The Golf Academy

Golf tips, instruction, and commentary for any golfer looking to improve.

Tag: putting

2 Unique Putting Drills for a Confident and Pure Putting Stroke

By

On August 19, 2020

In Golf Tips, Practice

Putting. The one area of golf where strokes start to add up fast.

Lag one 15ft past the hole? No chance of making par with a three-putt. Or maybe you’ve lipped out one of those knee-shaking 3-footers? Even tour pros have a hard time shaking that off before they tee on up on the next hole.

So what is the reason golfers of all ages and skill levels make these mistakes? Well, there are two very simple yet hard to fix reasons. That is unless you know what to work on…

Reason 1: Poor Ball Striking

The first reason golfers struggle with putting is poor ball striking.

Why is this such a big deal? Simple – if you can’t strike the ball both purely and consistently nothing else about your putting game matters. You could have the perfect line but if you dig the club into the green before contact or blade your putts the ball will never make it to the cup anyways.

Additionally, if you don’t strike the ball well, it’s impossible to discover how hard you need to strike a putt for a given distance. And if you have not idea how hard to hit a putt, you’ll be doomed to lipping out 3-footers or lagging the ball off the green forever.

So what drill can we do to improve the ball striking on our putts? Fortunately, it’s really a very simple drill:

How Many Degrees is a Sand Wedge // Explained in Detail [2019 Update]

Drill One – Putt with your Wedge:

Now before you think I’m crazy, hear me out. There are a couple of benefits of practicing with a wedge, both physically and mentally, that will make you a better putter. Here’s why you should give it a try.

Less margin of error – instant feedback:

  • To putt well with a wedge you have to strike the center or equator of the golf ball perfectly with the leading edge of the club. Any miss with your wedge will result in a pop-up/top of the ball or a hollow feeling if you hit the ball off the heel or toe of the club.

Promotes a softer putting grip:

  • Many golfers struggle with a vice grip on their putter – especially when it comes to knee-shaking 3-4 footers. This causes players to lose their “feel” with the putter and over-exaggerates small wrist movements which can change the direction of a putt.  Using a wedge fixes this problem by simply giving the mind something else to focus on. Instead of worrying about missing a putt or stabbing at it, your mind can focus on how weird it is to putt with an iron. The result is a relaxed demeanor (which causes a softer grip) and an emphasis on stroking the putt with your shoulders (instead of your wrists)

It makes you miss your putter:

  • The beautiful thing about this drill is that it’s all about resetting your mind. Nothing about putting with a wedge is about technique; you can use any stance, grip, or putting motion you want and this will make you hit purer putts. Probably the best part about the entire drill is that putting with a wedge is hard… It’s so hard in fact, that once you start hitting putts you’ll miss having your old putter back. Picking up a club that gives you confidence is one of the best ways to hit a great shot, and after putting with a wedge for half an hour, picking up a putter will feel like night and day.

So there’s our first step to pure putting, grab a wedge or 9-iron and start in on the putting green. It won’t take long for you to start regaining your putting mojo.

Next up is another drill that works regardless of a player’s putting technique. Let’s talk about:

Drill Two – The Steel Ruler Drill:

steel ruler drill

Our second putting drill today is, as you may have guessed, the steel ruler drill. This drill places your ball on top of a steel ruler close to the hole with the objective of forcing the golfer to strike the ball squarely. Here’s how the drill works:

  • Place a steel ruler on a flat surface of putting green, roughly 3-5ft from the hole.
  • Place your ball on the far end of the ruler and take your normal golf stroke.
    • If the ball stays on the ruler all the way to the hole, you’ve hit a straight one. If not, your putting stroke needs some extra work.

Why It Works

The Steel Ruler Drill is great for two reasons. First, this drill provides instant and visual feedback on your last stroke with all extra variables, besides your putting stroke, removed.

On the course, it’s easy to chalk up a missed putt to a bad read, wind, green speeds, or any other number of things. This is a problem because often times the reason we miss putts in because we simply miss-hit the ball and place in along the wrong path towards the hole.

This leads to the second valuable part of this drill; it makes improvement simple and measurable. While you could plop down 10 balls and make 8 of them in the hole, you’ll never know what caused the two misses or even in the 8 makes were well executed or just lucky breaks.

