Putting Techniques

[Colorado14]

10 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

Disagree. What your saying is everyone has to putt using the same technique to get it right, when in actual fact putting techniques vary incredibly, even amongst the worlds best. If standing on my head and putting backwards with my left hand makes the ball go in the hole, then surely that's the path to take?

@Mr PuddleBingo! That is also my point! If your learning you do want to learn to putt. Base, arm angle, technique so on so forth.  Then you change it to what works for you. Look at Jacks stance in the picture I attached. It obviously worked for him in his awesome career, but would you teach that? That was learned by him on making adjustments to what worked for him, and he spent a lot of time practicing that to take it to the course. Hell I think he putted like that most of his career.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, Colorado14 said:

@Mr PuddleBingo! That is also my point! If your learning you do want to learn to putt. Base, arm angle, technique so on so forth.  Then you change it to what works for you. Look at Jacks stance in the picture I attached. It obviously worked for him in his awesome career, but would you teach that? That was learned by him on making adjustments to what worked for him, and he spent a lot of time practicing that to take it to the course. Hell I think he putted like that most of his career.

I think that putting is similar to the full swing, in that there are a few common features present in ALL good putters.  One of those is that the putt is struck with a level to slightly ascending blow, which means that the ball is toward the forward side in the set-up.  Putting with the ball further back promotes a downward strike, which simply isn't done by good putters.  

Jack's set-up is pretty crouched over, especially when compared to today's putting styles, but he struck the ball with a slightly upward stroke.  

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Colorado14 said:

 I guess it was just my thought process but it all depends on where you game is. Higher handicapper may lose balls and miss fairways and GIRS and chunk or thin a chip shot and then 3-4 putt. Where are a mid to low handicapper may miss every fairway but short game is good that day and they save par. They may hit every fairway and hit every GIR and still only make par. (2 putts no birdies) where are the shots lost?

No.

Off topic so I’m not elaborating in this thread but… no.

Driving and approach shots are far more important than putting at every level of the game.

2 hours ago, Mr Puddle said:

Disagree. What your saying is everyone has to putt using the same technique to get it right, when in actual fact putting techniques vary incredibly, even amongst the worlds best. If standing on my head and putting backwards with my left hand makes the ball go in the hole, then surely that's the path to take?

Virtually nobody good hits down with a putter. The broad techniques may vary but there are a few commonalities.

[leftybutnotPM]

7 hours ago, Mr Puddle said:

Putting is like the rest of golf, it's about what works for the individual. I know that putting the ball back in my stance has straightened my putting, and has vastly reduced my average. 

You are kidding yourself. If it works it can only mean that you were a dreadful putter before and now you are only slightly less dreadful. And that your previous ball position was even crazier. If a right handed player said his driving had improved since he started having the ball at his right heel you'd assume that he is awful and must have been beyond awful before and will continue to be awful. 

The mechanics and physics of putting do not allow for success with what you are suggesting. It is ridiculous. Learn to putt properly.

A decent putter could play a round and putt wit the ball outside his right foot (RH player) and look like a good putter to a novice.

In the same way that if a pro hits a bunker shot 20 feet from the hole someone always claps because it's better than they could do.

Do not persist with this nonsense. 

7 hours ago, Mr Puddle said:

We all know good golfers with bad swings,

No. No such thing. And you can't name one.

Effective swings that aren't "pretty" are not bad swings.

 

Edited August 22, 2019 by leftybutnotPM

[Mr Puddle]

17 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I think that putting is similar to the full swing, in that there are a few common features present in ALL good putters.  One of those is that the putt is struck with a level to slightly ascending blow, which means that the ball is toward the forward side in the set-up.  Putting with the ball further back promotes a downward strike, which simply isn't done by good putters.  

Jack's set-up is pretty crouched over, especially when compared to today's putting styles, but he struck the ball with a slightly upward stroke.  

OK, I shall give you another example to prove my point. I play with a golfer who plays off of 13, and a rather good 13 he is as well. He is naturally left handed, but plays right handed. As a result, he claims his dominant left hand forces him to pull the ball to the right, and now putts one handed with his weaker right hand. I can't remember ever seeing him three putt. Now, please tell me any pro that would suggest putting one handed with the wrong hand ? 

Again, if it works, it works !

Edited August 23, 2019 by Mr Puddle

[DaveP043]

13 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

OK, I shall give you another example to prove my point. I play with a golfer who plays off of 13, and a rather good 13 he is as well. He is naturally left handed, but plays right handed. As a result, he claims his dominant left hand forces him to pull the ball to the right, and now putts one handed with his weaker right hand. I can't remember ever seeing him three putt. Now, please tell me any pro that would suggest putting one handed with the wrong hand ? 

