Anatomy

Your anatomy attests to the fact that you were born to move. However, to putt well you need to be still. Unnecessary movement during your putting stroke is a killer of consistency.

Putting in its simplest expression is the ability to direct a golf ball in a straight line and send it a certain distance. To most golfers this is an insurmountable task.

The main reason for our failure to meet this challenge stems from our creation – the way we are built.

We have articulated joints that provide us with freedom of movement . It is this same freedom of movement that creates the untold variables that undermine our putting stroke.

We have the ability to hinge our elbows and our wrists. We can rotate our arms and shoulders. Our freedom of movement allows us to flex and straighten our knees, raise our torso and head, and twist and turn in many directions. Unfortunately from the point of view of putting consistently this is not entirely a good thing.

Paul Broadhurst Still through Impact

To putt well you have to develop a restricted repeating action, with as few moving parts as possible. Golfers who putt poorly typically fail to exercise enough control over the different joints of their body.

For a start you should identify those parts of your body that should remain quiet. Movement here is unhelpful and will only harm your putting stroke.

In essence you should lock down your lower body and keep your head as still as possible. Imagine that you are holding a basketball between your knees and balancing a book on the back of your head.

What moves in the putting stroke is the triangle that is formed by your shoulders, arms and wrists. Nothing else should move. Your challenge is to keep the shape of the triangle intact.

The biggest culprit that ruins the shape of the triangle is over-active wrists especially through impact. The ideal technique is to putt with inactive or 'dead' wrists.

There are a number of putting aids designed to stabilise the left wrist that is prone to cupping. The simplest aid is to tape a sharp pencil to your wrist so that it digs into the back of your hand if the angle of your wrist changes.

Lifting Head Too Early

Finally it seems that when it comes to putting we are like small children unable to keep still for long.

Next time you play, watch the putting action of the other golfers in your group. See how many of them:

• Keep their head still through impact as if they were trying to discover if an imaginary coin under their ball was heads or tails.



• Lift their head and rotate their shoulders as they look up early to follow their putt.

Then reflect for a moment how your anatomy and freedom of movement is influencing your putting.

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