Kenny Nairn on the "Bump and Scrape" (Video)

This is one of the wildest drills I've seen in a while, but it teaches an equally weird shot. GCA coach Kenny Nairn's bizarre chipping drill is something to use in links play and perhaps on really tight, fast lies.



The drill is simple. Pull a hybrid from your bag and take your putting grip, then let go with your lead hand and just use your trailing hand to drag the clubhead back along the ground. Then, stroke your 'putt' without letting the clubhead leave the ground!

I tried this and it feels really weird. If you're like me, the clubhead is going to make a loop on the ground -- it will go back fairly straight but it will try to move closer to you on the forward stroke, creating a teardrop-shaped swing. After a little practice, I managed to create more of an arc with it -- but it does take some practice.

Of course, it gets even weirder when you try to make this shot with both hands. It doesn't get any easier with two hands -- at least, it didn't for me.

And to be honest, I can't tell you how it works because I don't have anywhere nearby where I could actually test this putting technique. This is definitely a links technique, not something you would use on a putting green.

So why am I showing you this? Well, even if you don't currently have a use for this shot, I think it might be useful to help you develop a lighter touch with your putter. The idea is to hold the club as lightly as you can while still maintaining control of the motion. To gain better control of the clubhead without gripping it too tightly, you'll have to turn your shoulders a bit more. That will also help your rhythm when you try swinging an actual putter.

The lighter you can hold your putter while maintaining control, the easier it will be to make a consistent stroke. This odd drill may be just the ticket for some of you, so give it a try and see.

Todd Sones and His Radical Putting Technique (Video)

I said it's radical, but I'm going to take it even farther and teach you what I do. GCA coach Todd Somes wants you to ignore your putter's swing path!



Somes says not to worry about your swing path, just think about where you want the ball to go. But I'm going to take it a step further...

Your putter's swing path doesn't matter!

I mean it. Seriously. Your putter's swing path doesn't matter at all. Here's why:

When your putter is one foot behind the ball, does it contact the ball at all? No. So it doesn't affect your ball there. Nor does it affect the ball from two feet back or six inches back. Which begs the question: Exactly when does the putterhead affect where the ball goes?

ANSWER: From just a fraction of an inch before contact until the ball is no longer touching the ball. That is no more than TWO INCHES, give or take a quarter inch.

Now consider the nature of a putter's stroke. No matter whether your putter travels forward and back in a straight line, or in a gentle arc around your body, there is a short section of that stroke where the putterhead is traveling in a straight line. That section might be as long as four to six inches, depending on your stroke, and the middle of that section is when the putter shaft is vertical.

Which means that, no matter what shape your putter stroke takes, the putterhead travels straight toward the hole in the middle of your stroke, and it does so for long enough to hit the ball on your chosen aim line. All you have to do is get the ball position correct and this will happen automatically, no matter how you swing the putter.

So the real question is... where should you position the ball?

ANSWER: Hold your putter in your normal putting grip and stance, and let your arms and hands hang down so the shaft is vertical. When you do, the shaft is pointing to your ball position. When you place the ball there and take your stance, your hands will be over the ball and the shaft will lean ever so slightly forward.

I've recommended this ball position several times in this blog. It's the simplest way to get a consistent ball position, which means you'll get a more consistent strike. Your stance may be square, open or closed; it just doesn't matter. As long as the ball is in the middle of that little straight section of your putting stroke, the ball will go down your aimline without any manipulation by you. You can focus on your speed.

It sounds too good to be true, I know. But I have a friend who used to be a PGA Tour caddie and, every time he sees me putt, he comments about how solid my six- and seven-foot putts are, and about how little time I take to putt them. That's because I KNOW that, as long as I can see my line, my ball will usually go where I want it to go. Nobody makes everything, but I make enough to feel confident when I stand over the ball. (And most of my misses are misreads. Nobody's perfect!)

Yes, it sounds too good to be true, but it IS true. This isn't rocket science, folks. Don't make your putting harder than it has to be. Ball position is the most important key to better putting. It really is that simple.

John Cook on Putting at a Links Course (Video)

Since the Open is this week, here's a Live from the Open clip from Monday, with John Cook demonstrating how to putt on a links course when the wind is blowing. This might help you on any windy course, though.



Cook's keys are simple:

• Widen your stance.
• Place the ball near the center of your body.
• Grip down slightly on the grip.
• Trust your eyes.

I think the "trust your eyes" advice is interesting, especially since -- after setting up with the ball more centered -- John appears to move his ball forward in his stance! Apparently what John sees in this lesson is a bit different than what he says.

This is pretty standard advice, don't you think? But I find Cook's ball position change to be the interesting bit here. No matter how much instruction you hear about how to do something, when it comes to putting, mechanics are no substitute for feel. It's important to make sure you feel comfortable over a putt. If that means you have to break the rules a bit, so be it.

Rickie Fowler on Long Distance Putting (Video)

Okay, Butch Harmon's in it too. In this video Rickie tells how he makes those long ones. I'll focus on just one thing he says.



