Putting - DO NOT Accelerate Through the Ball

[Puttin4Dough]

15 hours ago, iacas said:

Not really, no. Though I don't really care for putts under about six feet… as distance control shouldn't really be a factor there.

So… putts from 6 to 106 feet… do this. For really, really long putts… you might have to "hit" them a bit.

Question...does straightening the right leg at the top hurt the swing?

[saevel25]

3 minutes ago, Puttin4Dough said:

Question...does straightening the right leg at the top hurt the swing?

For putting? I think you got the wrong thread.

[Puttin4Dough]

Just now, saevel25 said:

For putting? I think you got the wrong thread.

I know...I was just asking because I'm ready to hit the course.

4 minutes ago, Puttin4Dough said:

Question...does straightening the right leg at the top hurt the swing?

So you're basically saying to setup the low point of the putter stroke so the putter slows on the pendulum just after impact?  Correct?

[saevel25]

Just now, Puttin4Dough said:

I know...I was just asking because I'm ready to hit the course.

Well for the curtesy of others and keeping threads about their topic, go find the thread about straightening the right leg. Honestly, your post is just lazy.

[Puttin4Dough]

Just now, saevel25 said:

Well for the curtesy of others and keeping threads about their topic, go find the thread about straightening the right leg. Honestly, your post is just lazy.

I'll hold my response.  It's a forum, not a legal proceeding.

[iacas]

Please stay on topic.

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Puttin4Dough said:

So you're basically saying to setup the low point of the putter stroke so the putter slows on the pendulum just after impact?  Correct?

If you're saying set up with the ball slightly ahead of the low point, yea. I think you want to putt with a slightly positive AoA.

But the acceleration profile is affected by the stroke, too, not just the setup. You can set up with the low point behind the ball and still accelerate through it.

[Puttin4Dough]

4 hours ago, billchao said:

If you're saying set up with the ball slightly ahead of the low point, yea. I think you want to putt with a slightly positive AoA.

But the acceleration profile is affected by the stroke, too, not just the setup. You can set up with the low point behind the ball and still accelerate through it.

Thanks.  I was just wondering if the putting stroke was a perfect pendulum, is the speed at the ball at it's highest rate?

[iacas]

Just now, Puttin4Dough said:

Thanks.  I was just wondering if the putting stroke was a perfect pendulum, is the speed at the ball at it's highest rate?

Read the first post. Or the one linked to in the first post.

If you hit the ball on the upswing and the putting stroke is a "perfect pendulum" it's decelerating slightly.

[Suchmo]

As stated earlier in the thread, following the advice in the first post has vastly improved my distance control. Thanks again.

I have a question, though: For short putts (say 5 feet or less) should I also use a pendulum-like swing at the same tempo (around 80 BPM) as usual, or should I treat these putts as a special case? Following what has been advocated with regards to capture speed, I use a pace that would go around 9 inches past the hole, but I find that I can do this easily with all sorts  of strokes. However, my short putting is very unreliable. Should I stick with a pendulum at the same tempo or try something different?

[iacas]

6 hours ago, Suchmo said:

I have a question, though: For short putts (say 5 feet or less) should I also use a pendulum-like swing at the same tempo (around 80 BPM) as usual, or should I treat these putts as a special case? Following what has been advocated with regards to capture speed, I use a pace that would go around 9 inches past the hole, but I find that I can do this easily with all sorts  of strokes. However, my short putting is very unreliable. Should I stick with a pendulum at the same tempo or try something different?

Whatever you're more comfortable with.

For shorter putts, distance control isn't really important. I find that a lot of people are also more accurate with start lines if they maintain the pendulum idea, but again… those putts are more about start line than distance control, so whatever works for you inside of about eight feet, I say.

[Buckeyebowman]

I've really been focusing on this for about the last month. That's because I am now the owner of a new, to me, Odyssey White Hot #6 Long Neck putter! This thing makes it so ridiculously easy to start the ball on line, it makes blaming a bad putt on the equipment kind of ridiculous!

So, it comes down to distance control now. I used to have a lot of right hand "hit" in my putts, because I didn't swing the club far enough back on the backswing. Due to the advice on this thread I've been practicing trying to get a feel for the length of backswing to get what I want out of the foreswing.

I've been kind of sneaking up on it, but my last few putting sessions, and my last round, I putted like a wizard! Even my 30' lags were guaranteed 2 putts!

Thanks for exploding one of golf's most persistent myths!

[Peter_b]

What does the correct pendulum putt feel like or how is it driven? No target specified: swing up to a point with shoulder turn motor and then just relax and let the ball being picked up? Or how would you explain to someone who is jabbing the putt?

[Shindig]

8 hours ago, Peter_b said:

What does the correct pendulum putt feel like or how is it driven? No target specified: swing up to a point with shoulder turn motor and then just relax and let the ball being picked up? Or how would you explain to someone who is jabbing the putt?

Try the coin drill described in the first post.  That's what I did and it feels very different than when I used to putt.  I remember working on accelerating through before this, so I was way off.  This is especially true if you can do this drill without having your finger down the shaft.  I wish I could describe it better, but this is something you can try at home on the carpet to feel the stroke and then take to a practice putting green.  It doesn't take long to establish what this should feel like, but then it takes practice to eliminate the old practice. 

Here's the coin drill from the first post (rest of post removed in quote to highlight the part you should try):

On 5/3/2014 at 10:22 AM, iacas said:

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.

 

[iacas]

14 hours ago, Peter_b said:

What does the correct pendulum putt feel like or how is it driven? No target specified: swing up to a point with shoulder turn motor and then just relax and let the ball being picked up? Or how would you explain to someone who is jabbing the putt?

I don't know how it "feels" to you, but how we teach people to feel it for themselves quite often is to make a really long backswing (2-3 feet), but then smoothly swing down but only hit the ball six to eight feet.

That's the feeling of decelerating. It's over-done, because a 2.5 foot backswing should never hit the ball only seven feet.

But then after that, where you're actively slowing the putter head down, start to do the coin drill where you feel like the putter head isn't slowing down, but that you're also not speeding it up, either.

[Wanzo]

I didn’t look back to see if this has been specifically referenced before, but in this video he mentions Sam putt lab data that shows pros go forward twice as much as back in their putting stroke?   No need to watch the whole video but just watch 20 seconds starting at the 3:00 min mark.  I tried to google the data but didn’t look too hard yet   

 

 

[iacas]

18 hours ago, Wanzo said:

I didn’t look back to see if this has been specifically referenced before, but in this video he mentions Sam putt lab data that shows pros go forward twice as much as back in their putting stroke?   No need to watch the whole video but just watch 20 seconds starting at the 3:00 min mark.  I tried to google the data but didn’t look too hard yet

The only data I can find is from 2007, and it says the backswing length is 36%. It's also talking about a 12-footer, IIRC, in which case I don't really care much about your dynamics: those matter significantly more on longer putts.

(I say "much" because I care outside of about 8', typically, and if you're 36% that's one thing…).

Also, my follow-through used to be 2x the length of my backswing… because I just let the putter head "coast" through, but my dynamics were still good - no real acceleration/deceleration at impact.

And the putter data that I have from the PGA Tour players in more recent years doesn't show 2:1 at all… though they are on longer putts, too.

[Wanzo]

13 hours ago, iacas said:

because I just let the putter head "coast" through, but my dynamics were still good - no real acceleration/deceleration at impact.

This makes sense. Thanks for the reply.  This is specifically something I’ve been working on lately with evolvr so wanted to make sure I understood.  I have the tendency to accelerate a little too much instead of just coasting into the ball.