With the steel ruler, you are only measuring if the ball travels across the ruler to the hole, nothing else. And if it doesn’t then you know either your swing plane is crooked or your clubface is not square at contact.

Either way, hitting 10/10 putts straight along the ruler will definitely ensure that your putts start out on the right line. The additional confidence from knowing you have a pure stroke is just an added bonus.

Once you have that covered, it all comes down to correctly reading a greens break; something that every golfer improves on given time and practice.

The Wrap-Up

So there it is, two unique putting drills to help refine your golfing fundamentals. While wedge putting and the steel ruler may seem like simple gimmicks, the unique nature of the drills is the reason they work so well.

Golfers are full of thoughts that constantly try to talk them into bad shots. By giving your mind something totally different to feel and focus on, you give your body the chance to stroke solid putts, build up muscle memory for your swing, and most importantly, gain confidence in your putter and putting stroke.

This simple boost of confidence of being able to feel a well-struck putt or trust that your swing will set the ball down the line you’ve chosen is the most important step you can make to improving your putting.

So take some time on the practice green or in your living room and play around with these two unique golf drills. I know that a couple of hours with the wedge or rolling the ball on the ruler are going to lead to successful, and more importantly, enjoyable rounds for you.

Left Hand Low: Why the Future of Putting is Cross-Handed

By

On February 3, 2019

In Golf Discussions, Golf Tips

For many golfers, putting is the first part of the game they learned. If you look back at years of mini-golfing as a child it’s easy to see that the technique associated with putting has been ingrained in many of us from an extremely young age.

Here’s the problem with that, however; it’s all wrong.

You see, hitting a putt is not as simple as swinging a baseball bat or a tennis racket. To be a successful putter you need precision, which is something these other sports don’t require as dramatically. So how are we supposed to get the precision needed to score better on the green?

It’s simple, we need to start putting cross-handed.

What is Left-Hand-Low Putting?

Left-hand-low or cross-handed putting is one of golf’s lesser known secrets. Recently made popular by Jordan Speith, this putting method has actually been around for decades. In fact, Jack Nicklaus once said that if he had to teach someone how to putt from scratch, he would start them off cross-handed.

left hand low putting.jpg

For the right-handed golfer, the cross-handed grip is shown above.

So what is cross-hand putting anyways?

Put simply enough, cross-hand putting is simply a reversal in the order of your hands when you grip your club. This led to the phrase “left-hand-low” as right-handed golfers who adopted this technique placed their left hand underneath their right. This can be seen in the picture to the right.

While the set up might seem easy enough, golfer’s such as Jordan Speith, Billy Horschel, and Kevin Chappell have all won tournaments using cross-handed grips in the past few years.

So what is it about putting cross-handed that makes this technique so powerful?

Benefits of Cross-Handed Putting

Let’s be honest, nobody would ever switch up their tried and true putting grip for no reason, right? So there must be something that makes cross-handed putting so powerful.

Well, here are the two reasons you should consider switching to cross-handed putting:

  • taking your dominant hand out of control will make you more accurate
  • switching your hands will align your shoulders and improve your ball-striking

Improved Accuracy

The first area of improvement driven by cross-handed putting is your accuracy. Traditionally, the dominant right hand (for righty golfers) has caused accuracy problems for golfers.

When you strike a putt, the lower of your two hands drives the action in your stroke. While this is very useful for full swings, as your dominant hand is stronger, it is not helpful for shots that require more precision.

By placing your left hand on the bottom of your grip, you are placing this hand in a dominant position. This, in turn, leads to a putt that resembles more of a pull instead of a push and will help prevent unwanted wrist movement at impact.

Shoulder Alignment

In addition to improving the accuracy of your putts, putting cross-handed can also improve your ball striking on the green. How? Well, it all has to do with how your shoulders are aligned.

When you putt “normally”, or with your right hand on the bottom, many golfers have a tendency to favor their right shoulder over their left.

Normally, this shoulder lean is a helpful part of your game. This helps you sweep the ball off of the tee and squeeze every ounce of distance out of your swing. Unfortunately, doing this on the green causes poor contact and, as a result, poor distance control on your putts.

