Seems apparent that P.Mickelson has continued to be a successful putter over his career as well as an incredible wedge player with great imagination. Can you briefly disect what to my eye seems to be somewhat unconventional approach in his putting. It appears that he takes a medium to long back stroke slightly inside the line and abruptly shortens his finish, which contridicts most instructors philosophies, yet he makes a ton of putts. I subsribe more to matching the length of stroke on both sides allowing the eyes to signal the brain to how long the stroke needs to swing thru my prior experiences and putt at hand. thanks for your time and efforts.
Here is a great little video of Phil making 4-5 foot putts:
The secret to a STRAIGHT putt is to deliver the putter face square thru impact moving straight down the line, even if the putter is also rising down the line. For short putts, that's about all you need to know, especially if you are a Tour player who plays the same greens week after week (they are all stimp 11 except a few). What happens after the putter head clears the impact area really doesn't matter unless you let it.
I understand that Phil took some lessons from Ben Crenshaw at Ben's Austin home, standing in his socks on Crenshaw's slate pool table. That's a fun image.
Crenshaw has exactly the same stroke dynamic thru impact, and I believe this is why Phil makes the stroke he does. Crenshaw and Phil BOTH deliver the putter face still square and online past impact for an appreciable distance past when it matters. In order to do this physically without odd hand and arm manipulations, the golfer is required to allow the putter to rise past the bottom of the stroke and this in turn means that the golfer's lead shoulder must rise vertically away from the ground past the bottom of the stroke.
Here are pictures of Crenshaw and Phil illustrating the same physical action of the shoulders thru impact, by which the putter face remains square and moving straight down the line a good distance, albeit rising. Apparently, people who claim Crenshaw swings inside-square-inside don't actually watch his stroke, as he has been this way since he was a teenager -- inside-square-still square and rising down the line-back inside later when it doesn't matter.
Ben Crenshaw 1995 Masters:
Phil Mickleson Feb. 2004:
You should notice that nothing in Phil's hands and wrists alters at any point in the stroke -- dead hands, and wrists. Nor do his armpits fan open or closed, but maintain a steady relationship of upper arms to chest. This is the tell-tale sign of a dead-hands and dead-arms shoulder stroke. So Phil is basically making an "up stroke" from the bottom of the stroke arc before impacting the ball.
The thing about his stopping the stroke is not especially good or bad at his experience level, but to others I would suggest that NOT defining the end of the stroke is a valuable skill to learn. The BACKSTROKE is where touch comes from, unless you don't have a stable tempo -- not the forward stroke. The forward stroke ALWAYS has the same timing and there is never any concern or special effort to make the forward stroke match the backstroke for size. When the golfer allows the putter to swing from it's backstroke always with the same pattern of acceleration to impact and coasting thru to an ending in the follow-thru, the forward stroke WILL match the backstroke size very closely without any special attention to it. At most, the golfer just keeps up with the flow of the stroke and hopes whatever putter head velocity gets generated makes flush and square contact thru impact with the ball.
Watch Phil's stroke in the above video and you will see that every forward stroke has identical timing. This is not really a good example, though, because all his putts are the same distance. There is a long birdie putt video of Mickelson at the WGC Match Play, showing a nice full follow-thru. (It's in the PGA Tour website's media section under Tour Highlights, currently page 5, with this address: /video/video/pga-tour/highlights/2007/02/21/mine_07wgcacc_rnd1_13th_brd_mickelson.pgatour.) Compare the timing in the short forward strtokes and the larger stroke, and they will be about the same.
I believe that some players reach a certain experience level where the "touch" is handled with good timing thru impact, and thereafter they learn that other features or characteristics of the full stroke can be varied outside this critical area. But I wouldn't recommend this until you first learn how to have great touch thru the bottom.
But it is always important to separate line stroke dynamics from touch issues, if you are looking at particular strokes. For short strokes, the stopping action doesn't really corrupt the timing thru the impact zone, so it's okay for a very experienced player. On longer putts, you won't see this pronounced stopping action, at least when the stroke and touch is on the money.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