Again, if it works, it works !

What do you mean by a "rather good 13"?  Do you mean that he's a better-than-average ballstriker?  If so, putting may be his weakest point, and his choice of putting style may limit how good his putting can get.  Without seeing him putt, and without seeing any statistics, its impossible to make any kind of judgement.  And its quite possible that he could improve by putting with both hands, if he made the appropriate corrections.

But yes, it can be possible to improve poor performance by adopting a band-aid approach.  That doesn't mean the band-aid approach is the BEST you can do, it merely means that its better than what you were doing before?

[Osnola]

I am not an expert or a teacher, but I really struggled putting, trying to do it the "traditional" way.  I tried changing ball placement, but that did not help.  I found that my biggest problem was that my right arm (I am right handed) was so dominant that I was trying to guide the ball instead of putting to a specific point and letting the contour of the green and the grain do its thing.  I changed, about 2 years ago, to a left hand on the bottom grip and saw improvement, especially with controlling pace.  It did not fix it and make me an elite putter, but I do have a lot fewer 3 putts using this grip and a consistent placement of the ball in the middle of my stance (under my nose).  I also discovered that my putting stroke is Straight Back and Straight Through and when I switched from a toe weighted putter to a face balanced putter I at least became a little more consistent and quit missing so many putts short and to the left.

Let me make it clear, I am not advocating that anyone make the same changes I made,  What works for me may not work for you.  First and foremost you  have to find something that you are comfortable with and that works for you.  Different mentalities, body types, etc. The key to anything like this is practice, practice, practice, and be willing to make adjustments depending on how the greens are playing.  You just can't show up and play and really expect to get better.  Having said that, I need to practice more, but practice more now than I used to...

Edited August 23, 2019 by Osnola

[Mr Puddle]

10 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

What do you mean by a "rather good 13"?  Do you mean that he's a better-than-average ballstriker?  If so, putting may be his weakest point, and his choice of putting style may limit how good his putting can get.  Without seeing him putt, and without seeing any statistics, its impossible to make any kind of judgement.  And its quite possible that he could improve by putting with both hands, if he made the appropriate corrections.

But yes, it can be possible to improve poor performance by adopting a band-aid approach.  That doesn't mean the band-aid approach is the BEST you can do, it merely means that its better than what you were doing before?

Come on, you know exactly what I mean. We all know golfers who play off of similar handicaps, whilst their actual ability is a mile apart. I know people with an 18 handicap who should really be playing off of 28, and I know people with an 18 handicap that should be playing off of 10. perhaps it is different in the USA. Regarding putting techniques. There becomes a point in ones life where band-aid fixes are just fine. I am nearly 62, and the likelihood is that I will get progressively worse as I get older and more unfit. If a little tweak works, that's exactly what I will do !! 

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Mr Puddle said:

OK, I shall give you another example to prove my point. I play with a golfer who plays off of 13, and a rather good 13 he is as well. He is naturally left handed, but plays right handed. As a result, he claims his dominant left hand forces him to pull the ball to the right, and now putts one handed with his weaker right hand. I can't remember ever seeing him three putt. Now, please tell me any pro that would suggest putting one handed with the wrong hand ? 

Again, if it works, it works !

Here's the part you're missing: what you're suggesting doesn't work.

There are real-world reasons why. You're plugging your ears and humming a tune to them, because you saw a likely relatively minor immediate improvement. We see it on the forum all the time: one day, a guy professes to have found the secret to his swing, and then three weeks later he's back to shooting the same scores and having the same issues, or maybe slightly new issues.

Virtually no good putter plays the ball back in his stance or hits down on his putts. There are real-world reasons why, undeniable reasons.

You found a "hack" or a "band-aid." Like all band-aids, it'll fall off eventually, and a band-aid may hold a gaping wound shut for a little while, but it's not the actual surgery that's required.

45 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

What do you mean by a "rather good 13"?  Do you mean that he's a better-than-average ballstriker?  If so, putting may be his weakest point, and his choice of putting style may limit how good his putting can get.  Without seeing him putt, and without seeing any statistics, its impossible to make any kind of judgement.  And its quite possible that he could improve by putting with both hands, if he made the appropriate corrections.

But yes, it can be possible to improve poor performance by adopting a band-aid approach.  That doesn't mean the band-aid approach is the BEST you can do, it merely means that its better than what you were doing before?

Furthermore, it may be one guy… a guy who is a 13 handicap. Whoopty doo.

