereal box resting on a shelf while the shoulders work beneath the neck.
A little bit of this is that holding the putter (and hands) out to a ball too far away is a lifting and holding of the putter in the air more than a relaxed setup with the ball nearer the stance. Once the stroke starts, the putter head tends to collapse back in towards the feet, and the golfer compensates in the forward stroke by making the blow outward to the ball, which is a push. So my answer is "yes, but" not if you make the shoulder motion correctly.
As a final note, "pulls" are much more common a problem than "pushes." So if you suffer from an occasional "push," consider yourself lucky!
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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