Pop Stroke for Short Putts and general putting improvement:
Today was the first time in a very long time that I spent any serious time practicing my putting. I have become the victim of too many gimme's on short putts over the years. Earlier this week I was in a competitive event for the very first time and had to putt everything out. Needless to say I missed a few 2-4 footers that made me mad. I consider myself a very good lag putter but those short ones certainly need work, and I should be making more in the 6' - 10' range too
Following that round on Monday, I adopted the Hideki pigeon-toe stance to improve my lateral stability, and it definitely helped in the 2 rounds since.
I had the practice putting green to myself this morning and did various drills and repetition from in close, and also had few alignment sticks along.
For starters my foot alignment was greatly inconsistent. This was highlighted by taking my stance, then laying down an alignment stick across my toes to show just how off I was from the get-go, often lining up open or closed. What helped with that was to first set the putter face, then take a stance off that anchor point. One wouldn't think on such short 2-4' putts that taking an aligned putting stance would be so difficult.
Trying the Snedeker pop-stroke was an interesting test, and very successful for me. I assume that such a short take-away and non-arc putting path limits the putter face from wandering. From farther away, my distance suffered as I had a lack of feel for how hard to hit the ball with such a short take-away. I don't expect a miracle fix after 1 session of putting, but I think I'm going to try the pop-stroke for anything less than 5'
Anyone else doing the pop-stroke ?
Today was the first time in a very long time that I spent any serious time practicing my putting. I have become the victim of too many gimme's on short putts over the years. Earlier this week I was in a competitive event for the very first time and had to putt everything out. Needless to say I missed a few 2-4 footers that made me mad. I consider myself a very good lag putter but those short ones certainly need work, and I should be making more in the 6' - 10' range too
Following that round on Monday, I adopted the Hideki pigeon-toe stance to improve my lateral stability, and it definitely helped in the 2 rounds since.
I had the practice putting green to myself this morning and did various drills and repetition from in close, and also had few alignment sticks along.
For starters my foot alignment was greatly inconsistent. This was highlighted by taking my stance, then laying down an alignment stick across my toes to show just how off I was from the get-go, often lining up open or closed. What helped with that was to first set the putter face, then take a stance off that anchor point. One wouldn't think on such short 2-4' putts that taking an aligned putting stance would be so difficult.
Trying the Snedeker pop-stroke was an interesting test, and very successful for me. I assume that such a short take-away and non-arc putting path limits the putter face from wandering. From farther away, my distance suffered as I had a lack of feel for how hard to hit the ball with such a short take-away. I don't expect a miracle fix after 1 session of putting, but I think I'm going to try the pop-stroke for anything less than 5'
Anyone else doing the pop-stroke ?
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