Cut Stroke

A Cut Stroke in putting is where the path of your putter travels through the ball from outside the target line to inside the target line.

Illustration Pelz Putting Bible 17% Ratio of Influence

In other words your putter swings off plane and cuts across your target line.

The question is: Why does this matter as long as your putterface is perpendicular to your target line at impact?

Research and Testing has shown that there are two fundamental alignments that influence the direction your ball travels after you hit it.

The first is your putterface angle and the second is your putter path. Rik DeGunther in his book The Art and Science of Putting calculates that the ratio of influence is around 15% putter path and 85% angle of impact.

Your putter path therefore plays a small, yet significant, part in the accuracy of your putts as any error in path is transmitted to the roll of your ball. David Leadbetter estimates that three out of four recreational golfers slice not only their full-swing shots, they slice their putts as well.

Quintic Ball Roll Software

The ideal putter path imparts zero side-spin to your ball as side-spin has a negative effect on how soon your ball achieves true roll.

However, it is possible, but not desirable, to get your ball to travel more or less along the target line with an outside-to-in putter path and a slightly open face at impact.

Early instructional texts on putting mention little or nothing about putter paths as the topic was largely irrelevant. Golfers putted with their wrists. There was no movement of their shoulders and arms.

With golfers using a pendulum shoulder motion as a more reliable way to putt on smoother and faster greens, the problem of the putter wandering all over the place is a real possibility. Therefore to manage your putting stroke, you need to pay careful attention to setting up correctly at address and staying connected until the ball is on its way.

Here are some reasons why your putter path can follow an errant outside-to-in direction that produces a cut stroke.

• If your shoulders are open at address rather than parallel to your target line, your putter path will tend to work along your shoulder line. This will cause you to cut across your ball similar to a slice in the full-swing.



• If your elbows are spread too wide and are not snug against your rib cage, you will have difficulty in controlling the movement of your putter going back, and then forward into impact.



• If you set up too near to your ball, your arms will move away from your body to the outside on your backstroke as you lift your putter. A useful technique to find the correct distance from your ball is to hover your putter before grounding it so that your arms find their natural hanging position.

While you want to avoid a cut stroke that slices across your target line, you should steer clear of another bad habit of watching the movement of your putter.

Be confident that with good alignment, a correct ball position, and a stroke that moves your shoulders, arms and hands in unison, your putter path will stay on plane, and not cut across your target line.

Image Source
1 = Illustration from Dave Pelz's Putting Bible
2 = www.quintic.com