Click here and enter your email address to watch the full video
Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

Subscribe now to watch the full video.

Full Swing With Putter

A lot of my students who struggle with lag putting are simply not taking a long enough backswing; this leads to an over exaggeration of the acceleration in the forward stroke, which is hard to repeat and manage. Ultimately, to get a better understanding of the tempo & "feel"  necessary for good lag putting, I will have students hit a putt as far as they possible can. However, the key here is that they must maintain good form. That is, we do not want any excess movement or added power from the wrists/forearms or lower-body. When done correctly, this drill provides an excellent "reference point" for players to use for dialing in their longer putts and with practice, should help eliminate any unnecessary three-putts.

Playlists: Putting

Tags: Putt, Drill, Intermediate

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000
The drill is full swing with the putter.

00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,000
So no, we're not working on the full swing.

00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:08,000
We're actually still working on the putting.

00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000
But I find that a lot of golfers who struggle with distance control with their longer

00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:18,000
puts, it's because they're taking, they're not taking a long enough stroke.

00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,000
And so there's two different versions that I'll give people for doing this.

00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:27,000
But this is basically freeing up your brain into what's the furthest I could hit it.

00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,000
So you can see the large putting green that I have down below.

00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:34,000
I'll usually do this from one end or I'll do this back up this big hill.

00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:39,000
Because I think you should at least be able to hit it 100 feet or so if you're taking a full

00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,000
swing with your putter with good form.

00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:43,000
And that's the part that I stress.

00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:50,000
So good form means I'm not going to overuse my wrists and arms and I'm not going to overuse

00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:51,000
my legs.

00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:56,000
But I can overuse my shoulders and create a bigger stroke.

00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:01,000
I just have to keep my lower body and my wrists out of this power source.

00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:05,000
But I find that a lot of golfers have no idea how far they could hit a put.

00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:09,000
So then it's always a little bit of a guessing game game for the brain to figure out what

00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:14,000
percentage of their full shot would they want to do on any particular put.

00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:20,000
I think of it like if I only hit half wedges and I didn't know how far I could hit my

00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:27,000
50-60° wedge then knowing that well if I hit my 56° wedge 100 yards well about a half

00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,000
swing is about here and I tend to hit that somewhere 60-70.

00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:36,000
It helps my brain figure out the math of how big of a swing to take.

00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,000
So you're going to make sure that nobody's in your way and you're going to find a large

00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:47,000
section of the green and then you're going to practice taking full strokes.

00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:51,000
And just kind of eyeballing about how far you're able to hit that.

00:01:51,000 --> 00:02:00,000
I had a little bit extra lower body on that one but overall not too bad.

00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:07,000
You will see that these will end up, you know, closeish to each other and then what I'm

00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:14,000
going to do now that my brain has a little bit of a baseline is I'm going to try and do

00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,000
not a full swing but I'm going to bring it back maybe a three-quarter swing.

00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:24,000
So how far does my three-quarter putting stroke and that might be my comfortable length

00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:25,000
swing.

00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,000
Maybe when I'm doing the full swing it's a little bit outside of my comfort zone but still

00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:34,000
this information helps me figure out how big of a stroke I can comfortably make.

00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:37,000
This will especially help if you play on big greens where you have a lot of 60-70-80

00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:41,000
footers like the greens I grew up playing.

00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:47,000
So the first version is just kind of doing it willingly hitting it as harder comfortable

00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:48,000
as you can.

00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:53,000
The second version is where I work tempo into it and this is a little bit more of a challenge

00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:57,000
but what I want you to do is hit it as far as you can with a short follow-through as

00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:58,000
you can.

00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:03,000
So now I have to really get this feeling of kind of the putter dropping but I'm going

00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:11,000
to feel like there's almost a hard stop when the ball hits or when the club hits the ball.

00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:21,000
So now I'm going to do a long backswing to a short follow-through and the goal is I'm

00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:28,000
going to try and hit this put as far as I can with a short with as long a backswing and

00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:33,000
a short follow-through as I can.

00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:38,000
Not my best stroke will do one more just for my sake.

00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,000
Then you can take this phase of the drill.

00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,000
You can take this phase of the drill and you can apply it to hitting puts on your green

00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:52,000
which would basically be I want you to take as long a putting stroke with a short of follow-through

00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000
as you can and try to get it to roll an appropriate distance.

00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:03,000
This is a while controlling a guide it while swinging it but also being prepared to stop

00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:04,000
it.

00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:09,000
Your decelerating it just slightly which allows you to have a little bit elevation in your

00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:10,000
touch.

00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:14,000
It's really hard to have touch if you're overexcelerating which is why one of my pet

00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:19,000
pews for people who struggle with distance control is really applying a rapid and especially

00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,000
late acceleration.

00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,000
I think of it as if I was tossing something underhand.

00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:30,000
It's reaching its maximum acceleration right about there and then it's just kind of coasting

00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,000
into the release.

00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:36,000
It would be really hard for me to have a distance control if I was speeding it up right

00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:37,000
to the end.

00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:43,000
So this drill or this kind of experiment of how big of a swing can I take helps you feel

00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:48,000
the weight of the club swinging which is going to ultimately help you improve your ability

00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:49,000
to develop touch.

Subscribe now for full access to our video library.