Rickie says that setup is the key to making long putts because your contact and putting speed are all you can really control. This is a good point, and I want to focus on where Rickie is looking during his long putt.

According to Rickie, picking one spot to look at during your putting stroke stabilizes your stance over the ball. And while different players choose to look at different spots, such as a dimple on the ball, Rickie makes the unusual choice to look at the ground behind the ball.

Is there some special advantage to Rickie's choice? After all, Rickie has one of the smoothest strokes on tour.

Perhaps there is. If you look at a point in front of the ball -- which I do -- your setup tends to tilt your shoulders slightly. (Remember, Rickie says you want roughly level shoulders at setup, and he gets those level shoulders despite using a traditional trailing hand low putting grip. Just saying.)

And if you look at a dimple on the ball, you might turn your head slightly toward the hole as you putt. (After all, the dimple moves when the ball rolls.)

But if you look at the ground behind the ball, nothing changes during your stroke and you should keep your head -- and therefore your spine, around which your shoulders are turning -- steady in one position. And that should lead to more consistent contact.

It's a small thing, but sometimes small things can have a huge impact on your game. If you're having trouble with your putting, it's something to consider.

More from Harry Vardon on "Simple Putts"

I waited a while to continue the putting advice from Harry Vardon that I began in a couple of posts a couple of weeks back. This section, quoted from his 1905 book The Complete Golfer, is LONG and I could find no way to chop it up without ruining his logic.

Yes, this is only two paragraphs from the book, which is in the public domain here in the US. I'll try to pull out the best ideas at the end of this post, but there's considerable value in wading through Vardon's somewhat longwinded prose. Here is his advice on how to set up for a typical putt and how to think about the stroke itself.

For the proper playing of the other strokes in golf, I have told my readers to the best of my ability how they should stand and where they should put their feet. But except for the playing of particular strokes, which come within the category of those called "fancy," I have no similar instruction to offer in the matter of putting. There is no rule, and there is no best way. Sometimes you see a player bend down and hold the putter right out in front of him with both wrists behind the shaft. This is an eccentricity, but if the player in question believes that he can putt better in this way than in any other, he is quite justified in adopting it, and I would be the last to tell him that he is wrong. The fact is that there is more individuality in putting than in any other department of golf, and it is absolutely imperative that this individuality should be allowed to have its way. I believe seriously that every man has had a particular kind of putting method awarded to him by Nature, and when he putts exactly in this way he will do well, and when he departs from his natural system he will miss the long ones and the short ones too. First of all, he has to find out this particular method which Nature has assigned for his use. There ought not to be much difficulty about this, for it will come unconsciously to his aid when he is not thinking of anybody's advice or of anything that he has ever read in any book on golf. That day the hole will seem as big as the mouth of a coal mine, and putting the easiest thing in the world. When he stands to his ball and makes his little swing, he feels as easy and comfortable and confident as any man can ever do. Yet it is probable that, so far as he knows, he is not doing anything special. It may happen that the very next day, when he thinks he is standing and holding his club and hitting the ball in exactly the same way, he nevertheless feels distinctly uncomfortable and full of nervous hesitation as he makes his stroke, and then the long putts are all either too short, or too long, or wide, and the little ones are missed.

I don't think that the liver or a passing variation in temperament is altogether the cause of this. I believe it is because the man has departed even by a trifle from his own natural stance. A change of the position of the feet by even a couple of inches one way or the other may alter the stance altogether, and knock the player clean off his putting. In this new position he will wriggle about and feel uncomfortable. Everything is wrong. His coat is in the way, his pockets seem too full of old balls, the feel of his stockings on his legs irritates him, and he is conscious that there is a nail coming up on the inside of the sole of his boot. It is all because he is just that inch or two removed from the stance which Nature allotted to him for putting purposes, but he does not know that, and consequently everything in the world except the true cause is blamed for the extraordinary things he does. A fair sample of many others was the clergyman who, having missed a short putt when playing in a match over a Glasgow links, espied in the distance on an eminence fully a quarter of a mile away from the green, an innocent tourist, who was apparently doing nothing more injurious to golf than serenely admiring the view. But the clerical golfer, being a man of quick temper, poured forth a torrent of abuse, exclaiming, "How could I hole the ball with that blockhead over there working his umbrella as if it were the pendulum of an eight-day clock!" When this is the kind of thing that is happening, I advise the golfer to try variations in his stance for putting, effecting the least possible amount of change at a time. There is a chance that at last he will drop into his natural stance, or something very near it, and even if he does not there is some likelihood that he will gain a trifle in confidence by the change, and that will count for much. And anyhow there is ample justification for any amount of manœuvring of the body and the feet when one is off one's putting, for at the best, to make use of something like an Irishism, the state of things is then hopelessly bad, and every future tendency must be in the way of improvement. There is one other suggestion to make to those golfers who believe what I say about the natural stance, and by this time it will have become more or less obvious to them. It is that when they are fairly on their putting, and are apparently doing all that Nature intended them to do, and are feeling contented in body and mind accordingly, they should take a sly but very careful look at their feet and body and everything else just after they have made a successful long putt, having felt certain all the time that they would make it. This examination ought not to be premeditated, because that would probably spoil the whole thing; and it usually happens that when one of these long ones has been successfully negotiated, the golfer is too much carried away by his emotions of delight to bring himself immediately to a sober and acute analysis of how it was done. But sometime he may remember to look into the matter, and then he should note the position of everything down to the smallest detail and the fraction of an inch, and make a most careful note of them for future reference. It will be invaluable. So, as I hold that putting is a matter of Nature and instinct, I make an exception this time to my rule in the matter of illustrations, and offer to my readers no diagram with stance measurements. From the two photographs of myself putting in what I had every reason to believe at the time was my own perfectly natural stance, they may take any hints that they may discover.

