Well I’ll be dipped…blading a wedge, and making the minature move I was talking about is precisely the same- both in execution and feel.
Now I’m pissed. I can’t believe I didn’t see the direct correlation between the two before this.
Now I’m elated. Have something that’s natural and repeatable to hang my hat on that I don’t have to think about!
Muchas Gracias El Lago
Good stuff!
Ever tried to put a round grip on that putter RR?
Your lightbulb gels nicely with an observation BomGolf222 made some time ago.
I’m paraphrasing here, but I think he said something along the lines of: Opening the putterface on the way back can also be seen as keeping it square in relation to your axis of rotation.
This only really works with a level shoulder rotation and not with the pendulum move that’s so popular these days.
Funny you mention that IOZ…I used to play with putters having round grips…that’s when putting was a plus for me.
I guess somewhere along the road I got caught up in whatever new came down the pipe while perhaps thinking my putting would become even better. Slowly, but surely, it eroded to ridiculous. What a waste of time that was…why mess with success.
I’m going to post a picture of the Riveria putter I like, and yes, a round grip is going on that puppy.
like BOM i started golf late (wrong side of 40) & i was a truly dreadful putter to start with, i hated putting then but now it is my strength - when putting well my keys are being brave; keeping the old swede down; & once i’ve decided on the line, trying to get as right brain, visual & ‘feely’ about it as i can & holding those feels until the stroke is done
I’m almost 100% sure that putting is about psyche and not stroke.
Sigmund Freud believed that the psyche was composed of three components:
- The id, which represents the instinctual drives of an individual and remains largely unconscious.
- The super-ego, which represents a person’s conscience and their internalization of societal norms and morality.
- The ego, which is conscious and serves to integrate the drives of the id with the prohibitions of the super-ego. Freud believed this conflict to be at the heart of neurosis.
Me too. Pschye determines stroke. It irritates me when I miss a putt and someone tells me it was because of something mechanical. They’re just seeing the manifestation of psyche.
It’s why Mickelson can sink 300 3-footers around the hole in a row yet we still see him miss them regularly. There is no way someone who has putted hundreds of thousands of times couldn’t have perfected a stroke by now.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/22287378[/vimeo]
This is one of the beliefs I am starting to grasp again and something I did when I was a little kid before the hundreds of 'how to putt" thoughts got injected in from various sources…why not putt like you chip?..so nothing changes throughout your game, it all becomes a constant and easier to repeat. instead of changing your entire action just because you are on the green
Some students will have already seen this in Lag’s putting modules we are working on…it is great stuff with some great success stories already. Lag putted beautifully in the Las Vegas Classic Club event. Robbo, Macs and others are getting some good results. I am slowly falling back into a better feel for my putting working on these sensations on all length putts…Crenshaw…how can we ignore what one of the greatest putters ever states above
Harvey Penick:
“Putt like you chip”
of course you have to know how to chip…
Percy Boomer - On Learning Golf: “I putt like I drive”.
I used to play a fair amount of 1 club golf, 9 holes or less, it was quick, fun and a change of pace. When putting I would blade the ball with whatever club I was using. I was always amazed at how many putts I made using this simple method: closing the clubface, pre-stroke, on a putt breaking right and opening the clubface on a putt breaking left, and making a stroke (path) straight at the hole, I am a righty.
I attributed the holed putts on the fact that there was no pressure and never had the guts to try it during a “real” round.
I posted this earlier today in the thread on yips and hitting, but I think it’s at least as relevant in this thread:
"This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to recently. I’ve always been an outstanding putter. 2 years ago, I would often break 90 with less than 8 greens hit in a round, and putt totals regularly in the mid-high 20’s. I have always had the ability to stare down a 10 footer and just KNOW it’s going in. In November, when my high school season ended, I decided I would give up playing for a while and spend all my time on the range systematically rebuilding my golf swing. I haven’t played 18 holes of competitive golf since.
I have made good progress, especially since starting to work with Lag 5 weeks ago. I am now transitioning back into playing more than practicing. This week I’ve gotten a minimum of 12-13 holes a day in after school. I noticed when I first started back to playing instead of only beating balls and then playing 2 or 3 holes before dark, my putting was nowhere near where it was. I was missing 3 footers instead of confidently drainging 8-10 footers all day. I began to wonder whether it was a lack of putting practice or excessive range work that was to blame for my putting. I can now say I’m starting to get the flatstick back, just from playing.
