Putting - DO NOT Accelerate Through the Ball

[parman]

Well I have played on those greens, have you? You sure assume a lot and there is a saying for that which isn't complimentary. After 58 years of golf I've seem most of what can happen. If you really read my post there is nothing there that says you are wrong. I just don't think you are right. 

IMHO I feel how a golfer is putting is an individual decision and the PGA players proves that. They all have their own unique ways. The point I was trying to make is that there are lots of great putters using their own unique styles. I don't believe one way on putting is correct. I also think electronic devices to improve golf are way over rated. If someone is putting super are you going to tell them they are doing it all wrong? LOL

As a professional golf instructor I find it amazing you never practice putting. Maybe that can help you average. 

I think there was not need for Tiger's putting stats since the ones I posted were plenty and the top putters in the last decade.

I also find it odd a professional golfer wants to challenge am amature golfer probably twice your age to a putting match.    Seems rather desperate.

[iacas]

Dennis, you do realize that this topic is dealing with one very specific part of putting, yes? It's not describing a change to the whole way that people putt.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

Well I have played on those greens, have you?

Those greens don't exist these days. What may have been true or a "good way" to putt 40-50 years ago is not likely to work very well these days.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

You sure assume a lot and there is a saying for that which isn't complimentary.

I assume very little. I measure, I test, I challenge, I test again, I think, and then I arrive at a conclusion that is supported by all of the information I have.

And if new information comes to light, I am open to changing the conclusion.

You're just not providing any such information.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

After 58 years of golf I've seem most of what can happen. If you really read my post there is nothing there that says you are wrong. I just don't think you are right.

You're a 9.3, and while I'm perfectly happy to attribute that to your age… you're also not a golf instructor, AFAIK, nor have you studied this anywhere near to the extent that I have.

You're not refuting anything I've said. You don't think I'm right, but you can't tell me anything that's wrong.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

IMHO I feel how a golfer is putting is an individual decision and the PGA players proves that. They all have their own unique ways.

Very few of them are "accelerating through impact." I've seen the SAM data from many, many of them.

This topic deals with one very small part of putting. Yes, they all have several unique features to their putting setup, stance, grip, etc. But they're far closer together on this particular, specific issue than you're willing to see.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

The point I was trying to make is that there are lots of great putters using their own unique styles. I don't believe one way on putting is correct.

Again, this topic is about a very small, specific part of putting.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

I also think electronic devices to improve golf are way over rated.

Yeah, who needs to accurately measure when we can just guess or go by what someone thinks they're doing?

53 minutes ago, parman said:

If someone is putting super are you going to tell them they are doing it all wrong? LOL

Now who is making the assumption?

Virtually all good putters exhibit the physics described in this topic - hitting the ball at around the peak speed. If a player is a good putter, we often don't work on their putting. If they're having trouble with their distance control, though, we investigate why. Quite often, their acceleration profile looks like the "bad" example in the first post.

Improving that improves their distance control.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

As a professional golf instructor I find it amazing you never practice putting. Maybe that can help you average.

I'm not sure what you mean… I'm often the best putter in the group. I'm a really, really good putter… despite not  having the time to practice.

(And, it's often because I am an instructor that I don't have a lot of time to practice putting. And because I realize and know how relatively important or unimportant putting is in the game… If I have a few minutes, I often practice my full swing.)

53 minutes ago, parman said:

I think there was not need for Tiger's putting stats since the ones I posted were plenty and the top putters in the last decade.

You listed Tiger Woods. He putts exactly as described in this topic. So do virtually all of the other top putters in the game today.

@saevel25 answered your post with the famous names and their quotes thusly:

On 7/10/2017 at 0:01 AM, saevel25 said:

None of the analysis you posted mentioned anything about accelerating through the putt. How is your post relevant to this thread?

You quoted a bunch of good putters, but none of their comments dealt with the specific thing discussed in THIS thread.

53 minutes ago, parman said:

I also find it odd a professional golfer wants to challenge am amature golfer probably twice your age to a putting match. Seems rather desperate.

Desperate for what?

And hey, you're the one who said you have 1.7 putts per round.

[Shindig]

7 hours ago, iacas said:

And hey, you're the one who said you have 1.7 putts per round.

I thought you were kidding or it was a typo or something, but 

On 7/9/2017 at 11:38 PM, parman said:

BTW, I average 1.7 putts per round and you?

I often use more than 1.7 putts on the first hole.

----

In any case, learning that this discrepancy affects speed makes me happy because right now, I think that's the one of the three fundamentals of putting that is my worst.  As I improve bead, I'll move onto speed (and I know how I'll be working on read in the near future), and I'll know what commonly-said advice to not follow. 