Then Vardon includes these two photos. Unusual stance, huh?



As you can see, he used a very short putter. And here's another view:



Vardon's refusal to give any measurements or diagrams regarding his stance is significant. Throughout his book, he is almost neurotic in his attention to detail when it comes to describing what he does and how he executes the various shots he plays. To simply say that 'putting is an individual matter and you'll just have to find what feels natural to you' is an amazing concession on his part!

His advice on how to find this natural stroke is also amazing, since it shows considerable insight. Think about this, folks: We often talk about how children putt better than most adults, and they get worse as they get older and develop 'scar tissue' from missed putts. Vardon's logic here is simple: Children putt better because their minds aren't full of other people's advice! They just putt the way that seems most logical to them. And Vardon says that's how you have to find your natural stroke:

...he has to find out this particular method which Nature has assigned for his use. There ought not to be much difficulty about this, for it will come unconsciously to his aid when he is not thinking of anybody's advice or of anything that he has ever read in any book on golf. That day the hole will seem as big as the mouth of a coal mine, and putting the easiest thing in the world.

Unconscious putting -- a simple concept that goes against most modern instruction. Too much practice inhibits unconscious technique. And make no mistake about it, your 'natural stroke' is a technique; it's just not based on "I need to hold the club like this and stroke on this path and keep my wrists in this position at impact."

Instead of thinking about how to putt, you should be thinking only about getting the ball in the hole, period. And notice that, later in the piece, he specifically says that you can't consciously try to standardize your stroke based on the days you putt well: it's all about comfort. And that makes sense, because you're human and your body feels a bit different each day, so if you could get in the exact same position each day, some days you'd putt well and some days you wouldn't because you still wouldn't feel right all the time.

Sounds like mysticism, doesn't it? That's why Vardon's method is not taught these days, but quantifiable technique is. Note that Vardon DOES say that, when your putting goes bad, it's probably because of a change in your stance. That's because your stance is your only connection to the ground and such a change would affect your balance, how you reach for the ball, the tension in your muscles, and so on.

And if you read on in that second paragraph, Vardon goes to far as to suggest that players get distracted by every little thing around them when they putt simply because they aren't comfortable over the ball that day.

Which means that Vardon's guiding principle for putting is that you should feel comfortable when you stand over the ball, no matter what your technique looks like when you do. Because he says that is probably your natural way of putting, and therefore it's the method that will likely give you the most success.

I'll stop there. There is so much about the mindset of putting that can be gleaned from these two lengthy paragraphs! Even sports psychologists could find some useful material here. So I'll leave it to you, to search for clues that might help you improve your own putting.

A Couple More Putting Thoughts from Harry Vardon

Yesterday I posted a long quote from Harry Vardon about putting and, while I intend to explore some of the other things he wrote about putting soon, there are a couple of other things in that long quote that are worth looking at as well. I didn't cover them yesterday because the quote was so long!

One of those things has to do with practice, and this might surprise you. You see, Vardon wasn't a big fan of putting practice:

While I am not prepared to endorse the opinion that is commonly expressed, that a golfer is born and not made, I am convinced that no amount of teaching will make a golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make him at all certain of getting the short ones down. But it will certainly put him in the right way of hitting the ball, which after all will be a considerable gain.

"I am convinced that NO AMOUNT of teaching will make a golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make him at all certain of getting the short ones down." Vardon does write about the things he believes WILL help you putt better at a later point in the chapter this quote came from, and we'll get to that in another post.

But Vardon does seem to contradict himself, doesn't he? He starts by expressing his disbelief in that old "golfers are born, not made" saying, yet he doesn't believe a lot of practice will help you get better either -- although he says learning proper technique won't hurt.

As you'll see -- in that future post that won't be long in coming -- Vardon is a big believer that every player putts best when they putt in their own way, the way that feels most natural to them. Putting is different from the other strokes in golf, where certain techniques are necessary in order to get the ball to fly a specified distance or bounce in a specified way. If you're putting properly, the ball isn't going to fly or bounce! It takes no special skill to simply hit the ball so it rolls on the ground, and that's all a putt should do.

