Geoff,

First, let me thank you for this site. It's a wonderful service to golfers, and I continue to learn a great deal from it.

I have back problems that restrict how much I can practice putting. I have considered going to a long putter, but have instead decided as a winter project to try a different technique: I adopt a stance in which I bend over considerably more than normal, brace my left hand on my left knee, and putt with only my right arm/hand, using a very short "junior" putter. So far, this seems easier on my back than, and as effective as, more conventional methods. With this method, keeping my body quite still is no problem--the braced position makes me feel rock solid. I find, too, that being so close to the ball is a nice feeling, and it's easy to make a very pendulum-like swing with my right arm. I have the sense almost that I'm rolling or tossing the ball underhanded at the target.

I'm encouraged enough to continue working with this method for a while, but not surprisingly I have encountered a few problems with it. I'll mention just one: Because I like to have my right (dominant) eye over the ball and the hinge for my stroke is my shoulder, the stroke tends to bottom out too far behind the ball, creating some tendency to hit the ball on the upswing and pop it up. In dealing with this problem, I'd prefer to keep any "manipulation" or "correction" of the stroke to a minimum. I have on order a putter with zero loft and about one and one-half inches of face onset that I'm hoping will be helpful in this regard.

I'd very much appreciate your thoughts: in particular, about such an equipment "solution" to this early-bottoming-out problem, and in general, about this one-arm putting technique (keeping in mind my physical limitation).

Thanks,
Chuck

Dear Chuck,

Just a few historical notes first:

You technique is a) similar to the golfers circa 1900; and b) similar to Paul Trevillion. And Dr George Shoane at Rutgers Biomedical Engineering says that a one-arm swing is very stable with reference to the effect of the motion on the head.

I'm not sure I understand how your posture lessens stress on the back, but you would know at least whether it does. The effect may be due to little other than supporting your upper torso with the left arm as a brace anchored against the left thigh-knee for upper torso support reducing the load on the back muscles to hold against the leaning-over torque.

My comment about the stroke bottoming out is that you need a geometrical appreciation for the shape of the stroke in three dimensions. Assuming your shoulder is the pivot, and this pivot is a little over three feet off the ground, your stroke "circle" imagined as the putter head's sweep around in a complete circle centered on the right shoulder and with the plane of the circle oriented vertically would have a radius of this three feet, and so a diameter of 6 feet (more or less). If the ball is directly beneath your nose in the center of your stance, then your right shoulder is about 8 inches to the right of this ball center of your body (shoulders typically being about 15-16 inches wide). This means that the "bottom" of your stroke circle is also about 8 inches right of the ball.

The question is first what does geometry say about how much the putter head will rise over this 8 inches and how much loft gets added?

Basic trigonometry calculations indicate a rise of 1 inch off the ground and an addition of 12.5 degrees of dynamic loft to whatever loft there was at address. The putter face of most putters is not much higher in total than 1 inch, so if you normally hit the ball on its equator halfway between the top and bottom of the putter face, you will now hit the top quadrant of the ball 1 inch above the ground (the ball is 1.68 inches total from bottom to top, and the equator is 0.84 inches up from the bottom), with the bottom edge of the putter face. Strictly speaking, the added loft won't matter any at all, since you are not striking the ball with the plane of the face, but only with the "edge" of the bottom of the face. This dynamic is typically a "top" or "thinning" strike. Since you don't describe this effect, you are not using this "neutral" geometry in your stroke but are doing something else, either in terms of ball position or body action during the stroke.

I suspect what you actually do is play the ball a bit back, closer to your right / dominant eye, perhaps 1 inch right of center, and also rotate your torso in the forward stroke so that this action moves the right shoulder forward into impact, perhaps 2 inches forward of where the shoulder started at address by the time impact occurs. Together, this removes a net of 3 inches of the distance between ball position and shoulder position. The trigonometry for this is: the putter head rises 0.346 inches and the angle added is 7.9 degrees. That catches the ball below the equator with the bottom third of the face. The angle of the face at impact may be 7.9 plus or minus some degrees, depending upon the loft at setup and whether the face was manipulated any other than by the natural arc of the stroke adding 7.9 degrees. Still, that's a lot of upward loft.

Incidentally, if you use the second sort of dynamic, the torso rotation (counterclockwise looking down from above your head) in the thru-stroke will also bring the putter head inside the ball a bit, meeting the ball with the toe end of the putter face, unless you also dip the torso outward / rightward by the left side in the abdomen contracting slightly in order to keep the putter face meeting the ball with the sweetspot of the putter face.

To me, the obvious solution is to define (really "identify") the bottom of your natural, un-manipulated stroke and then play the ball 1-2 inches left of the bottom. This stops the topping and the launching, but you have to respect the bottom as the point where the stroke transitions from down to up. In other words, don't "hit at the back of the ball" and instead "put the bottom of the stroke and forget the ball."

