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Breaking Down Face Control - Putting

If you are struggling to hit your start line more often (and hole more putts), be sure to pay attention to the pattern of your misses. As pulled/pushed putts are directly related to the putter's face angle at impact, knowing which movements influence this variable is a must. Using this detailed breakdown, players should be able to identify the cause(s) of their putting woes and create a training plan for getting back on track; revisiting some of the single-arm drills will provide a great start for many.

Tags: Putt, Concept, Intermediate

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This concept video is breaking down face control with the putting stroke.

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So the wrists have two main actions.

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They go up and down like this.

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That controls the eye angle of the putter like that.

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They go forward backward like that.

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That controls a little bit of face control but mostly loft.

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And the only reason it controls face control is because it tends to move the putter forward

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or backward within the plane.

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The main things that twist or rotate the putter face are not your hands in your wrist.

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But they either come from your forms, pronation, supination, or they come from your shoulders

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internal or external rotation or they come more from your shoulder blades, protraction, retraction.

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So if I keep my wrists in a slight older deviation that tends to lock the

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eye angle of the club and if I prevent my wrists from having more than a degree or two

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of flexion extension, so if I keep them in that position, then the only things that are

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going to cause rotation are going to be above my wrists and hands.

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So this pretty much helps me to lock out or control my putter face control at least

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from the hands perspective.

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So then I have to dissect what's happening if I push or pull putt.

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So if I miss a putt to the right, it's more of a push for a right hand golfer.

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If I miss it to the left, that's a pull for a left hand golfer.

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The overwhelming control of start line in a putting stroke is the putter face.

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So if I push it, that means that the putter face is getting open.

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That will typically happen if either I have a lot of face rotation in the back swing,

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which is coming from too much arm rotation or if I create too much leg in the down swing,

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which would create too much shaffling and open the face.

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Cause if I motorcycled it, I would be part of a bounce it off the ground, I wouldn't

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be able to control off.

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So that's a common one is just kind of lagging it this way.

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Or if my putter stroke is way into out, sometimes I'll counter a rotate it and I'll almost

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open it up.

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One other one would be if the face stays purely square, but my stroke is a little bit

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into out, then the face being square to the path was now pointing right of the target

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because of the path.

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So then one other common one, almost forgot, is more of a blocking type motion of the

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left arm.

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So some golfers kind of really have it kind of get pulled where that arm disconnect and

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you can see that I miss that way right because when I pull it this way that tends to open

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the face, it is possible to pull it close, but that usually happens more from that trail

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shoulder than the lead shoulder.

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So then if we look at missing it left.

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So that was a number of the common reasons why golfers miss it right.

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If we then look at missing it left or having more of a pull pattern, the most common ones

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would be either having too much rotation or movement from that trail arm trail shoulder.

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So kind of feeling like this and the putter typically has a lot of rotation and finishes

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closed.

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It could happen if I tend to rotate my shoulders a little bit more level.

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So if I'm not rotating them on the putter plane, but if I'm rotating them more vertical,

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then that will tend to pull the putter path inside and close the face.

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And then if I was to radially deviate, so I started with a bit of this unhing or ulnar deviation,

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kind of more like this.

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If I was then to radially deviate and pull it down, that encourages the putter to pass

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which can cause the club to get the club face to get pointing more left.

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So it will look a little bit more like that.

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One other common one is having lower body rotation.

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So some golfers will tend to rotate the body in order to look at it.

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And you can see that that will tend to pull the putter path way to the left,

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which would cause me to miss it to the left unless I held the face,

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open the right about.

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So if you're missing it right or left, I would look above the hands and look more at the

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forums and the shoulders to see what the right arm and what the left arm is doing.

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And then either trying to balance the two of them or try to use the single arm drills

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to train the individual pattern.

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This is more of a concept video to help you kind of wrap your head around.

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Well, how do I approach if I'm missing it right or missing it left?

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And the simple answer is you want to look at where the club face would be,

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assuming that your visual alignment and physical alignment are okay.

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But hopefully this helps you understand that the wrist are typically not causing your

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putter face control issues, but they might be complimenting one of the problems that is

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causing your stroke to consistently cause a pull or a push.

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