You miss putts you should make. We all do. I find the major culprit is overactive hands and wrists, which, in the putting stroke, tend to unduly manipulate the putterface and path.
Good strokes rely more on torso movement than twitchy actions with the hands and wrists. Here’s a drill to solidify your stroke and improve your tempo and rhythm as well.
Take a weighted bag tag and attach a piece of string to it. Secure the end of the string under your usual putting grip so that the tag dangles in line with your puttershaft. (Check out the photos below that match each step.)
1. Now, make your stroke. If you’re too handsy or overuse your wrists and fail to engage your torso, the putter will move but the tag won’t.
2. That’s a recipe for inconsistency. Instead, keep your hands steady and use more of your upper body to pull the putterhead back. When you do it right, the tag will synchronously move along with the puttershaft.
3. This is the goal not only for keeping putterface twisting to a minimum but also generating a smooth and reliable stroke for all putt lengths.
Andrew Park teaches at West Orange CC in Winter Garden, Fla.