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist

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I think your comments are very much on target. You're right that the only reason this posture lessens stress on my back is that I have my left arm braced, with my hand just above my left knee. Your estimate of the likely low point of my stroke (8 inches) is within an inch of the measurement I arrived at through a little testing (about 7 inches). And in fact, a reason for that small difference is probably that at address my right shoulder is not "square" with my left shoulder, i.e., it's a bit below the horizontal plane of my left shoulder. I assume that by dropping my right shoulder in this fashion, I have also allowed it to move somewhat to my left. I'm 6'3", and I estimate that my shoulder pivot is about 42 inches off the ground, which should result in a slightly "shallower" stroke shape than your estimate, but your remarks are still essentially correct. Using contact tape on my putter, I found that with the ball positioned directly below the bridge of my nose, I was striking the ball right at the very bottom of the putter face. Nevertheless, I was sometimes still able to "achieve" the pop-ups that I mentioned, possibly because, even if I was not moving my shoulder forward during the stroke, I had, as indicated, probably set my shoulder somewhat forward at address. I've since moved the ball back about 3-4 inches in my stance, and I now find that I'm striking the ball slightly higher on the putter face (although still toward the bottom of it) and that the pop-up problem has been reduced. I'll try moving the ball back another 1-2 inches and let you know how that works. Incidentally, the reason I hadn't tried moving the ball back in my stance earlier is that I was concerned about having my eyes in front of the ball. Is there any reason to be concerned about this?

Once again, thanks for your help.

Regards,
Chuck

Dear Chuck,

With your eyes ahead of the ball, closer to the target, you can actually get a bonus by separating the setup posture for aiming the putter face from the setup posture once the face is aimed. The positioning of the eyes "matters" according to the task you are performing. The tasks of aiming the putter face (checking the aim of the putter face from beside the ball) is a different and separate task from using vision during the making of a stroke down the line your putter face is aiming. These postures for these two tasks don't have to be the same.

The task you are asking about is "stroking the ball down the line", after the putter face has been aimed. At this point, what matters is that you perceive the relationship among a) the aim of the putter face, b) the line that runs on the ground straight at the target, and c) your setup and the forthcoming stroke direction that results from this setup and stroke action. What does that mean?

The aim of the putter face "should" be such that a line perpendicular out of the face of the putter at address points straight at the target off to the side across the green some distance. I say "should" because only in this manner will the golfer develop and rely upon a stroke that actually rolls the ball the same direction the putter face aims, down the intended line on the ground indicated by the putter face. This makes the objective reality of the putter face aim in space match up with the actual location of the target. Conveniently, this THEN allows you to base the orientation of your body and its stroke action to the putter face as aimed, first and foremost, as the manner of orienting to the real line you want the ball to roll along when you pull the trigger. This is "instead of" setting up beside the ball and attempting to orient the body and stroke to the target itself, or even to the "line" of the putt, because the postures and physical process of trying to orient to the target or line beside the ball are not nearly as accurate and consistent as setting up to the putter face as aimed and then checking to see where the putter face has been aimed based upon prior perceptual processes from behind the ball. What almost all golfers do is walk into the ball and start setting up AND aiming at the same time, and end up NOT aiming the putter face at the target and hence ALSO NOT using a stroke that rolls the ball where the putter face has been aimed.

Aiming the putter face based upon perceptions of the "line" from ball to target generated from behind the ball, followed by then placing and aiming the putter face thru the center of the ball down this same line especially using a "spot" on this line a few inches in front of the ball seen from behind the ball to be on the same line from ball to target, results in the putter face itself in its orientation in space "EMBODYING" the true, objective location of the target in relation to the ball. All golfers who have accurate perceptions would then agree: yes, this putter face really aims at the target. The "beside the ball checking" of the true aim of the putter face is not strictly necessary if this aiming from behind the ball has been done properly, but since golfers still need a last calibration of distance, they will inevitably "check" the aim anyway no matter what, so they at least ought to know how to do this without generating misperceptions of the target-ball relationship that create re-aiming or doubts about what sort of stroke direction is called for. But once the golfer gets finished with this "checking" to verify that the putter face STILL aims at the target when beside the ball, just like it appeared to do when aimed initially based upon perception of the ball-target line generated behind the ball, than this TASK is over, and the positioning of the eyes in checking the putter face aim is not necessarily required to stay the same for the TASK of the stroke.

For the task of the stroke, what is important (as said above) is that you perceive the relationship among a) the aim of the putter face, b) the line that runs on the ground straight at the target, and c) your setup and the forthcoming stroke direction that results from this setup and stroke action. The visual appearance of the putter face itself CREATES and EMBODIES the most accurate and ready-to-hand indication of the relationship between the putter face and the intended line of the stroke (when the two are in fact the same, as they will be when the putter face objectively aims at the target). If you wonder what line the ball should roll down, just look at the putter face. Whatever line is perpendicular away from the sweetpsot of the putter face IS the line on the ground the ball needs to roll over. The golfer looks at the top leading edge of the putter face and any alignment aids / markings on the putter head and thereby identifies the series of grass blades straight away from the sweetspot in this perpendicular (square) direction away from the putter face.

