When I was a kid, putting was the strongest part of my game. I didn’t have unlimited access to a driving range, but the putting green was always free. So, after dinner most nights, I’d head over to the course and hit putts until the sun went down.
Now, as a 30-something living in New York City, I face the opposite obstacle. I can head to the simulator any time of day to work on my swing, but there aren’t many putting greens in my vicinity. So naturally, I’m now a much better ball-striker than putter.
Go figure.
In recent months, I’ve become increasingly frustrated with my lack of aptitude on the greens. What once was a huge asset to my game turned into an unmistakable liability. I used to look at 10-footers with glee, but that eventually turned into dread. Putting was no longer fun.
That’s when I decided to consult one of the brightest putting minds in the world, GOLF Top 100 TeacherStephen Sweeney, who teaches the likes of Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Aberg, Joaquin Niemann and more. Check out below to see a video of our “Putting Fundamentals Bootcamp,” in which Sweeney helped fix my putting with two simple tweaks.
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2 tweaks that fixed my putting
One thing I’ve learned in my time working with some of the best teachers in the game is that they typically always start lessons the same way: checking your fundamentals. No matter what element of the game is plaguing you, there’s a good bet that the root cause of your issue comes from something before you ever take the club back.
That’s why practicing your grip, posture, aim and alignment are so important. When they are off, it can cause all sorts of issues in the swing or stroke.
When I went to see Sweeney, our sessions began in much the same manner. He had me find a straight, flat putt, and I rolled several putts. That’s how he discovered I had two setup flaws that were wrecking my putting consistency.
1. Poor eye alignment
After watching me hit a few putts, and taking video of my stroke, Sweeney noticed that my eyes were misaligned when I stood over the ball. Instead of having my eyes directly above the ball, they were instead inside (closer to me) where they needed to be.
“Where your eyes are right now, I tend to see if players’ eyes are inside the ball line, they tend to look out to the right,” Sweeney said. “As the putter goes back, the putter is moving a little on the inside — but pretty square to where you aimed it.”
Because of my eyes being misaligned at setup, I was always subconsciously aiming out to the right of the hole. From there, I would use an inside-out club path to try to “draw” the ball back on line, much like what you would do during the full swing.
The problem with this is that the putting stroke hits shots that are so short that these full-swing compensations do no work in the putting stroke. Instead, you just end up with poor alignment and a stroke that is not starting the ball on a consistently straight line.
To fix the eye alignment problem, Sweeney had me bend forward a touch more to get my eyes more out and over the ball. He alluded to feeling as though I were in a tabletop crouch, much like Michelle Wie West at the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open.
A good way to check the alignment of the eyes after this adjustment is a trick Sweeney sees used by many older Tour pros. Once I go into my stance, he held a ball directly underneath my eyes and dropped it. With my old stance, the ball landed about two inches inside my ball position, but with the new stance, the dropped ball landed right on top of my ball on the ground.
“As a general rule of thumb, I like to see a two putter head-(width) from the ball to the toe line,” Sweeney said. “Then we go into forward bend at the hip until we get the eyes over the golf ball.”
Once I got my eyes more on top of the ball, it became much easier to consistently hit the ball where I was aiming.
2. Incorrect face alignment
Having the face of the putter aligned where you want to hit your putt is another crucial element of good putting. But because of my poor setup, I was not doing this correctly either. At address, Sweeney noticed my putter face was aimed a good ball or two right of the cup on every putt.
“We can see on every putt a little bit of face closure,” Sweeney said. “Then we are trying to pull that ball back on line.”
This aim issue was caused initially by the misalignment of my eyes, so even when I was hitting the putt “straight,” it was starting out to the right of the hole.
Once we got my eyes more on top of the ball, it became much easier get the putter face lined up at the center of the hole. To check this, Sweeney showed me a handy method that involves using your phone as a training aid.
“Just go ahead and set up and aim your putter face,” Sweeney said. “If I go ahead and set the back of my phone to your putter face, and you come back and look down that line, you can see the face aimed on the right edge. It’s a really simple way, if you put a scorecard or other square edge down against your putter face, you can see where you are aimed.”
Before adjusting my setup position, I was consistently aiming the putter face off to the right. But by making a couple of simple adjustments, I could easily aim the face right at the center of the hole.
