Experienced golfers often prefer heavier putter head when
playing on slow greens. This makes it easier when attempting "pendel"
movement with the shoulders. Then you don't have to use the hands when
accelerating through the ball. This will reduce the opening and
closing effect on the putter head leading to more shots on line.
PUTTING TECHNIQUE
The most accepted way of putting is the shoulder technique - but
how do we do this ?
First let us start with the triangle.
Take up your putting stance, look at your hands, arms and shoulders.
See this as a large triangle.
Now we must learn to relax the grip. Keep your arms and shoulders
locked into position and swing the putter by pivoting at the wrists
only. Do this many times, each time relaxing the grip more and more
until you can feel that the putter head is very very heavy (important).
This is how soft you must hold your putter !
Note: Feel what muscles you have used during this exercise because
you are not going to use them again !
Next, look at your arms as if they were pieces of rope hanging down.
Believe that you do not have any muscles in your arms what so ever, you
must be totally relaxed.
To swing the putter now, you must use the muscles in your upper back area.
Swing with these "other muscles" keeping all the angles in the triangle
constant. Remember do not tighten up, the formation of the triangle will
keep the arms firm enough.
Breath and relax !
In which order do things happen ?
To initiate the start of the backswing we pivot our triangle which in
turn will pull on the grip before the putter head moves.
To really get the feel for this, practice the "take away" super slow and
ensure that the grip moves first, giving you the feeling that the head
is dragging behind.
Note: We are talking microns here, not millimeters.
We are trying to achieve a "one piece movement". Look at your hands
whilst swinging and check that there is no movement at the wrists.
Look also at your left arm and check that the angle here remains
constant throughout the hole swing.
TEMPO AND SWING SPEED ON THE THROUGHSWING
To put "feel" into words, let's first find out what it is we desire.
We want the putter head accelerating through the ball but at a slow speed.
To do this effectively we must swing the putter head even slower on the
backswing. Let's say that our swing speed through the ball is to be 5 mph,
then our take away should be around 2 mph.
Important: Do not flail* at the start of the downswing !
*(unwanted hinging of the wrists)
We must wait for the putter head to slow down and stop on the backswing
before we can begin the downswing. The length of this stop is minimal, a
millisecond. Failure to execute this correctly will result in a loss of
control in both length and direction.
We start the downswing by pivoting our triangle again. We are using
effectively our muscles in the upper back to hit the ball with and nothing
from the hands and the arms.
Tip: Print this out and take it with you next time to the putting
practice.
Check out our putting tip 
to improve your putting.
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