I am a big believer that the best putters are the ones with the most intuitive strokes and routines that just react to the target. Once I pick a line, I don’t allow myself to think of stroke mechanics, distance control, etc. I do everything I can to make it like throwing a ball to the cup. I have realized that I maximize my putting potential for any given time period by playing a lot. Not just on the course, but getting into realistic situations and trying to make putts as if I were on a course. For as long as I can remember, my dad and I have played “up and down” games on the practice area where we take turns picking short game shots and play 9 or 18 holes of match play. This game, especially when there’s something riding on it, accurately simulates hitting pressure putts for me.
When I spend too much time on the range and away from the course, my putting suffers. I tend to over-analyze my misses if I’ve been working on my swing. I start thinking along the lines of “there is a black & white answer in the full swing when I make a mistake, so let’s find it for the putter.” When I’m putting well, I dont care what the arc of my stroke looks like, I just care about making good strokes and holing putts. At the same time, when I practice on the putting green for any length of time, I will invariably lose my stroke and my confidence. I will start trying to figure out what I did wrong on putts that don’t drop, although as we all know a perfect stroke can fail to go in, making this a flawed strategy. I think that too much time on the practice green fails to breed confidence and only makes you more prone to mechanical thoughts.
For instance, the best player on my high school team is a really inconsistent putter, and he feels that is the area that needs most improvement. So naturally, he has been on the putting green every single day for an hour or more, doing clock drills, distance control drills, etc. I really don’t believe there is any chance this will lead to lasting improvement. I have found that at least for me, I putt well when I make it a natural process that is controlled by the subconcious.
I think that part of the reason people like Hogan struggled on the green sat times are that to develop good full swings through trial and error that are not only ingrained but mechanically sound, you have to be a logical and analytical thinker. These types of people ( I consider myself to be one) are likely to at some point over-analyze the act of putting. In contrast, those who are excellent putters, even if their full swing is well ingrained, are less likely in my obseveration to have great full swings form a mechanical standpoint. They are more of the type who will figure it out in their own unique way and pay little attention to mechancial knowledge about the golf swing. Surely there are exceptions to this rule, but I believe this is generally acurate. For instance, I’ve had the opportunity to follow Stan Utley at a tour event before, and I consider him to be a model of great putting. His full swing, though, for those who’ve seen it, at least around the time I did (2009), is not the most graceful move out there, and violates many of the mechanical “truths” about the ideal golf swing."
Interesting to hear Brian Harman discuss his putting…
Harman said. “I was just kind of cutting my putts too much. I spent a lot of time just feeling the ball, almost hitting like a baby draw with my putter."
I’m always amazed and how things keep circling around to what I teach in the ABS Chip rolling methodology.
Putting is obviously “whatever works” … but I am still inspired how just using a golf swing approach on the greens seems to be the best method I have ever explored.
I recently played my second round of the year out at Richmond CC which used to host PGA Tour events back in the 1940’s. I hadn’t played in 6 months and knocked down 4 birdies, in addition two 20 foot plus par savers on some very fast and tricky greens. I had a decent feel for pace that day which is huge, but again, I am just such a. big believer in “hook your putts”… or in other words, get that ball rolling off the face with some inside over top spin… never cutting across the ball.
Player, Crenshaw, Locke, Loren Roberts, Aoki, would all come to mind as big contributors to such an ideology.
35 putts today and shot 79… smh. Need to get some of the Brian Harmon magic.
I’m thinking, if you’re wanting to apply abs intentions and pressures to putting, then a blade or bullseye style putter would be easier to do it with than a mallet or spaceship looking putter. A heavier putter would help too I’d imagine 
I assume that’s accurate. I use a fairly heavy bullseye putter. On newer, faster greens I am sometimes horrible with it on short putts (like yesterday). I also have an anser style putter that I switch to occasionally.
Loren Roberts used an 18 ounce putter on PGA Tour greens. Was one of the best.
They called him Boss of the Moss for a reason!
Lagpressure, love your Putting Module which I purchased recently. Love hearing and seeing the greats of the past in those modules. Great to see/hear, the what and why of their good reasons, and your reasons, as to why they putted so well, in days when the green conditions were much different (i.e. greens were NOT smooth like today’s)… and the putter equipment required more skill in the person wielding the putter. 