However, by switching to a left-hand-low grip, your body will naturally square up your shoulders. This helps balance the backswing with the fore swing and produces a more pendulum-like stroke; something that is great for distance control and improved touch around the green.

Recap

While switching to a cross-handed putting grip won’t immediately improve your game, I personally believe that the benefits of improved accuracy and ball-striking are worth the practice time required to make the change.

After all, that’s exactly what made me switch to a left-hand-low grip two years ago. Something that has paid dividends for me ever since.

Cross-handed putting might not be right for everybody, but it was right for me. And given the esteemed company that has also switched over to cross-handed putting, there’s no doubt in my mind that left-hand-low is here to stay.

 

 

 

 

How Do You Use a Chipper?

By

On January 25, 2018

In Golf Tips

The putter chipper or simply “the chipper” has enjoyed a long history with the game of golf but during the most recent era, its popularity has declined significantly. Regardless of this lack of popularity, the chipper is still very effective at doing its job around the green. But what exactly is that job and how do you even use a chipper? We’ll talk about all this in today’s segment of 6 Minutes With Sully.

What is a Chipper?

Before we can explain what a chipper does, we first have to figure out exactly what it is and how that design can make it useful. The chipper is a putter-like club that is usually between 32-37 degrees of loft, which is very similar to a 7 iron. While a chipper and a 6-7 iron might have a similar degree of loft, the weight and center of mass are much different in a chipper. This difference in weight distribution, along with the shallower swing plane used during the swing, allow the chipper to chop through greenside rough without getting caught the way a wedge might.

Using a Chipper

Image result for bump and run chip

Proximity to the green and a lack of obstacles in front of the hole make this an ideal spot to use a chipper.

Now that we have a better idea of what a chipper is, we can look at how to use a chipper to score around the green. A shot using a chipper is very similar to another greenside shot, the hybrid chip, and produces a ball flight that is also similar (although slightly higher). While both of these chips produce similar ball flights, they are both based on the simple bump and run chip that most golfers are familiar with. The chipper is perfectly designed to perform this shot and excels at chipping the ball over short patches of rough or fringe around the green. You can see one example of this to the right.

While choosing when to use a chipper is slightly arbitrary, actually hitting the shot is the easiest part of the entire process. Unlike a flop shot or other types of chips, there is almost no difference between hitting a shot with a chipper and hitting a putt. To hit your chip simply address the ball how you would normally and strike the ball slightly softer than you would if you were putting from that distance. The difference in force that you put on the shot should cancel out the fact that the ball will face less resistance as it flies through the air than it would on the ground during a putt.

Other than this one small change, everything about hitting a putt and using a chipper is exactly the same, and that’s one of the reasons I think people like using a chipper; if you’re a good putter, there’s a great chance you’ll be a good chipper too.

So that’s all there is to it, one small adjustment and a whole lot less to worry about when you’re trying to score around the green. If you want to learn a little more about using a chipper check out the video below, otherwise, I wish you the best of luck as you start practicing with your new chipper!

How to Practice: Putting

By

On February 3, 2016

In Practice

When it comes to golf, it’s easy to get lazy with practice. After all, isn’t it enough to go out 30 minutes before your round and hit some 10 footers on the practice green? Or should you commit time for the sole purpose of improving your putting? And if so, how do you do it?  All of these are excellent questions and sometimes you get a lesson that doesn’t come with a lot of extra drills to help you ingrain what you learned. So that is why we are here today.

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Three Easy Ways to Shave Strokes on the Green

By

On January 8, 2016

In Basics

Very few areas of golf will ever rival the importance of good putting to having a successful round of golf. Every winter while snow was still covering the driving range and it was too cold to even consider stepping outside to play golf (Wisconsin problems) I would sit in my basement with my astro-turf putting mat, three golf balls, and a putter. This was the beginning of my golf season and may have ultimately led to some of my success. I could spend hours down there putting 5-15 foot putts on cold winter days with my brother. We would play horse, the golfing version of a 3-point contest, and other games, stacking coasters to create different breaks for our putts and honestly having a really good time with the $15 putting mat my parents bought us. Even though at the time I was oblivious to it, I was mastering some of the fundamentals of successful putting.

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