[iacas]

@Shindig I'm sure it was a typo -  by @parman - originally. I'm just teasing about it.

[Limpinswinger]

On 5/3/2014 at 1:22 PM, iacas said:

Here are three graphs of putting strokes. The s axis is "speed" and the "t" axis is time.

We'll take a look at each of these in a moment, but consider first how putting can behave like a pendulum.

In virtually all good putting strokes, the ball is hit with a slight positive angle of attack (AoA) - about 2-3° or so. This positive AoA helps minimize backspin, produce no spin, or even to produce a tiny bit of forward spin if the dynamic loft is 1-2°. But the point is: the ball is struck while the putter head is ascending, or after low point .

If you were to swing a pendulum back and through, maximum speed would be where? At the bottom. At low point. At every point after that, the speed would be lower. Even one tenth of one degree after low point, the pendulum is slowing down (negative acceleration, or deceleration).

The best putters almost all tend to have a decelerating putter head at or even slightly before impact. Their putting stroke resembles a pendulum, reaching maximum speed at or slightly before impact.

Consider also the length of a pendulum's swing. A theoretical pendulum (no loss of energy to friction) swings as far past center in one direction as it does in the other direction. Whether you measure it in degrees or a linear measurement, the pendulum swings 22.7° left and 22.7° right, or 13.1 inches left and 13.1 inches right.

The best putters almost all tend to have similar length backswings and through-swings in their putting strokes. Their putting strokes continue to resemble a pendulum in this sense.

Now let's take a look at each of these putting strokes.

Here's a putting stroke typical of a golfer who has a terrible time controlling their distances. This golfer may have a great sense of touch from 5-10 feet, maybe even out to 15', but when you ask them to hit a 30' putt, you start to see issues. They'll hit one 27', the next 34', the one after that 25', and then maybe 33'.

These golfers often make a backswing that's - let's just say - eight inches for a six-foot putt, nine inches for a 12-foot putt, and ten inches for a 30-foot putt. They're almost the same length. Then they have to accelerate their putters various amounts to reach various speeds at impact to send the ball various distances.

If you wanted to make a pendulum swing faster at the bottom of the arc, given the same pendulum length and weight (we aren't changing putters or our setup appreciably), how would you accomplish this?

Why… you'd simply pull the pendulum back farther before letting it go.

So look at the speed and time plot of the poor putter above. I've marked the instantaneous speed at two points: just prior to impact and just after impact. Note that impact - even on a putting stroke - severely slows the putter head down. I've exaggerated it quite a bit in these graphs, but that's something I can do given that I haven't added any scale to these charts. :D It simply makes things clearer to see and thus easier to grasp.

At any rate, note that the direction of each of the arrows - both the dashed (pre-impact) and dotted (post-impact) lines is pointing upwards. This means the putter head has positive acceleration. It's speeding up. Note the pronounced "hump" after impact. Though the ball slows the putter head down temporarily, it's still speeding up, so you see a second peak speed after impact.

This golfer is roughly 99% likely to have poor distance control.

Let's look at the good and great putting dynamics (and by good I mean pretty darn good, because as you'll note the differences between these two are subtle):

Note how in Good the putting stroke reaches maximum speed at the ball. The proof of this is that the acceleration is neither positive nor negative - the arrow is pointing horizontally, indicating that the speed is neither going up nor down. Constant speed is no acceleration (positive or negative). Notice that this condition continues immediately after impact, and the putter head continues to slow down thereafter.

In the Great image, the putter head is actually slowing down slightly at impact (the arrow points downward). Then you see the BIG deceleration caused by the putter impacting the ball, and then the deceleration continues from there.

Contrast those with what we often see from the golfers with the absolute worst distance control:

 

This golfer actually manages to reach peak/maximum speed after the ball has left the putter . Note that his acceleration curve going into impact actually steepens - he is accelerating more at impact than at any other point in the downstroke. Then he accelerates MORE until he rapidly decelerates, well after impact, to bring the putter to a halt.

This is more common than you might think. Golfers have been told for decades to "accelerate through the ball" and to "putt authoritatively" and so on. This advice ranks near the top of my list for counter-productive, harmful advice.

By and large, the poorest putters accelerate far too much for far too long (including up to and after impact), while the best putters have roughly matching backstrokes and through-strokes that deliver the putter head to the ball while it is either not accelerating at all or is negatively accelerating (i.e. decelerating, or slowing down).

If you feel you may be "accelerating" your putter into impact, put three coins on the ground, equally spaced from each other, in a line. Put the ball near the middle one, and practice making backstrokes that go to one and finish at the other. Try to feel that you're not adding anything to the downstroke or follow-through: you're not accelerating the putter much (just let gravity do it - in reality your muscles will contribute, but it's uncommon to feel much muscle contribution) and you're not forcing yourself to "brake" the putter too much at the end, either. Just make a natural, smooth stroke that matches - coin to coin.

