Putting is a skill that flummoxes many. Even though the ball travels hundreds of yards from tee to green, it’s often those last few feet that give golfers the most trouble.
Improvement on the greens is paramount if you want to drop your scores. Ball striking will make for pretty range sessions, but putting will make for pretty scorecards. If you want to post low numbers, you’re going to have to roll in some putts — it’s that simple.
Our loyal readers on GOLF.com know that fact, and putting tips were highly popular in 2021. With golf still in a boom, readers flocked to our instruction pages for help with their putting. And the most popular tip(s) of all came courtesy of one of the best putters in PGA Tour history.
Back in May, Aaron Baddeley joined the Fully Equipped podcast to chat with our gear guys on a variety of topics, but it was his putting tips that held the most attention of our readers.
During the hour-long chat, Baddeley shared three key putting tips with Senior Editor Andrew Turksy, who compiled them into a blog post that was our most-reading putting story of the year.
You can read the entire article here, or you can check out a short summary below.
1. Just putt it
“I just putt…I just try and hole it,” Baddeley said. “It sounds funny, but it’s like throwing a ball to first base. When you pick it up at shortstop, you’re not thinking of how to plant your feet. You’re not thinking of what position your elbow needs to be in, or when you’re going to release it…you just sort of look at where you want (the ball to go) and putt to it.”
2. Set up the same way every time
“While far from over-analytical, Baddeley does have a system in place to make sure he sets up the same way to the ball every single time,” Tursky wrote. “He stresses the importance of setup in putting because, as he says, there’s no time in a 5-6 inch stroke to make adjustments like you can in the full swing. Consistency is imperative.”
3. “Measure” your aim
“To me, the number one thing is aiming the putter face,” Baddeley said. “If you can’t aim the putter face where you want to hit it, it makes it very difficult to start the ball where you want. By aiming the putter face where you need it to be allows you to get good feedback, too, because if the putter face is aiming straight at the hole from 5 feet, and you miss it to the right, you obviously pushed it. Whereas if you can’t aim the face, and you think it’s straight, but your putter face is aiming left edge and you miss it on the left, you actually made a nice stroke you just couldn’t aim it.”