I know a bunch of people who shoot about 85-90 who rarely three-putt… because they almost never hit greens and so their first putts are from 12 feet away for par.

38 minutes ago, Osnola said:

I also discovered that my putting stroke is Straight Back and Straight Through and when I switched from a toe weighted putter to a face balanced putter I at least became a little more consistent and quit missing so many putts short and to the left.

Not to get off topic, but that's highly unlikely for a putt of any real length. I'd bet a TON of money your path has an arc to it, and that the face (perhaps more importantly) isn't square/perpendicular to the target line and actually opens and closes a good bit.

44 minutes ago, Osnola said:

Let me make it clear, I am not advocating that anyone make the same changes I made,  What works for me may not work for you.  First and foremost you  have to find something that you are comfortable with and that works for you.

Your changes aren't all that significant or weird. You putt cross-handed. You feel like the ball is in the middle of your stance. You also list your handicap as a 20, and "good putting" is relative.

30 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

Come on, you know exactly what I mean.

Not really. Is he a 13 because he's a great ballstriker, or because he putts the eyes out of it, or because he was once scratch but now he's 80…?

30 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

We all know golfers who play off of similar handicaps, whilst their actual ability is a mile apart.

I don't know of too many people at all like that. Scores are your ability. They may not reflect your true potential, given a bunch of work, but they pretty accurately tell the tale of your ability.

30 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

Regarding putting techniques. There becomes a point in ones life where band-aid fixes are just fine. I am nearly 62, and the likelihood is that I will get progressively worse as I get older and more unfit. If a little tweak works, that's exactly what I will do !! 

Then accept it for what it is and stop trying to justify it. You posted to say you found something, others posted to say "uhh, you might want to keep looking, that's not a good way to putt," and you get defiant and defend it with BS logic about "whatever works."

Okay then.

[Vinsk]

52 minutes ago, iacas said:

Then accept it for what it is and stop trying to justify it. You posted to say you found something, others posted to say "uhh, you might want to keep looking, that's not a good way to putt," and you get defiant and defend it with BS logic about "whatever works."

@Mr Puddle. This is it. So there ya go. And really...you can’t put ‘ I know a guy’ and ‘ to prove my point’ in the same sentence. It completely lacks any substance or credibility. 

[Mr Puddle]

3 hours ago, Osnola said:

I am not an expert or a teacher, but I really struggled putting, trying to do it the "traditional" way.  I tried changing ball placement, but that did not help.  I found that my biggest problem was that my right arm (I am right handed) was so dominant that I was trying to guide the ball instead of putting to a specific point and letting the contour of the green and the grain do its thing.  I changed, about 2 years ago, to a left hand on the bottom grip and saw improvement, especially with controlling pace.  It did not fix it and make me an elite putter, but I do have a lot fewer 3 putts using this grip and a consistent placement of the ball in the middle of my stance (under my nose).  I also discovered that my putting stroke is Straight Back and Straight Through and when I switched from a toe weighted putter to a face balanced putter I at least became a little more consistent and quit missing so many putts short and to the left.

Let me make it clear, I am not advocating that anyone make the same changes I made,  What works for me may not work for you.  First and foremost you  have to find something that you are comfortable with and that works for you.  Different mentalities, body types, etc. The key to anything like this is practice, practice, practice, and be willing to make adjustments depending on how the greens are playing.  You just can't show up and play and really expect to get better.  Having said that, I need to practice more, but practice more now than I used to...

Thank you, I think we agree

1 hour ago, Vinsk said:

@Mr Puddle. This is it. So there ya go. And really...you can’t put ‘ I know a guy’ and ‘ to prove my point’ in the same sentence. It completely lacks any substance or credibility. 

Mate it's simple. I altered what I did, and it worked. What I did before was pretty text book, and it didn't work. Your ethos would have had you carrying on doing something that didn't work for you indefinitely, but mine is different. Of course, it's easy to accuse someone of being a liar on the internet, but people rarely have the confidence to do it face to face. Your very brave, keep it up

[iacas]

21 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

Mate it's simple. I altered what I did, and it worked. What I did before was pretty text book, and it didn't work. Your ethos would have had you carrying on doing something that didn't work for you indefinitely, but mine is different.

No, you found a band-aid that may work short-term but which will likely not work long-term, and so every minute you spend doing that is a minute you're further engraining a "bad" habit and a minute you could have spent learning how to do something better properly.

22 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

Of course, it's easy to accuse someone of being a liar on the internet, but people rarely have the confidence to do it face to face. Your very brave, keep it up

He did no such thing.