To change how far you hit the ball, move the coins farther apart or closer together, keeping the distances the same.

If you still struggle with this, swing to the second or third longest coin, but still try to hit the ball a short distance and finish at the first or second coin on the follow-through.

It's that simple.

P.S. Note that I've made no attempt to show the scale of t and s. Specifically, I've fudged things a bit by implying that the the t is the same for all of these strokes, and that impact occurs at the same moment. This is very unlikely to be true: if you make a short backstroke and accelerate all the way up to and even after impact, you're likely to have a shorter (time) downswing and to reach impact sooner. They line up because I wanted to keep things simple, and because timing isn't really the topic here.

P.P.S. A really old example of a SAM PuttLab read-out can be seen here .

P.P.P.S. (2014-08-13) A great series of pictures and a simple explanation of the "why" is found in post #179:

I haven't posted in a while. I just logged on and saw this thread featured on the home page.  I saw this discussion a few years ago and immediately went to the practice green to try it out and saw immediate results.  Thanks for the clear (if slightly fudged), explanation of what is going on and how to execute the putting stroke optimally.  This is probably the best lesson on TST to help amateurs lower their scores.

[Mike Ross]

I always get to the green quickly, but seem to spend days trying to get off it. This is a great read, and hopefully I can work out my yips when I'm out on the course this weekend. I also forget my mechanics when I step up to make the putt, hopefully studying these tips help. I'll probably have to read through this again in the clubhouse before my tee time. 

[dchoye]

Good thread that I reread once in a while.  I notice good putters "hold their finish" or have a short follow through 

I prefer to think of slowing down or coasting rather decel.  Though probably means the same   Decel seems like I excessive brake whereas slowing down or coasting, I just release the brakes and slow down more naturally 

[iacas]

Nobody says to "actively" decelerate. Pendulums decelerate on the upswing.

[BogeySwine]

Just a quick Thank You for this thread. I've played quite a bit this year on four or five different courses and my putting has really improved! I've learned to read the breaks on the greens and started to get the ball close on the long lag putts to avoid three putts. Even the 6 to 8 footers have started to fall regularly! Next up will have to be hitting more fairways, or just keeping the ball near the fairways so I can advance closer to the greens. I've worked on my chipping and pitching to where I save a couple of strokes every round. Thanks for all the good information that is available on your site!

[colin007]

9 hours ago, BogeySwine said:

Just a quick Thank You for this thread. I've played quite a bit this year on four or five different courses and my putting has really improved! I've learned to read the breaks on the greens and started to get the ball close on the long lag putts to avoid three putts. Even the 6 to 8 footers have started to fall regularly! Next up will have to be hitting more fairways, or just keeping the ball near the fairways so I can advance closer to the greens. I've worked on my chipping and pitching to where I save a couple of strokes every round. Thanks for all the good information that is available on your site!

This is why I love this site. There are quite a few of these threads that can really open someone's eyes. Ball flight laws back in the day - damn. Mind blown like Kennedy.

On 7/9/2017 at 11:38 PM, parman said:

Tiger Woods:

Stroke analysis: Woods isn't as technical as some other players, but you wouldn't know it by his putting. His setup is fundamentally perfect with everything square, especially his forearms and the puttershaft it looks like they're the same line. I'm sure he practices this a lot. When your setup is this good, you're going to make a lot of putts. And when you combine it with an equally sound stroke (he moves through the ball like it's invisible), you make a lot of history.

Not to nit pick, but I'm almost certain Tigs sets up with an open putter face and has to actively close the face shut, I think he likes that gate closing feel.

[iacas]

20 minutes ago, colin007 said:

Not to nit pick, but I'm almost certain Tigs sets up with an open putter face and has to actively close the face shut, I think he likes that gate closing feel.

Yep.

2.5° open at setup, 0.9° closed at impact.

I've seen other SAM reports that have him about 4° right at setup.

[mlb12]

So to summarize i could not read  all 20 posts, is this basically a pop stroke similar to brant snedeker?

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, mlb12 said:

So to summarize i could not read  all 20 posts, is this basically a pop stroke similar to brant snedeker?

I'm not sure how you got that.

Read two posts. The first:

And the next one:

That should be all you need to read, really.

[mlb12]

iacas,

We can dig deeper into this topic next  i'm a member @ Chautauqua.

[iacas]

26 minutes ago, mlb12 said:

iacas,

We can dig deeper into this topic next  i'm a member @ Chautauqua.