So I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how simple Vardon's putting advice is when I post it. It's more about how to fix problems that prevent you from hitting the ball smoothly rather than learning techniques about how to hit the ball.

The other thing I want to point out from yesterday's quote concerns experience. Bear in mind that when Vardon wrote the book this quote came from, he had already won five majors:

Experience counts for very much, and it will convert a man who was originally a bad putter into one who will generally hold his own on the greens, or even be superior to the majority of his fellows. Even experience, however, counts for less in putting than in any other department of the game, and there are many days in every player's life when he realises only too sadly that it seems to count for nothing at all.

Again, we're looking at some apparent doubletalk. Experience can make you a better putter... but it won't help as much as you might hope. It's right after this part of the quote that he starts talking about new players who run putts in from everywhere while you, the experienced player, can't seem to find the hole at all. He also says that fear -- which I focused on in yesterday's post -- is a major reason that experience doesn't always help.

Why doesn't experience help us all the time when we putt?

The simple fact is that we don't control as much when we putt as we would like to believe. Blades of grass are as individual as fingerprints. Here, take a look at a single grass plant in this diagram from the Lawn Institute:



That's a pretty complex organism you're looking at there! Add the variables of grass type, moisture, length, growth direction (they grow toward the sun, you know -- that's called grain), the fact that no piece of ground is perfectly smooth, etc., and you'll soon realize that you can't predict the exact path of the ball with any certainty. All the experience in the world won't make you able to predict the path with the accuracy you'd like to expect.

Now perhaps you can understand why Vardon says that fear is a bigger problem than technique. A confident stroke is more likely to track along the path you choose than a hesitant stroke, as grain has the most effect on your ball as it loses speed. And the inexperienced player, who doesn't realize how many variables can affect his putt, simply steps up and hits the ball firmly -- often too firmly -- and as a result the ball tracks along much better and gives him a better chance that the ball will drop.

Assuming the new player made a decent stroke on a reasonable line, that is. As Vardon says, nothing is certain in putting.

So hopefully the extended quote from Vardon in yesterday's post makes a bit more sense now. And when I put up the next post containing his advice -- probably early next week -- this may help you get the most good from it.

Harry Vardon on the Simple Putt... and Why It's Not So Simple

Harry Vardon's first golf book, The Complete Golfer, was published in 1905 and is in the public domain here in the US. It's a mixture of instruction, memoir and opinion that takes some time to work through. But Vardon set records that still stand today and, in his time, was known as the Greyhound because once he got in the lead he was rarely caught.

This somewhat long quote is from Chapter XIII, Simple Putting, and I haven't even quoted the entire paragraph! But Vardon makes a point here that few players ever seem to realize, and I think it's worth pointing it out.

Putting in golf is a game within another game. While I am not prepared to endorse the opinion that is commonly expressed, that a golfer is born and not made, I am convinced that no amount of teaching will make a golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make him at all certain of getting the short ones down. But it will certainly put him in the right way of hitting the ball, which after all will be a considerable gain. Experience counts for very much, and it will convert a man who was originally a bad putter into one who will generally hold his own on the greens, or even be superior to the majority of his fellows. Even experience, however, counts for less in putting than in any other department of the game, and there are many days in every player's life when he realises only too sadly that it seems to count for nothing at all. Do we not from time to time see beginners who have been on the links but a single month, or even less than that, laying their long putts as dead as anybody could wish almost every time, and getting an amazing percentage of them into the tin itself? Often enough they seem to do these things simply because, as we should say, they know nothing at all about putting, which is perhaps another way of saying that their minds are never embarrassed by an oppressive knowledge of all the difficulties which the ball will meet with in its passage from the club to the hole, and of the necessity of taking steps to counteract them all. They are not afraid of the hole. The fact is that putting is to a far greater extent than most of us suspect purely a matter of confidence. When a man feels that he can putt he putts, and when he has a doubt about it he almost invariably makes a poor show upon the greens. Do I not know to my cost what it is to feel that I cannot putt, and on those occasions to miss the most absurdly little ones that ever wait to be popped into the hole without a moment's thought or hesitation? It is surely the strangest of the many strange things in golf, that the old player, hero of many senior medal days, victor in matches over a hundred links, will at times, when the fortunes of an important game depend upon his action, miss a little putt that his ten-year-old daughter would get down nine times out of ten. She, dear little thing, does not yet know the terrors of the short putt. Sometimes it is the most nerve-breaking thing to be found on the hundred acres of a golf course. The heart that does not quail when a yawning bunker lies far ahead of the tee just at the distance of a good drive, beats in trouble when there are but thirty inches of smooth even turf to be run over before the play of the hole is ended.

Let me call your attention to a couple of sentences in the middle of this quote, where Vardon mentions inexperienced players who make putts that the "more expert" among us don't. Of those inexperienced players he simply says:

They are not afraid of the hole. The fact is that putting is to a far greater extent than most of us suspect purely a matter of confidence.

