Hi Geoff

On wedge shots from any sort of distance I use a "clock" method that governs the hit I put on the ball and regulates the distance it goes. I find it best to think about the appropiate length of the swing during a practice stroke but to then just turn it over to feel and visualization for the actual shot itself.

Im trying to come up with a similar sort of thing for putting weight but cant get it right. Mine is a shoulder stroke with dead hands , getting more straight back and thru, hands and arms feeling like that joke store articulating wooden snake toy. Its my hope that by having some sort of "governer" on my stroke that I can just think about the tempo and putt more freely.

What can you recommend. Do you have specific lengths of stroke for different distances? Do you use your feet to "measure" the length of the backstroke? If the putter is soled in the middle of the stance, then should the stroke be the same vis a vis the position of each foot on either side of the stroke?

I think there could be a big payoff if I can get it right. Im pretty good at distance control naturally but I think this method might free me up to actually put a better, purer stroke on the ball.

Regards
James

Dear James,

David Lee in his "gravity golf" teaches that the golfer just sort of "tosses" the putter back, and then allows it to swing freely going forward. My take on this is that the toss back allows the putter to coast to a pause at the top of the backstroke and then make an effortless transition to the downstroke. The "governor" that gets the toss back to coast to the correct backstroke for the putt is that you want the putter head to cease going back always on the same count in your stroke's tempo. In my case, the tempo count is "one potato ... two" with "one potato" being the toss back and slowing of the putter head to a stop at the same time the fourth syllable of the phase gets said. The tempo, then, is used by the brain to establish the back-toss impulse and hence the length of the backstroke. With a stable tempo in the downstroke, the length of the backstroke always produces only one putter head speed at impact on the "two."

All of this is non-conscious. Your suggestions about watching or comparing the length of the backstroke to the width of your stance is a "conscious" effort to control the backstroke, and in my view this is contrary to the instincts, which is the way 'touch" actually works. When you are familiar with the ball you use, your putter, the green speed, and your tempo, the brain's non-conscious movement processes need only to know the distance along ther green to roll the ball. Once you face the ball and turn the head to the target to face the target, this neck turn feeds the brain the missing ingredient, and you're all set simply to count the stroke. The backstroke "just happens" without any effort of thought, and in fact thought and conscious effort hurst the accuracy of the stroke for distance.

Once you're use to your stroke tempo and can say it in a phrase the way your tempo moves, distance control by non-conscious instincts is simply: "look and count."

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
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Ive always just "eyeballed it", most of the time with good results. Thanks for helping me to get back on track.

If I understand you correctly then, its the same tempo for each length of putt. One potato ... Two for 3 footers or 30 footers. Ive always had a super slow tempo to my longish putts (which Im good at) and a faster tempo for knee knockers (aptly named for my case). This suggests to me that when I'm a little off , my tempo is rushed and my hands are pushing the club into the ball before the "two".

Sorry if I'm covering old ground.


Regards
James

I would suggest experimenting with a completely no-hands thru-stroke for short putts powered either by gravity alone (with the shoulder frame just "riding" with the putter head but not pulling or pushing) or by a gentle rocking of the shoulders in tempo. If the shoulders and the putter head stay in sync throughout the stroke, the putter face will be square and moving straight online thru the critical impact area.

The key to the no-hands stroke is, first, keeping the pivot at the base of the neck still during the downstroke, and second, resisting the i,pulse to move the putter head with anything other than gravity or the in-sync rocking motion of the shoulder frame. If you will note, I say that the stillness of the pivot really only becomes critical once the backstroke reaches the top of the backstroke, and motion momentarily pauses in transition from back and up to forward and down. if you can set the pivot at this point in a state of frozen stillness (like a small bunny rabbit when a person walks too near) and ALLOW the shoulder frame effortlessly to ride the putter head down and thru as the rocking shoulders let the arms and hands swing / fall beneath the still neck, then a straight and square impact on a slight rise into the ball is nearly guaranteed. This sort of pivot-plus-relaxed-stroke action produces a thoughtless and effortless straight putt, which is usually what you really need on short putts (where line is more critical than touch).

If that's not enough, I suggest another technique that works well with a voluntarily accelerated (faster tempo) stroke. If you envision a small nail angled straight thru the center of the ball from exact back of ball (farthest point on ball's equator from target and closest point to putter face) out front of ball (nearest the target), so that the nail is not level, but enters the back one dimple below the level equator of the ballm and the pointed end of the nail exits the front of the ball one dimple higher than the equator, with only a short distance left from the head of the nail until it is flush against the back of the ball, then the objective os to deliver the putter face flush to the nail head on a slight uprise, and drive the nail straight into the ball. This image helps you avoid hitting the head of the nail while the putter face is twisting out of square. The squareness of the blow has to persist for a moment as the putterhead rises thru the spaces where the center of the ball and then the front exit dimple of the ball are located. With this trajectory of the putter head thru the ball in mind befire executing the stroke, the task of making this happen with even a quickish blow is made notably easier to perform accurately and reliably.

