Many golfers fail to give putting the full attention it deserves. They might receive conflicting advice on putting improvement, leading them to focus on the wrong things or overcomplicate what should be fairly simple.
I’ve coached more than 3000 golfers in my career, helping them to improve their putting, but there is not single ‘perfect’ way to putt.
So, in this article, I share the 7 key concepts I consistently see in great putters – ideas around set-up, movement, green-reading, speed control, aim and the mental process that will help you better understand what really drives performance…
7 Things Every Golfer Can Do To Putt Better On The Course
1. Set-up essentials
In the putting stroke, ideally I want to disassociate the legs, core and head, leaving the shoulders, arms and torso to create the motion. My set-up should help to make this as easy as possible.
I let myself fall slightly forwards, almost rounding into posture, rather than simply bending at the hips.
I relax the spine and shoulders with no arm tension. We will all look different due to body proportions but I aim for the arms to hang naturally. Without a putter, my hands should brush somewhere around the knees.
James demonstrates the correct putting setup position and posture
(Image credit: Howard Boylan)
You don’t need your weight to be on the balls of your feet necessarily because you’re not shifting pressure around in your feet.
If you have it slightly toe-side, that will encourage the legs to stay pretty quiet. If weight shifts towards my heels, the legs tend to become more active.
My fellow PGA coach David Orr has a great expression: “Putting posture is not good posture.”
Traditional ‘good posture‘ creates too much muscular tension in the shoulders, lats and upper back, whereas in putting I want those areas to stay soft and free to move.
2. Understanding movement
The putting stroke is a coordinated movement, not a robotic one. Robots often have one degree of freedom while humans have over 200!
I don’t want to isolate movement to one or two joints – I want the upper torso, chest, shoulders, arms and hands to work together. The arms should swing in sync with the…
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