They are not afraid of the hole. As much as we hate to admit it, this is the simple truth. The shorter the putt, the more afraid we become.

We are expected to make the short putts, but we know that they won't all go in... and we're afraid that this putt is one of them. We may be afraid that we won't score as we expect, or that we won't score as others expect, or that some other unnamed expectation won't be met, but it all comes down to FEAR.

If we want to become better putters, a major stumbling block is overcoming this fear. But how do you do that?

Vardon has some interesting ideas on how one becomes a better putter later in that chapter, and I'll post some of them soon. But for now I will just mention that your PERSPECTIVE on the game is a major weapon in this battle.

To put it simply, if you are "afraid of the hole," something about the game means too much to you -- that is, you don't see it as a game but as a part of your self-worth. If you want to putt better, THAT HAS TO CHANGE. You have to find a way to put golf back in its place; you have to draw your self-image from something more dependable than golf.

It's as simple -- and as difficult -- as that. But what did you expect? It's golf, after all!

Patrick Nuber on How Tiger Putts (Video)

On the outside chance you missed it -- and I know most of you would be curious about it -- Wednesday's Morning Drive aired a short segment with GOLFTEC instructor Patrick Nuber that dissected Tiger's putting stroke. For those of you who have ever wondered how Tiger does it...



You'll want to watch the video to see the details, but in a few words:

• Tiger Woods has a putting stroke that travels back and through on a very slight arc.
• It swings back very close to the ground then moves upward just as it hits the ball.
• The ball impacts the putter face just slightly above center and toward the toe.

And the video has some great animated visuals to show those details. It's nearly six minutes long and well worth the time. Nuber also demonstrates a simple drill that uses poker chips or nickels to teach you that little upward move at the ball, should you want to practice that.

One other thing: Note that Nuber says it doesn't really matter where you hit it on the putter face; the key is that you hit it in the same place each time. That's how you develop feel. Got that? Consistency of strike equals FEEL. Remember that!

Nuber points out that everybody putts a little differently. Still, it's instructive to learn from a great putter, and Tiger has been one for a very long time.

Craig Renshaw's Slope Putting Drill (Video)

GCA coach Craig Renshaw showed this little drill to help you improve your uphill and downhill putting... but I'm going to alter it and create a greens-reading drill.



Craig's drill is simple: Just place tees at various distances on a slope and putt from either end, trying to get your distance correct. This is a great drill that you can use anywhere on the practice green; you don't even need a hole.

NOW let's turn it into a greens-reading drill!

Here's what I want you to do: Find a slope on the green, just as Craig suggests. But I want you to place the tees ACROSS the slope, not up and down along it! If you do this, you can practice several putting distances with the same amount of sideslope. This will help you learn how distance affects the force you need to hit the ball to different holes on the same slope.

Might make an interesting competitive drill during a boring practice session as well.

The Debate Over Long Putters Continues

It's not going to go away, despite the rule change. Two Golfweek articles make that very clear.



The first article from January 7th talked about the continuing unrest on the Champions Tour over Scott McCarron and Bernhard Langer's usage of the long sticks, even though they don't anchor them. To quote the article:

“It’s a huge issue,” says Tom Pernice Jr., a five-time winner on the PGA Tour Champions. “A lot of players aren’t going to say anything about it to the press. It’s not fair. If you’re playing for a living, there’s a skill level in putting and that is being able to control the fulcrum point.”

Pernice then goes on to say that just allowing a player's hand to brush their shirt during the stroke makes a difference:

"In my opinion that’s enough of a reference to be able to control the fulcrum point."

I'm not at all sure I agree with that, since you could be brushing anywhere on your shirt. In fact, you could argue that holding both arms straight and rocking your shoulders with a standard putter also provides a 'reference point for the fulcrum point.' But that doesn't seem to bother anybody...

And the second article from February 9th (Friday) seems to make exactly the opposite argument as Pernice. Apparently Adam Scott's return to the long putter, though emboldened by Langer and McCarron's success, lasted exactly one tournament. Adam is once again using a short putter this week at Pebble Beach after shooting 71-74 to miss the cut at the Aussie PGA:

“I want to stick with the short putter,” Scott told The Forecaddie. “… I don’t just want to chop and change or I won’t get anywhere. I want to stick with it. I think in the long run it will be good.”

Look, folks. There's no silver bullet when it comes to putting. What works for one player won't work for another... and even though it works this week, it may not work next week. That's just part of being human rather than a machine.

But knowing that won't change anybody's mind, simply because it's easier to blame your lack of success on someone else using an unfair technique. I'm not calling Pernice a crybaby, but the USGA says that what Langer and McCarron are doing is legal, which means Pernice (and those other players he alluded to) could use it as well. If he chooses not to, that's his decision. But just because he chooses not to doesn't make it illegal. And I suspect that, if he tried it, he'd make the same discovery that Adam Scott made...