If the setup and forthcoming body action of the stroke has been organized based upon the aim of the putter face as well, than the "usual" stroke action is the "right" stroke action that will roll the ball the same way the putter face aims. Again, the putter face aim (communicating itself into the body via vision and the handle of the putter) has to mesh with the look and feel of the "usual" stroke, or else the setup for the stroke is off. At this stage of the game, when the task is organizing in advance the stroke action so that the "usual" movement is the "right" movement, the position of the eyes in relation to the ball, putter face at address, and bottom of the stroke arc is not required to be the same as needed for accurate "checking" of the putter face aim beside the ball AND is not necessarily required to be "eyes above ball or even with ball". The truth is at this point the eyes are not the primary sense for making the stroke -- the body action is. The eyes do help a bit in getting the job of the stroke done, but the eyes will hurt the stroke if the eyes are used to revisit the issue of where is the target and whether the "usual" stroke down the line the putter face now aims is the "right" stroke for this putt.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what almost all golfers do with their vision at this late stage in the sequencing of tasks from aim to stroke -- golfers continue aiming right up to the last minute and never get satisfied that the putter face and the "usual" stroke are correctly oriented. The stroke that eventuates is merely the "last" version roiling thru the golfer's mind before the trigger gets pulled.

It would probably be best, in the sense of aiding consistency, if the positioning of the eyes remained the same from the aiming task thru the stroke task, but it is not really required. What IS required is that the positioning of the eyes during the stroke task not HURT the mind's commitment to "trusting" the reality that the putter face aim is accurate and correct in objective reality (as a result of accurate processes in the aiming task) and the commitment to making the "usual" stroke movement out of the setup to roll the ball where the putter face aims.

This is where your exact question's rubber meets the road and needs an answer. Does the positioning of the eyes forward of the ball hurt the commitment to and execution of a stroke that rolls the ball where the putter face has been aimed?

Short answer: not usually. Longer answer: in your case, not at all likely, provided you leave the aiming process / task behind once completed and switch to organizing the stroke task to roll the ball down the same line the putter face aims.

In this sense, the positioning of the eyes forward a bit of the putter face does not introduce significant difficulty in "seeing" where in fact the putter face aims along the ground over the initial 6-12 inches of the intended line. You may have to be a bit more careful than usual to keep in mind a "spot" in front of the putter face that was earlier identified from behind the ball as truly on the real line from sweetspot of putter face to target, and use this spot at this point in the putting action to "see" what is really square away from the putter face.

Your positioning of the eyes ahead of the putter face will neutrally orient the vision to the ground vertically beneath the eyes, and hence to "look back" to the putter face during this stroke orienting business will entail some combination of eye gaze shifts in the sockets and/or head/face swivels back to look at the putter face. These uses of the eyes need to be performed accurately, in plane with the line of the putt, or there is a strong potential for HURTING the sense of where the target really is when looking back to the putter face as the means to orient to the target and pre-plan the stroke motion. This is to say, yes, the positioning of the eyes forward of the putter face has a potential for hurting the stroke-action planning or organizing of the body-action in reference to the aim of the putter face. But using the "spot" in front of the ball to KEEP the benefit of the aiming perceptions generated from behind the ball and to KEEP the sense that the putter face aim as "checked" previously from beside the ball with other eye positioning is the one to commit to for purposes of organizing the stroke motion zeroes out this hurtful potential.

Now, you have eyes pretty much directly vertically above a "spot" slightly forward of the ball and a bit more forward of the putter face sweetspot, so you now have the eyes positioned to perceive three points on the same line, which happens to be the same line the putter face aims down and is also the same true line that objectively aims at the target. That's pretty convenient! So in pre-planning or organizing the body in its setup posture in the task of the stroke to actually roll the ball where the putter face has been aimed, you use this relationship of points in a line on the ground visually and physically to commit to rolling the ball away over the "spot". If the ball actually rolls over the very grass blade that is the "spot", then you have correctly used a straight stroke in terms of the intended and objectively correct line, and did so with a setup that generated the "usual" stroke without any funny-business compensations or adjustments generated by doubts or second-guessing about where the target is located or what sort of stroke is the "right" stroke for this putt. If the eye position HELPS roll the ball over this spot with the "usual" stroke motion, then the positioning of the eyes forward of the ball and putter does no harm at all, and may be doing something at least as good as would happen with eyes more over the ball / putter face at address and potentially even better in the case of some golfers at some specific skill level.

Bottom line: once aimed, forget the issue of where should the putter face point and switch to making the usual stroke, focus on the spot in front of the ball that is known to be on the line, organize the forthcoming body action so that the usual stroke rolls the ball over this spot, and then forget the eyes and go back to distance (which now has become solely tempo) and stroke feel for the "usual" same-every-time stroke motion. Using the usual stroke movement, roll the ball straight over the spot with good tempo.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist

Geoff Mangum's
PuttingZone
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Thanks again, Geoff, for your time and your willingness to provide such a detailed reply. You're comments are encouraging, and I'll work on this and try to make some lemonade. Actually, I'm just beginning to incorporate your ideas about aiming, checking, and setting up for the stroke into my putting routine. Like many golfers, I've always tried to do all of these things more or less at once, and like many, I've often found that the line I picked out from behind the ball didn't seem like the correct line when I got over the ball.

I'll be sure to let you know how my "experiment" with one-handed putting progresses.

Regards,
Chuck