How to use this ball marker to improve your putting stroke

On Point ball markers double as a training aid, which promotes a slight upward strike on the ball and more consistent putts.

Talk to any good coach and they’ll say the key difference between good and bad practice is using feedback. If you practice without feedback, you won’t know if you’re practicing the right thing or the wrong thing — which means you could be spending time engraining something that’s actually making them worse.

The good news is that implementing some good feedback into your practice sessions isn’t hard. One way of doing it, as golf coach Nick Bradley explains in the video below, is to use the line on your golf ball as you practice your putting. If the ball rolls end-over-end, you know you’re impacting the golf ball with a square putter face. If you push or pull your putts, the line will wobble, and you’ll be able to spot it immediately.

But Bradley suggests going one step further — by employing an On Point ball marker along with the line on the ball. On Point ball markers feature a line on them to mirror that on your golf ball, but more importantly, they’re slightly dome shaped. This means they can act as a handy pre-round training aid: Place the ball marker with the line pointed down your intended line, and align your golf ball with it, and then set your putter behind your ball maker, like you see below.

Start hitting putts. Now, you won’t just be getting feedback on whether you’re pulling or pushing your putts, but because of the dome shape on the golf ball, you’ll be practicing grooving a stroke which promotes a slight upwards strike on to the golf ball. This gets the ball rolling end-over-end and prevents any bobbling, Bradley explains, which grooves a more consistent roll on the golf ball.

A handy way of syncing-up your stroke before your round. You can check out the range of On Point ball markers in our Pro Shop below.

Luke Kerr-Dineen

Golf.com Contributor

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.