The unanchored long putter isn't a silver bullet. It still takes work to get good with it, just like any other technique. And maybe, just maybe, the difference in effectiveness between Langer and McCarron and the rest of the Tour has more to do with practice than anything else. The fact that Adam Scott couldn't make it work -- despite years of using an anchored long putter -- seems to back that up.

But as I said before, it's clear that this issue isn't going away anytime soon.

Nancy Lopez on Using a Chipper (Video)

No, I'm not crazy. While most of you may never use a chipper, there's still some useful info in this video. Take a quick watch -- it's short.



Take note of the description of Nancy's chipper. Basically it's a putter with 7-iron loft. This is useful info because this is a club specifically designed for players who struggle with chipping. That means that, if you struggle with chipping, your 7-iron is a good choice for general chipping from just off the green.

Let's start with that and see what we can come up with.

First of all, you can use your putting grip, normal ball position and normal putting motion with your 7-iron. Personally I find that this works better with a slightly open stance than when I putt normally because, when I use my putting grip with an iron, I naturally take the club back a bit more to the inside. The open stance makes it easier to swing my iron down my intended line. You may find that a square or even a closed stance works best for you. Experiment a little to find out.

Next, I mentioned using your normal ball position for putting. That works best if the ball is sitting on top of the grass. If it's sitting down slightly, move the ball back in your stance just a little. You don't want to hit the ground first.

Finally, you have two options for how you actually contact the ball. You can set up with the sole of the club flat on the ground -- you'll need to move the ball a bit farther away from you than when you putt normally -- or you can set the club slightly up on the toe, which will allow you to place the ball at its normal distance from you when putting. Again, experiment with this a little. I find that the "toed" position works better with my putting grip and the soled position works better with my normal chipping grip.

There is no reason to keep struggling with your chipping this year. You have lots of options because you can use any club that feels good to you, all the way up to your hybrids and driver. The key is to take a technique you feel comfortable with -- putting fills the bill for most people -- and adapt it to another club in your bag. Just follow the steps in this post as a guide for experimenting, and I'm sure you'll find something tailor-made for you.

Learning to Roll a Roll of Pennies

I found this tip in an old Golf Magazine and a quick Google search turned up a copy of the tip online. This is so simple you won't believe it.



Simply put a roll of pennies on the ground and try to putt it down your target line. (Yes, you can do this indoors as well.) If you hit the roll with the clubface square, the pennies will roll straight.

If the pennies spin to the left (if you're a righthander) -- you closed the clubface and the toe hit the pennies first.

Conversely, if the pennies spin to the to the right (if you're a righthander) -- you opened the clubface and the heel hit the pennies first.

If the pennies roll to the left of the hole (if you're a righthander) -- you closed the clubface and swung out-to-in across the line of the putt (a pull).

Conversely, if the pennies roll to the right of the hole (if you're a righthander) -- you opened the clubface and swung in-to-out across the line of the putt (a push).

My bonus tip: If you have a lot of trouble hitting the roll squarely, you should check your "ball position." Constant heel hits may mean the "ball" is too far back in your stance; constant toe hits may mean that the "ball" is too far forward in your stance.

Of course, you can use a roll of nickels, dimes or quarters if you're a big spender. But regardless of which one you use, it'll still be cheaper than most of the putting aids you can buy and you'll get clear feedback with no guesswork.

Bobby Locke Putting (Video)

Everybody talks about how the great South African golfer Bobby Locke used to pull his putts into the hole but was a great golfer anyway. I found this video that really gives you a good view of how his unorthodox putting technique looked from the hole. (We're not looking straight down his putting line, which means he's REALLY pulling the ball. In this video, the hole is actually directly "below" the shoelace on his lead foot.)



As you can see, he took the putter way inside on the way back -- see how closed his putting stance was? -- and then he hit the ball with the putterface hooded (closed to his putting line). This caused the ball to actually move straight toward the hole or just slightly to the left. (If he had been a lefty, the ball would have moved to his right.) And his hands didn't move a whole lot because he used a very wristy stroke.

Why am I showing you this?

It's because we get so bound up in mechanics. We try to set our feet exactly parallel to our aim line. Then we try to swing the club back either perfectly straight along that aim line (Pelz style) or we try to create a nice gentle arc (Utley style). Then we worry about whether we keep our wrists firm or keep our lead wrist bowed through impact or...

And we still miss putts.

Bobby Locke, on the other hand, is considered one of the best putters ever to have played the game. (Among his 74 worldwide titles, he won four Opens and 15 PGA Tour events.) Does his putting stroke look like he even thought about all those things? No way!

The best putters relax and let the putter swing freely at the ball. They aim the face of the putter where they want the ball to go, and then they don't worry about the path so much. You're unlikely to make such a bizarre stroke as Locke's, but if he could make putts with that stroke, you can make putts with yours!

Simplify things -- just focus on aiming the putterface at the hole and getting your speed correct. You'll make more putts that way.

