The Biggest Putting Mistake

One of the most common mistakes I see every day with golfers is their inability to control their speed on the greens effectively. 

This leads to putts ending either well short of the hole or excessively beyond it. The more this happens the more of a challenge it becomes, fluctuating from hole to hole and round to round. 

But why does this happen?

One of the main reasons for poor speed control on the greens is how golfers control their acceleration in the putting stroke. It’s a daunting task for anyone to gauge and sense the precise rate of acceleration required to consistently stop the ball close to the hole, especially when faced with varying putt distances, ranging from short, to medium, to long range and factoring in the diverse slopes on the green. This makes it nearly impossible to maintain a high level of predictable speed control.

Despite this inherent difficulty golfers make it even more difficult for themselves with the poor concepts they apply.
Many golfers tend to intuitively assume that they must apply increased acceleration at impact. This misconception may stem from misguided advice passed down from one player to another, leading individuals to develop flawed concepts about speed control.

The reality is that you don’t need to have acceleration at impact. You just need to be able to control the velocity (speed of the club) and in theory, you would be better served with no acceleration through impact which in turn would produce a constant speed/velocity.

How do we do this I hear you ask?

To improve your ability to control acceleration and speed, consider starting by examining the timing of your stroke. This refers to the duration it takes for the putter head to move away from the ball, reach the end of the backswing, and then travel downward to impact.

Research indicates that Tour Players with exceptional speed control maintain an average timing of around 1 second for all putt distances, demonstrating consistency in timing regardless of the putt’s length. The backswing time compared to the downswing-to-impact time follows a ratio of 2:1, with the backswing lasting twice as long as the time to impact—approximately 0.66 milliseconds for the backswing and 0.33 milliseconds for the downswing to impact.

It’s worth noting that most golfers typically spend more time on their backswing, resulting in an underloaded putter with insufficient energy transfer to the ball. This often causes the ball to fall short of the hole. To compensate for this, golfers tend to apply acceleration during the downswing, resulting in varying acceleration rates at impact for different putt distances and inconsistent speed control. 

Also, many golfers can have good timing going back but with not a long enough stroke, so again an underloaded backswing, which then leads to them accelerating too much on the downswing and the timing often then being quicker for the downswing to impact segment.

The key to achieving consistent speed control lies in having consistent timing and good rhythm (2.1 ratio). To ensure good rhythm the swing length needs to be appropriate to the timing and the putt length.

So by focusing on adjusting the length of your backswing while keeping the stroke timing consistent for all putts, you can begin to develop reliable speed control on the greens.

The TempoStik+ is one of the Visio training aids that I designed to help you achieve great timing and rhythm in the putting stroke. It works by using both a visual cue by way of a light which travels up and down the TempoStik+ and also an auditory cue or a tone, both helping to train when to move the putter, at what speed and at what stroke length to match the putt distance you want to achieve and this can easily be changed in the TempoStik+ software.

Try applying some of these concepts to your next practice session and check out the TempoStik+ to really train your speed and distance control and take your game to the next level. 

#practicewithpurpose

Team Visio