We are around all winter indoors at Golf Evolution.

[mlb12]

On 10/11/2017 at 7:57 PM, iacas said:

We are around all winter indoors at Golf Evolution.

Ok,

 

When Troy comes down this winter i'll take a ride a-long.

 

 

[Ty_Webb]

This is a really interesting thread and I have been trying to put it into action, with some mixed success. A little bit of back story:

I got a SAM puttlab analysis about a year ago and I saw the "bad" profile quite clearly on that. The guy told me that I should be aiming to have that flat going into impact (the acceleration profile). He didn't tell me how and I was trying to do that. I now have relatively easy access to a SAM and I was trying to do that. I could not for the life of me get the profile to be anything other than accelerating into impact. I guess 25 years of doing the wrong thing takes a fair amount of time to undo. Anyway, I read this thread (about half of it) and decided to try it again. I didn't remember reading the equal lengths backswing and through swing, but it occurred to me to try it (I'm sure that I did subconsciously remember it and it popped back into my head). I found that I could do it and I got the flat or even slightly decelerating into impact profile. That was quite exciting. What I did notice was that the five or so strokes at a time on the puttlab were not very consistent. The shape was consistent, but not the height of the line (so my speed was varying quite a bit). That has been something of a constant issue I have noticed on the course. I also had to feel like the putter was almost stopping at impact. I had to feel like I was decelerating the putter massively on the downswing to get it to just be flat at impact. Bizarre. 

Questions:

When I have a 15 or less foot putt, it's easy to just take it back and let go (I still have to feel like I'm restricting it to stop at the same distance past the ball) and get the speed right. On longer putts, I have to start putting something into it to get enough speed. On really long putts, I feel like I'm accelerating fast early in my downstroke, but then have to really decelerate fast to stop at the same distance by the ball. Would I be better off to go for adding a little bit for the short putts too, so that as my stroke gets longer I'm maintaining the added force to get longer distances?

What about where you really have to hit it hard - perhaps the greens are slow and you have a bank to get up? It feels easier for me to get enough speed if I'm accelerating all the way to the ball. Is this just something I should be practising?

Lastly, I find sometimes if my last thought is "don't leave it short", I give it a little extra at the last second and it goes too far. Is that just me being an idiot? Probably.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

This is a really interesting thread and I have been trying to put it into action, with some mixed success. A little bit of back story:

I got a SAM puttlab analysis about a year ago and I saw the "bad" profile quite clearly on that. The guy told me that I should be aiming to have that flat going into impact (the acceleration profile). He didn't tell me how and I was trying to do that. I now have relatively easy access to a SAM and I was trying to do that. I could not for the life of me get the profile to be anything other than accelerating into impact. I guess 25 years of doing the wrong thing takes a fair amount of time to undo. Anyway, I read this thread (about half of it) and decided to try it again. I didn't remember reading the equal lengths backswing and through swing, but it occurred to me to try it (I'm sure that I did subconsciously remember it and it popped back into my head). I found that I could do it and I got the flat or even slightly decelerating into impact profile. That was quite exciting. What I did notice was that the five or so strokes at a time on the puttlab were not very consistent. The shape was consistent, but not the height of the line (so my speed was varying quite a bit). That has been something of a constant issue I have noticed on the course. I also had to feel like the putter was almost stopping at impact. I had to feel like I was decelerating the putter massively on the downswing to get it to just be flat at impact. Bizarre. 

And… I have a hard time accelerating after impact. So I know what you mean.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

When I have a 15 or less foot putt, it's easy to just take it back and let go (I still have to feel like I'm restricting it to stop at the same distance past the ball) and get the speed right. On longer putts, I have to start putting something into it to get enough speed.

Your backswing is probably too slow.

This isn't literally putting with gravity, but it's like putting with stronger gravity, so the period of the stroke is shorter.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

On really long putts, I feel like I'm accelerating fast early in my downstroke, but then have to really decelerate fast to stop at the same distance by the ball.

The period should be about the same - your tempo should be about the same - regardless of the length of the putt. So on longer putts, the putter head goes back faster and thus comes forward faster, and so over the same period of time, moves much farther.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

What about where you really have to hit it hard - perhaps the greens are slow and you have a bank to get up? It feels easier for me to get enough speed if I'm accelerating all the way to the ball. Is this just something I should be practising?

Accelerating all the way to the ball is fine… it's accelerating after the ball that you want to avoid.

A faster, longer backswing is all that's needed.

3 hours ago, Ty_Webb said:

Lastly, I find sometimes if my last thought is "don't leave it short", I give it a little extra at the last second and it goes too far. Is that just me being an idiot? Probably.

Just not trusting this yet.