BTW, if you're curious, here's the reason his stroke worked: Modern science has proven that most of the direction your putt travels is determined by where the face is aimed at impact. (I believe Pelz says it's 84%.) That means that Locke's extreme inside swing would still send the ball out a little to his right -- a pushed putt. But by hooding the face, he actually aimed his ball just a bit to the left of his swing path, and that compensated for the small amount of push the club's path would have created.

The hooded face also insured that he hit the ball solidly, the way a good ballstriker does with his or her irons, so he never hit the ball with a weak stroke. That made the ball roll end over end more often.

A stroke like Locke's is the result of practicing enough to trust your aim. But once you get that, it's just a matter of hitting the ball with the right speed.

Martin Hall on Wrist Putting (Video)

This is an old clip from School of Golf, back when Sara Brown was on the show. In this clip Martin talks about wrist putting and, while it's not exactly the same style as the pop stroke I covered in Ruthless Putting, there's more than one way to wrist putt and Martin does include the primary fundamentals of any basic wrist stroke.



The key fundamental in wrist putting, the fundamental which all effective versions of the technique share, is that the trailing arm stays stationary during the stroke. You can see this in Martin's demonstration around the 2:05 mark.

When you watch him do it, you might be inclined to stroke the club with your lead hand, and that does work for some people. But you'll probably find it easiest to create a square clubface at impact if you use your trailing hand to make the stroke. That's because your quiet trailing arm limits the extra sideways motion that throws the stroke off line.

Also, you'll probably find it easier to keep your stroke on line if you open your stance just slightly. This is something you'll need to experiment with, but it's because your trailing arm is slightly off to your side rather than out in front of your body.

If you don't hit the ball straight, you may need to adjust your ball position. The wrist stroke is so simple that, if the ball is positioned correctly, the ball should roll straight quite consistently.

One last thought: While it's true that you see fewer pros use a wrist stroke these days because the greens are much faster, that doesn't mean the stroke doesn't work on fast greens. It simply means that you must be more relaxed when you stroke the putt, and the pros use drills that focus so much on line and plane that they "freeze up" over the ball.  An effective wrist stroke is a relaxed stroke, and it will work as well on a fast green as a slow one.

The Bobby Jones Putting Stroke (Video)

A few days ago I posted a quote from the book Bobby Jones on Golf, from an article called Importance of a Smooth Short Game. Dana left a comment about how helpful a section from my book Ruthless Putting, where I explained Jones's putting stroke, had been.

So here's a segment from the Jones video series from the 1930's, How I Play Golf, that focuses on the basics of his putting stroke.



Jones was very left-sided -- that is, he focused on how his lead hand affected the stroke -- but the stroke works the same if you control it with your trailing hand. If you want to see how it works, just try to create the same smooth hand and wrist action you see in the clip.

The big thing I'd like you all to pick up from this short segment (just a bit over 3 minutes long) is how relaxed and fluid Jones's stroke was. His stroke is so unlike most modern players! He doesn't lock his lower body in place, but he doesn't force it to move either. It's easy to understand why he was such a good putter -- being so relaxed made it easier for him to get his speed correct.

It's interesting to note how Jones "waggles" the club. He touches the ground in front of the ball, then in back of the ball, and then he strokes the ball. That particular motion doesn't work for me, but the principle is sound. Find a way to relax your hands and arms before you putt, and you should make a smoother stroke.

And remember his advice: "The whole idea, it seems to me, is to do the thing in the simplest and most natural way." As long as you don't get sloppy about it, the more natural your stroke feels, the easier it should be to repeat the results.

Bobby Jones on the "Smooth" Short Game

There are a lot of opinions about how long your backswing should be relative to your downswing, especially in your short game and putting. The great Bobby Jones -- who was no slouch at any of it -- wrote some of his opinions in a 1930s newspaper article called Importance of a Smooth Short Game.

Here are a few thoughts from that article, which is reprinted in a book called Bobby Jones Golf Tips: Secrets of the Master, on pages 33 and 34.

One of the qualities most to be desired in a golf stroke is smoothness, and smoothness becomes impossible unless the backswing is amply long to allow for gradual acceleration of the club in coming down. A backswing that is too short brings about the necessity of making a sudden effort in the act of hitting. Bridging the gap between zero velocity and maximum in the shorter space implies hurry and effort, which can very easily destroy the rhythm of the stroke. Such a procedure is directly opposed to the motion of swinging the clubhead.

Nowhere is the disastrous effect of a short backswing more easily noted than in the play on and around the greens.

He says that some players do become good at holing out their short putts if they practice a lot, but that they will lack the touch necessary for long putts. And after noting how important touch is, not just on short putts but on the long ones as well, he adds:

The man who takes a short, sharp rap at the ball will never be able to compete in these respects with the putter who swings the club.

Almost always I am able to trace my putting troubles to an abbreviated or too rapid backswing. Whenever I am swinging the club back smoothly and in a broad sweep without hurry I am confident of putting well. When I am not doing so I know I will putt badly.

