Eddie Young of the Classic Swing Golf School at Legends Golf Resort in Myrtle Beach, S.C. shows us how to overcome the “arc swing” that prevents the putter face from finishing square to the target.
Eddie Young: So today we're going to talk about putting, and we're going to talk about releasing the putter. The main focus behind this, when I hit the ball, I want the clubface to be square to impact.
Now, there are two different types of putters out there. There are arc putters, and in an arc putter, the club is actually working inside, back to square and back to inside and the clubface is literally open to the target line, squaring up to the target line, and then closing. With that type of putter, they're releasing more with the rolling of their arms.
The one I'm going to talk more about today with this little fancy teaching aid on here, is almost more of a straighter back, straighter through (putter), where I'm actually going to release the club a little bit with my wrist. Not a lot, but a little bit.
So, as I put the club down, I've got this little pointer, pointing to my target line right there. I'm going to go through my ball position. It helps a lot to play the ball more forward in your stance. Getting over the ball, from here, I'm going to do it slow motion first, as I take the club back. I'm kind of just letting the club fall back where that pointer's still on the line, and the clubface is still somewhat square.
As I come through, I'm going to let it come on through this way. Now, some people are not as flexible as others. If I was super flexible I could sit here and turn my left shoulder under and my right shoulder under and I wouldn't have to worry about any rotation or any release of my wrist. But as we get older, as we start losing that flexibility here, a little bit of wrist action is going to make up for the lack of body turn.
So, a little bit of wrist action at the end, and keeping this pointer pointing at the target line, is kind of what we're after here. I'm looking at the target. I'm going to keep my head down on the shot, and just let it go into the hole. And you can look at the clubface and see where that's pointing. And if I turn around here, you see a little bit of wrist action right here.
Another way of looking at this is as a pendulum stroke, if I had that pointing to my stomach, I'm always keeping it pointing to my stomach. I don't want to sit there and do this a lot. So, to release the club, I'm just sitting here letting the wrist go just a little bit and letting that clubface stay square to the target.
Works a whole lot better on bermudagrass than it does the other one, than the arc-y stroke does. So, to review, just make sure you're over the ball more, and we're just going to keep the pointer, or the clubface going down the target line, and keeping it square.