---

Look, bluntly speaking, if you just wanted another guy who doesn't often break 90 to agree with you that sometimes band-aids can work for a short period of time, I wish you'd saved us all the time and trouble of trying to actually help you.

[Mr Puddle]

37 minutes ago, iacas said:

No, you found a band-aid that may work short-term but which will likely not work long-term, and so every minute you spend doing that is a minute you're further engraining a "bad" habit and a minute you could have spent learning how to do something better properly.

He did no such thing.

---

Look, bluntly speaking, if you just wanted another guy who doesn't often break 90 to agree with you that sometimes band-aids can work for a short period of time, I wish you'd saved us all the time and trouble of trying to actually help you.

This person  questioned my credibility. Even in the USA this is the same thing as calling somebody a liar, and you know it. I am quite long in the tooth, and  have been posting on various sites, including political and watch enthusiast forums (my other hobby). When people such as the person in question have no logical argument, they find it best to accuse another person of lying, and at worst make threats. Over here we call them "internet warriors". It's sad that these people exist, but I suppose it's inevitable !

Edited August 23, 2019 by Mr Puddle

[iacas]

46 minutes ago, Mr Puddle said:

This person  questioned my credibility.

He did not. He said using one 13 handicapper isn’t proof of anything.

[leftybutnotPM]

2 hours ago, Mr Puddle said:

 When people such as the person in question have no logical argument, they find it best to accuse another person of lying, and at worst make threats. Over here we call them "internet warriors". It's sad that these people exist, but I suppose it's inevitable !

But what you are doing is just as bad. Your credibility is being called into question because on this subject you have none. You are the worst type of "internet warrior".

And the passive aggressive "sad that these people exist" comment is further proof.

People with knowledge on this subject have shown that you are wrong, yet you persist as if you have found some sort of tip that others should use.

There is no such thing as a good golfer with a bad swing.

Good putters never do things that defy the laws of physics and mechanics.

I'll bet you think that if you have a round with 27 putts it means you've had a great putting day.

Also, this myth of people with handicaps that wildly belie their ability is a red herring. Yes, there are people who are inconsistent but hit lots of great shots, but the key to their issue is their inconsistency, not their great shots.

I would back myself to putt reasonably well with a the edge of a wedge if I snapped my putter on the first green. In fact, on normal greens I wouldn't expect it to alter my scores much at all. But that doesn't mean it's a solution for crap putting.

The fact that you use players with 13 handicaps as example shows that you probably have not seen or played with a really good player or a really good putter.

Playing the ball back in your stance makes less sense as saying that wearing a blue shirt improved your driving. If a good putter started doing it, their putting would get much worse, so what is that saying?

Why are you taking the "i'll bet you wouldn't say it to my face approach"?

If I said to your face that your putting technique was wrong and you punched me I the face, would that make your technique correct?

Edited August 23, 2019 by leftybutnotPM

[Mr Puddle]

20 hours ago, leftybutnotPM said:

But what you are doing is just as bad. Your credibility is being called into question because on this subject you have none. You are the worst type of "internet warrior".

And the passive aggressive "sad that these people exist" comment is further proof.

People with knowledge on this subject have shown that you are wrong, yet you persist as if you have found some sort of tip that others should use.

There is no such thing as a good golfer with a bad swing.

Good putters never do things that defy the laws of physics and mechanics.

I'll bet you think that if you have a round with 27 putts it means you've had a great putting day.

Also, this myth of people with handicaps that wildly belie their ability is a red herring. Yes, there are people who are inconsistent but hit lots of great shots, but the key to their issue is their inconsistency, not their great shots.

I would back myself to putt reasonably well with a the edge of a wedge if I snapped my putter on the first green. In fact, on normal greens I wouldn't expect it to alter my scores much at all. But that doesn't mean it's a solution for crap putting.

The fact that you use players with 13 handicaps as example shows that you probably have not seen or played with a really good player or a really good putter.

Playing the ball back in your stance makes less sense as saying that wearing a blue shirt improved your driving. If a good putter started doing it, their putting would get much worse, so what is that saying?

Why are you taking the "i'll bet you wouldn't say it to my face approach"?

If I said to your face that your putting technique was wrong and you punched me I the face, would that make your technique correct?

I think your site name probably says it all

[leftybutnotPM]

3 hours ago, Mr Puddle said:

I think your site name probably says it all

Now there's a strong defence of your position. Articulate, detailed and well-reasoned.

[billchao]

3 hours ago, Mr Puddle said:

I think your site name probably says it all

 

5 minutes ago, leftybutnotPM said:

Now there's a strong defence of your position. Articulate, detailed and well-reasoned.

Everybody done now? Yes? Good.