Putting Mechanics

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pecky987

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if the optimum putting contact is a slight ascending hit, then where does that make the ball position?

in non-putting matters, that would mean outside the left shoulder, but in putting the left shoulder is not the bottom of the arc. so, if we know where the arc centre is, then we can identify low point, and therefore ball position.

i've been playing the ball forward of centre, infact pretty much of my front foot.

my guess is that if you swing your putter from your shoulders, and you have very little, or no, hand and wrist movement, then the centre would be a point between the shoulder. and if you have a centred hand location, not hands behind like Zach Johnson or forward like Mickelson, then low point would be below that spot between the shoulders, and therefore ball position should be forward of the centre of your stance, OR more accurately, forward of the point between the shoulders
 
golfbulldog

golfbulldog

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pecky987 said:
if the optimum putting contact is a slight ascending hit, then where does that make the ball position?
Click to expand...

Why do you assume that the optimum strike is upwards?

Homer Kelley did not think so and Brian did not think so last year - not read any posts since then to contradict that.... He showed me a descending stroke where he gets the putter to stop on the grass after the ball is struck
... very hard to do... unless with a descending blow.

Now it may be a way that Brian teaches and not the whole story - wait and see what he says...but he used to enjoy a downward strike...
 
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pecky987

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golfbulldog said:
Why do you assume that the optimum strike is upwards?

Homer Kelley did not think so and Brian did not think so last year - not read any posts since then to contradict that.... He showed me a descending stroke where he gets the putter to stop on the grass after the ball is struck
... very hard to do... unless with a descending blow.

Now it may be a way that Brian teaches and not the whole story - wait and see what he says...but he used to enjoy a downward strike...
Click to expand...

there was a thread a while ago where brian showed things that where basically myths. like no-one actually horizontal hinges and you dont hit much of the inside of the ball. and one of them was that the optimal putting contact was ascending.

someone might show us that particular post
 
golfbulldog

golfbulldog

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It certainly says it there, thanks.

Would like to see the evidence that proved this to Brian...he was pretty fixed on this idea for a long period of time... must have been some damning evidence...but I have threadjacked enough.
 
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puttmad

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Supposedly hitting up (rise angle according to SAM Puttlab) allows better initial roll on the ball, instead of it skidding so much during the first few inches...
Not sure I agree whether it makes that much difference overall..
I hit 1.3 degrees upward with the ball in the middle of my stance, but I don't even think about hitting up at all.. go figure...
 
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mclare

New
Shouldn't ascending/descending path depend on putter loft, shaft and face angle also? Seems there are more factors involved than just one to produce the most consistent roll.
 
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Damon Lucas

Super Moderator
And the green, and ....

This is one of those areas where no one has proven to ANY degree that there is discernible and measurable improvement to be gained by creating a better roll on the ball.

What will happen as you try to improve the roll or get the ball rolling sooner or reducing the skid is that you will change your other mechanics.

So the people who recommend putting on an arc or on plane or having the face 'square to the path' will change those relationships and won't understand how to 'get it back'!

The best thing is to accept a minimal amount of skid and get used to the touch that that produces.

From a putter fitting standpoint, I think generally you want to have between 2 and 4 degrees of loft(closer to 2 preferably), and have the ball slightly ahead of low point with no effort to 'hit down' or 'raise up'!
 
tongzilla

tongzilla

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Damon Lucas said:
And the green, and ....

This is one of those areas where no one has proven to ANY degree that there is discernible and measurable improvement to be gained by creating a better roll on the ball.

What will happen as you try to improve the roll or get the ball rolling sooner or reducing the skid is that you will change your other mechanics.

So the people who recommend putting on an arc or on plane or having the face 'square to the path' will change those relationships and won't understand how to 'get it back'!

The best thing is to accept a minimal amount of skid and get used to the touch that that produces.

From a putter fitting standpoint, I think generally you want to have between 2 and 4 degrees of loft(closer to 2 preferably), and have the ball slightly ahead of low point with no effort to 'hit down' or 'raise up'!
Click to expand...
Damon, your post has confirmed my belief to ignore my golfing partners' comments on how skiddish the ball comes off my putter face.
 
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Chris Sturgess

New member
Damon Lucas said:
And the green, and ....

This is one of those areas where no one has proven to ANY degree that there is discernible and measurable improvement to be gained by creating a better roll on the ball.

What will happen as you try to improve the roll or get the ball rolling sooner or reducing the skid is that you will change your other mechanics.

So the people who recommend putting on an arc or on plane or having the face 'square to the path' will change those relationships and won't understand how to 'get it back'!

The best thing is to accept a minimal amount of skid and get used to the touch that that produces.

From a putter fitting standpoint, I think generally you want to have between 2 and 4 degrees of loft(closer to 2 preferably), and have the ball slightly ahead of low point with no effort to 'hit down' or 'raise up'!
Click to expand...

