Instruction
Stickney: Lag putting – why you’re doing it wrong!
As you watch players on the putting green, you will always see people working on putts from close range but seldom do you see anyone really work on their lag putting. And I’m not just talking about 50-plus foot, putts but lag putting from short and mid-range distances.
You know, working on the type of putts that could “get away” from you — the ones from inside 30 feet. The ones over a hump, knoll, on a crown, or those pesky sneaky-fast putts where you walk up to the green thinking possible birdie but walk away with bogey! Always leaves a nasty taste in your mouth for sure.
I have always been a proponent of working on lag putting in two ways with my students:
- Start by working on super-long lag putts back and forth across the green so you get the feeling of the overall green speed and as you get better with your feel work your way closer to the hole. This will help you to figure out the “speed of the green” in general.
- Next find the part of the practice green with the most amount of break or undulation and work on “fine-tuning” your speed by putting to targets that have big hills, bump, and 4+% slopes in them. It is this stage where you are focusing on really understanding what the greens can do at whatever speed they are for that day. This will help you to not three-whip the first hole from 25-feet as you go up over a crown in the putting surface
However, what I see from the average player is not this at all but completely the opposite. They drop three balls on the green hit a few 20-30 footers (not more than 5 minutes tops!) and then move on to putts of close range and then wonder why they have issues on the front nine with their putting feel!
While I was thinking about working on lag putting, I found these graphs from Scott Fawcett and Lou Stagner that really hit home that lag putting is a forgotten fundamental and one people just do not know how to work on properly.
- Here is a chart showing the make percentages for Tour Players on the BEST greens in the world from 3 to 10 feet. Therefore, you can see now why lagging it as close to the hole is obviously a necessity.
- Basically after 10 feet the best players in the world have less than a 1 in 3 chance of making the putt
- The average golfer (18 handicap) only makes 50% of their 5 footers, 65% of their 4 footers, and 84% from 3 foot and in, therefore you need to be a great lag putter if you want to score better!
- From 25+ feet the average amateur golfer will have almost a 1 in 4 chance of three putting showing us once again that lag putting is crucial
Now that we understand what our make percentages are from different distances and how we compare to the professionals on Tour let’s look at the proximity of “missed putts.”
- NOTE: this graphic represents the lag putting ability of PGA Tour Pros ONLY, so you should add a few inches to each of these overall distances to really get the picture of how important lag putting will be for the average player
- What I find amazing is that the there is such a difference between the Top 25 player and all other Tour Pros is from 30-40 feet is almost half a foot closer! Can you imagine what this would be for a normal player?
- If you take time to really study and focus on this graphic you will now see that you can take more strokes off your score daily by lagging the ball closer to the hole
- Obviously, we also need to convert our short putts but the make percentages for amateurs from 3 foot and in is not that bad- we just cannot let putts get outside this 3-foot circle
I hope by now you have made the decision to go work on your lag putting in the two ways I described earlier, I promise that if you focus on “fine-tuning” your feel that you will become a MUCH better lag putter and your scores will come down as a result. Enjoy…
Questions or comments? [email protected]
- LIKE33
- LEGIT10
- WOW2
- LOL0
- IDHT0
- FLOP0
- OB0
- SHANK2
Instruction
Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?
Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
- LIKE0
- LEGIT0
- WOW0
- LOL0
- IDHT0
- FLOP0
- OB0
- SHANK1
Instruction
The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic
My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
- LIKE88
- LEGIT15
- WOW6
- LOL1
- IDHT0
- FLOP4
- OB1
- SHANK8
Instruction
Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!
Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
- LIKE0
- LEGIT3
- WOW2
- LOL0
- IDHT0
- FLOP0
- OB0
- SHANK2
-
19th Hole3 weeks ago
Justin Thomas on the equipment choice of Scottie Scheffler that he thinks is ‘weird’
-
19th Hole3 weeks ago
‘Absolutely crazy’ – Major champ lays into Patrick Cantlay over his decision on final hole of RBC Heritage
-
19th Hole2 weeks ago
LET pro gives detailed financial breakdown of first week on tour…and the net result may shock you
-
19th Hole5 days ago
Report: LIV star turns down PGA Championship invite due to ‘personal commitments’
-
19th Hole2 weeks ago
Gary Player claims this is what ‘completely ruined’ Tiger Woods’ career
-
Equipment4 days ago
Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship
-
Whats in the Bag2 weeks ago
Team McIlowry (Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry) winning WITBs: 2024 Zurich Classic
-
Whats in the Bag5 days ago
Keegan Bradley WITB 2024 (May)
Robert Johansson
Apr 19, 2022 at 3:20 am
Modern putting sucks due to distance control cant be natural.
You need a different mechanic to have distance control by default but these guys cant teach you that or tour pros.