Dear David,
There are two chief possibilities about what is happening: 1. the putter you are using, and 2. your body technique.
PUTTER: It's possible you are using a putter with a little extra weight in the toe -- this is common with Ping and Scotty Cameron and many, many putters. This extra toe weight makes the putter toe hang down when the putter shaft is balanced on the finger up about 10-14 inches from the hosel -- a Ping hangs at a 45 degree angle. This toe weight is a game-improvement feature that is supposed to help the toe flare open at the top of the backstroke and flare closed going thru impact. If you have a putter like this, then the putter face staying closed going back means you are not an average golfer needing a game-improvement putter. In fact, the game-improvement feature is "messing with" your good technique. That's why I always prefer a face-balanced putter, without this covert management of my game by dint of some designer's ideas about my stroke.
Used with the Loren Roberts style takeaway (really a lead shoulder shove back of the bottom edge of the putter face), the extra toe weight gives the toe added inertia, and this may promote a lagging of the toe going back from the ball. For the average golfer, taking the putter back more with hands and arms than with the shoulder, this initial lagging of the toe eventually gets overcome in the later stages of the backstroke as the handisness sends the toe outracing the heel into a position at the top of the backstroke where the putter face is slightly open. The average handsy golfer then reverses this toe-flaring going into and beyond impact. These putter designs rely upon average golfers' handsiness in order for the designer to get the putter to do something helpful to the average golfer -- the more a putter helps a bad golfer, the more it sells.
But in the case of a technique that does not need or want this little "assist" from the manufacturer, the extra toe weight is a problem. There are two fixes:
1. Get rid of the putter in favor of a face-balanced putter.
2. Use a little extra pressure in the right thumb on the trailing edge of the putter handle to prevent the toe from lagging behind at the start.
TECHNIQUE: Assuming the putter design does not contribute to the toe lagging at the start, perhaps your technique needs a little tweaking. Ordinarily, the Loren Roberts style move back from the ball is sufficient to move the putter back with the face staying pretty square to the line or square to a path that trends a little to the inside going back, but not closed to the line of the putt or the path. This is because the orientation of the inside of the left palm is square to the line and the lead shoulder shove-back presses the palm evenly as the putter handle goes back from the ball. I suppose that if the thumb-side of the lead hand is somewhat loose on the handle, there is a little collapsing at the base of the index finger that allows the toe to lag. That's not really very likely, but in case it is happening, the fix is a little firmer girp pressure and a more homogenous molding of the hand as a whole to the handle at address, and preserving this during the stroke.
More probably, it is the way your forearm is working. The forearm has two bones in it, the radius and the ulna:
The ulna meets the wrist at the butt of the palm, and the radius meets the wrist at the base of the thumb. If the toe is lagging in the takeaway, then the ulna is outracing the radius going back, and this rotates the lead forearm thumb-targetward (supination). Ideally, there is NO forearm rotation in the stroke. One good way to dampen out this rotation is to observe at address the lead arm's relationship of these two bones at the wrist and use the shoulder to shove these two bones back WITHOUT changing their angle of relationship in space. I think about "sticking" the point where the ulna meets the wrist straight back along the line of my toes -- using the lead shoulder's moving down and back across the line of the balls of the feet to accomplish this. Then, coming forward, I keep the relationship of ulna and radius the same and return the putter head to its flat address position (just before the back of the ball) and then up and thru the ball by moving the shoulder frame as a whole about a fixed pivot at the base of the neck.
It is possible that your backstroke follows a path somewhat to the inside and you are subconsciously closing the putter face in an attempt to make the putter look square to you. This is the old-style "hooding" action that accompanies a handsy-armsy stroke -- such as that used by Horton Smith in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. But "hooding" is not needed if the stroke moves in a plane that intersects the ground the same as or parallel to the putt line. Perhaps your shoulder alignment is a little skewed to the inside and you are emphasizing the eyes so much in management of the putter that you are subconsciously 'hooding" in the backstroke. If so, then the cure is to use a plane for the stroke that is parallel to or the same as the line of the putt so that "hooding" is not necessary physically or even visually. If you cannot do this, but still come inside while the toe lags closed, then you have to remeber that the old-style hooding action was a two-cycle stroke -- hooding closed going back, with "unhooding" in a reciprocating fashion coming forward.
Fundamentally, even if you have a putter with extra toe weight, if you stick the ulna back along a plane for the stroke that is the same or parallel to the putt line, the toe lagging should disappear. If it doesn't, then try a tuch more pressure in the right thumb on the back edge of the handle.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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