Geoff,

Through the years, my uphill left to right putts outside of 15 feet get consistent worse. My biggest fault is that I will miss them short and to the right. On occasion I will overcorrect and bang it and miss it hard long and left. I put crosshanded and feel comfortable with putts right to left. I feel like I am coming up and out of putts on the left to right putts and long uphill putts. I sometimes will miss long straight putts (30+ feet) short and to the right. It almost feels like a mental thing right now. Are there any drills to cure this? I am about a 4 to 5 handicap and occasionally this will cost me a shot or two during the round. Last night for instance I did this three times in nine holes. Fortunately I was able to make the 6 to 8 foot par putt.

Thanks,

Chris

Dear Chris,

The biggest thing is to realize that you are probably quitting a bit on the uphill putts. This usually happens because when you setup on an uphill slant, your lead shoulder feels higher than the neck and the rear shoulder. This creates an illusion in the follow-thru, whereby once you have (only) returned to what was level at setup, you sort of feel that with the lead shoulder being higher than the neck and other shoulder that you can stop making the stroke. This causes many people to be short on uphill putts. Especially left-to-right. For right-to-left, you get a little help from the ever-present "pull" action that is "around" the body and not a shoulder-up action. But for left-to-right, you need to finish the stroke HIGHER than your shoulder starts at address. It sort of feels like "chasing" the ball uphill with the stroke, but do so smoothly without any abruptness in the stroke.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
PuttingZone.com
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.

Visit the new PuttingZone Blog for podcasts of putting tips:
Site PuttingZone Blog
RSS XML Subscription