Yes, I know that Brandt Snedeker has a short quick stroke. But can you name anyone else who is known as a good putter with a similar stroke? No. That's because Brandt has a magnificent sense of rhythm, and the length and speed of his swing complement each other. Sneds is the exception that proves the rule.

Then Jones adds this little bit, which I think is a very useful short game tip:

The same thing applies with equal force to chipping and other short approach work. Billy Burke, one of the finest short-game players in the world, has said that he makes a point of swinging back even a little farther than necessary when playing the first few chips of any round. He recognizes the importances of an ample backswing and feels that it is easier to make sure of it at the start than to work into it from the other direction. [my emphasis]

That's a simple way to find your rhythm early on in a round. Your work on the range doesn't always translate directly to the course. This is a nice trick to help you make that transition.

Jim Flick on the "Lofted Putter"

This is a tip from the late Jim Flick's book On Golf.

Your ball is off the green, beyond the fringe, sitting up pretty decently in light to medium-length rough -- the kind of average lie you expect to find when your approach to a par-four green comes up a little short. How do you play this shot?

Putt it. That's right, putt it. Only use a six-iron instead of your putter. Think of your six-iron as a lofted putter.

Take the same grip with your six-iron as you do with your putter. Take the same stance. Take care that your hands are about the same distance from the ground as they are with your putter. Note that with the shaft more upright than it is on a six-iron shot the heel of the club comes up slightly. That's okay: this is a putter now, not a six-iron. Eyes over the ball. Now take the same stroke as you do with your putter, which is the most repeatable stroke in golf because there are so few moving parts; arms and forearms, no hands and wrists. The ball comes up and out of the grass on a low trajectory, lands softly just on the green, and rolls toward the pin.

Nice putt.

Do I always use the six-iron? Do I always use the putting stroke around the green? Is this all there is to it?

The answers are no, no, and no. But if you work on the lofted putter idea, you'll find that it's the basic principle underlying many greenside shots. [p156]

That's pretty self-explanatory. The only thing I would add is that you might find another club works better for you. I've had a similar shot for years, only mine uses an eight-iron. It just comes off the clubface better with my stroke.

You might find that a hybrid works best. That's fine. It's the principle of the thing that will take strokes off your game.

A Nicklaus Putting Tip

I'm going back a ways here, to an old Golf Digest (print copy!) from April 2013, to get you an image to help your putting from none other than Jack Nicklaus.



In that issue Jack wrote that, in order to help him hit putts more softly on fast greens, he used to imagine his putter shaft was made of rope. Those of you who have read Ruthless Putting know that I have a drill that actually uses a weighted rope, but what Jack's after here is something different. While my drill is designed to help you hit your putts more decisively with less tension, Jack's image is intended to create a softer hit. Remember, he's putting on fast greens and he already has a pretty firm stroke... plus this tip was in a Masters issue.

What Jack said he found to be more successful was imagining that his putter shaft was made of glass. If he hit the ball with too much force, the shaft would shatter. He said the glass image was key to winning the 1986 Masters, when he used that bigheaded Response putter. That putter had more loft, so his tendency was to get the ball airborne with his normal stroke.

Most of you don't play greens as fast as Augusta. However, you probably see quite a few fast downhill putts during your round. Imagining that your putter shaft is made of glass could help you avoid hitting your putt too hard and leaving yourself a long comebacker. Just remember that this is a technique for hitting fast putts, NOT your normal run-of-the-mill putts.

Btw, the photo came from this post at the Golf Digest site, from another putting article by Nicklaus and the late Jim Flick. You might want to take a look at that post as well.

Chris Como's Cool Putting Tip (Video)

Although this Golf Digest video is entitled Putting Tips from Tiger Woods's Coach, Chris Como is actually talking about Jamie Lovemark's practice. And it makes my blog post today for two reasons.

First of all, this tip is just plain cool.



And second, we keep hearing that we should use our feet more when we read putts, but Como is the first teacher I've actually heard recommend putting in near-dark to help you learn how to do that.

Yeah, Tiger probably does this too. But Como doesn't mention Tiger, just Lovemark. Remember that when you trip over your putter in the dark. ;-)

How Bernhard Langer Putts without Anchoring (Video)

When I saw this GC clip on Wednesday morning from Bernhard Langer, detailing how he putts without anchoring that long putter, I knew I had to post the video as soon as it was available.



The key is his posture. By making sure his spine is straight and pulling his shoulder blades back to create a very erect posture -- perhaps even a bit more erect than you would normally want to stand -- he's able to stabilize his upper body and make a turn that keeps the putter on line.

This is a case where Bernhard's demonstration will tell you more than all the words I could write. For those of you who really want to keep using a long putter, this video should be all you need to get the technique down and maintain it.

Leave it to Bernhard Langer to figure this out. I wonder if Scott McCarron is using the same technique with his long putter?