This dynamic is also accomplished by fixing the pivot at the base of the neck so the pivot may rotate in the shoulder rock, but does not curl about. The chest needs to stay square, without twisting after the putter head thru the stroke. Keeping the chest square during the stroke is helped by setting the line of the neck to match the top edge of the putter face at address, and then keeping the neck straight over this line as the shoulders rock back and thru beneath the neck. Because the base of the neck (with the line of the neck kept steady) prevents the chest from twisting in the stroke, the keeping of the neck line steady also requires that the lead shoulder rock vertically upward in the thru-stroke and that the coordinated, same-plane motion of the rear shoulder works directly back under the neck. Neither shoulder turns out of a plane of motion parallel to the putt line.

The form of this action is the same regardless of the "pace" or tempo of the stroke. Usually, though, hurrying the stroke means hurrying the hands out of sync with the shoulder motion. The putter head gets faster than the shoulder frame. This dynamic will twist the path of the stroke off line to the inside. If the hands get ahead of the putter head a little (and both hands and putter head are faster than the shoulder frame), then the putter face tends to lag open (especially with Scotty Cameron style toe-flow putters). (This is one of the main ways a cut stroke develops -- first the toe lags open, then the golfer adapts by altering his path from straight thru the ball to one that cuts from out to in to counteract the open face.) So, all things considered, I wouldn't advise a quickish stroke even on short putts -- instead, just view the length of the putt as merely a few rolls of the ball and then execute it. (A single roll is over 5 inches, so there are about two rolls for every foot of the putt -- a three-foot putt is only 6-7 rolls of the ball.)

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 1,155,000 visits and growing strong ...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC 27401
336.790.8176 home
336.340.9079 cell

For a period of time I got REALLY enamoured with the true 'gravity stroke'. It is not that hard to really achieve a weightless putter by moving your shoulders at EXACTLY the pace that the putter wants to fall (both up and back). It is extremely seductive when done properly - it is like the putter hit the ball while you were just watching.

But ultimately I found it counter-productive as I had a tendency to make mid-course corrections to my putting stroke to keep that weightless feeling. So I am no longer a slave to being EXACTLY in tempo with gravity. My tempo is my tempo - and it is pretty close to a weightless stroke, but a good stroke (in my mind) no longer requires an exact match.

FWIW.

dave

Dear Dave,

I agree that perfect is the goal but not the object of obsessive worry -- other more important fish to fry.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Over 1,180,000 visits and growing strong ...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC 27401
336.790.8176 home
336.340.9079 cell

Thanks Geoff and David. Intersting stuff.

Ive been working on all of the above and my results have been very good. If only Id been putting like this in some of the tournaments this past summer.

Perhaps you will allow me to make some observations and pose a few questions.

I have, as David warned, been seduced by the gravity stroke. It has allowed my shoulder frame and hands to work in sync and smoothed and straightened out my stroke. Gone are the short stabs on the short putts, now my short ones are long and smooth and the cup just sort of gets in the way of the ball (at present, touch wood).

But upon further thought I would suggest that this stroke is not weightless but rather weighty. To me, while the stroke seems to float as if in the weightlessness of space, the putter heads weight is most noticable to me and feels very much like a weight on the end of a long stick. This may be a function of light grip pressure and a lack of tension in my arms and body. I have a feeling that this weighty feeling is directly related to how well I am able to gauge putting weight. The heavier the head feels in my hands the better my ability to judge distance. When I firm up my grip pressure the weight of the club head seems less noticable. If my grip pressure gets too light the face of the club seems to lose its aim as my wrists are too loose I think. So I am striving to find a happy medium where my grip pressure is just above that point where I lose my face angle and just below the point where I start losing my feel for the distance of the putt. Please let me know if this is crazy talk.

I recently read that Retief Goosen loves super fast greens because he can lengthen and slow down his stroke. Does this mean he has adjusted his tempo to suit the green? Is it possible that certain putts may require different tempos? An uphill into the grain putt vs a downhiller? Or is it just a matter of adjusting the length of the stroke? Would grip pressure change accordingly or is this complicating the issue? Do you subscribe to slight changes in tempo and grip pressure and perhaps ball position to suit the occasion?

Thanks for all the help. Putting is like the life blood of the game for me. It can ruin a well played hole or save a poorly played one.

Regards
James