Closer to 2? Every putter fitting video analysis expert out there these days says that optimum launch for a putt is 4 degrees so the ball will carry out of the depression it is sitting in caused by it's own weight. So if the putter only has two degrees of loft you would either have to hit up on the ball or have a 2 degrees backward press with your hands.
 
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pecky987

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Chris Sturgess said:
Closer to 2? Every putter fitting video analysis expert out there these days says that optimum launch for a putt is 4 degrees so the ball will carry out of the depression it is sitting in caused by it's own weight. So if the putter only has two degrees of loft you would either have to hit up on the ball or have a 2 degrees backward press with your hands.
Click to expand...

think about it chris,

ITS 2 DEGREES!

its hardly gonna have THAT much effect.

ps now watch as Brian or Damon comes in and says it really does!
 
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Damon Lucas

Super Moderator
Chris,

With respect to depressions, can you provide a link to any studies as to the potential depth that a ball will create in different firmnesses of greens?

The reality for that question is that some greens will require more loft-spongy, slower greens, whereas some greens will require less-most greens in today's world, firmer, faster greens.

And that is not calculating the initial speed created by the putter and that relationship with any 'depression'.

The point is, do your putter fitting, spend some time on getting the dynamic loft right such that there is a good roll and then spend more time with your efforts to get your tempo consistent such that YOUR distance control is impeccable, and then focus on the straightness of roll.

Far more important!
 
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Chris Sturgess

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Yeah I'm not sure about how much varying green firmness influences it. I would like to see a study on that too. But I did get a putter fitting at hotstix once and a 4 degree dynamic loft did seem to get the ball rolliing earlier than a 2 or 6 and that was on a firm artificial surface for whatever that's worth. I would say recommending 2 degrees is not a good idea for average golfers because they won't normally be playing on us open greens, more likely they will be playing on slow softer greens where 6 degrees might be better. I'm pretty sure the initial ball speed does not matter, no matter what the speed is it has to fly above the front of the depression to get rolling sooner.

This is a nice article on the subject, but I don't think it goes into green firmness though.

http://ralphmaltby.com/home/272/
 
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otto6457

otto6457

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Geoff Mangum has an opinion on loft

From his forum:

"Or is it just a matter of putter loft (I have heard 3-4 degrees as ideal from Scotty Cameron's interview/Frank Thomas)?

Neither of these two good folks knows what loft is optimal for today's greens. Scotty Cameron is parroting an old wives tales that dates back into the 1940s about the need for loft to "lift" the ball up and out of a "bowl" depression it sits in on the grass, even though he claims that high-speed filming proves the need for 3-4 degrees of loft.

The image of the ball perched down in a ceramic bowl and needing loft to "spoon" it up and out is just goofy and results from a lack of accurate imagination about the reality. The reality is that the the only grass that matters is the 2-3 blades of very short and very flexible blades of bent grass directly in front of the bottom of the 45-gram golf ball at address (or at most a little domino-string of 20-30 blades directly on line of the ball's starting line of skid-roll) -- not the blades "around" the bottom of the ball. These "online and in the way" blades of grass are no taller than 1/8th of an inch and usually shorter, and they are all very willowy and effectively massless compared to a golf ball of 45 grams being stroked with an initial velocity of 70-100 inches per second off the putter face at and over these blades of grass.

Moreover, it is the interaction of the ball with exactly this opposing force of these very blades of grass that brings about the transitional ending of the skidding at the start and the beginning of the rolling of the ball. The golfer needs the opposing friction (actually "stickiness") of the ball-grass interaction right at the start to reduce skidding and promote rolling. The notion that the golfer needs loft in order to "skip over" this interaction is not a good one. This may well have been the situation with the poor shaggy surfaces of greens in the Bobby Jones era, and that would explain why Calamity jane had 6 degrees or more loft.

On today's greens, the LEAST LOFT REQUIRED is the BEST LOFT DESIRED. That works out to Yes! putters at about 2-2.5 degrees or LESS and some of the newer Robert Bettinardi putters with as little as 1 degree and others. Zero loft and even mildly negative loft are currently legitimate and arguably superior choices based on the physics -- especially if one is trying to have a loft that does not complicate the stroke movement. Too much loft on the putter (3-4 degrees is too much for today) gets blessed by people not knowledgeable about putting strokes -- neither Frank Thomas nor Scotty Cameron are putting instructors, and being a designer of putters does not make them knowledgeable about good and bad strokes or even about the desirability of this or that design feature as promoting good or bad strokes -- because golfers ADAPT to the flawed design with a compensatory feature in the movement technique. Some of these are matters of ball position "rules", setup "rules" ("hands ahead" comes to mind), movement "rules" (hit down, hit up, forward press, stroke thru with hands leading the putter head, release the putter thru impact), etc etc ad nauseum without knowing why these so-called rules are forced by the design oddities (like loft and offset hoseling)."
 
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Chris Sturgess

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Does Geoff Mangum have any video evidence to back that up? Or is it just something he dreamed up one day and people are supposed to just believe whatever he says? He says some interesting stuff, but he is just a self proclaimed expert who decelerates horribly in his youtube videos.
 
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