Brian Manzella
Administrator
You can put a laser pointing down the putter shaft and practice keeping the laser on the plane base line . That way you don't get hung up on the putter face opening on the backstroke and closing on the through stroke.
Here are a couple of posts from GolfingMachinePro an AI taken from www.bombsquadgolf.com. He has had a putting lesson from Stan Utley
"Stan is all about plane. From your putter to your driver you have to be on plane. A truly on plane putting stroke feels very different from the methods that are being taught today. Biggest difference..the other methods do not work...Stan's does. When I received my putting lesson from Stan it felt very different. However, I stuck with it and now I am putting the best I have in my 30 years of playing golf. I needed to get rid of old habits.
For putting, get yourself a laser that attaches to your shaft. Stike a line on the floor or on the putting green with chalk or wahtever means you have for attaining a straight line. Then, when you stroke the putt, make certain the laser never deviates from the target line. Also, Stan keeps his upper body very quiet. When you actuate the arms properly it will feel as if the right forearm is rolling somewhat. Then, the face appears to open and close. However, the face is remaining square to the arc. There are many other items but Stan does attack his putts. That is, the shaft is slightly forward leaning at impact. This places the bottom of the arc just in front or at the forward end of the ball. THis also takes some getting used to, but once you get it it feels great "
Hue...Tiger putts very similar to Stan's method. As in all golf shots, a good balanced setup is required. One thing needed to understand is that the arms tend to follow the plane established by the shoulders. With that said, pay close attention to the waist bend of Tiger. The next key component is the arm position at address. You will notice the amount of bend at the elbows. This allows the bending of the right arm on the backswing, and the bending of theleft arm on thefollow through.
Yes, I know this sounds strange. But, Stan allows a slight bending of the elbows during the stroke which facilitates an on plane motion. Stan would use the term "stay at home". Meaning, he had the feeling that the butt end of the putter did not travel very far. He wanted the putter head to swing more thereby transferring greater energy with minimal force.
The above arm movement also facilitates the correct shoulder motion. Whereby the feeling is the left shoulder moving more horizontally or towards the chin. This also facilitates a steady head. Too many players "rock" their shoulders downward too much causing the putter to get closed on the backstoke and causing their head to move. This is due to the fact that player has wrongfully caused his shoulders to move improperly relative to the spine angle. The shoulders must move 90 degrees to the spine angle.
Other key items to look at are the plane of the forearms and the putter shaft..they should be the same. This may require a modification of your grip. Notice the length and the lie of the putter. Most putters today are too short and too upright which will not allow an on plane motion. Stan's putter was 36" long with a 68 degree lie angle.
This length allows the arms to relax with the appropriate amount of elbow bend.
I hope I answered your question. Once again, Stan's method may feel different at first, but stay with it. You will be amazed how your putting will improve. The main reason is it is a natural motion. Watch any child and he/she will putt this way!! We need to undue the poor teaching and habit's we developed.
Here is a post by Geoff Mangum from his website http://www.puttingzone.com/ He has more posts on Stan
Sure!
By the way, the TGC Academy Live will air again October 21 at 1 pm. I'll try to watch.
Let me start by saying that I advocate a particular technique as the one I believe is optimal for a number of different reasons, taking all things into consideration. I also work hard to understand a wide array of alternative techniques, including the pop putt, the wrist putt, the "arc" putting of David Lee, the styles of Crenshaw, Roberts, Locke, Charles, Furyk, Faxon, and many others, including the technique that Stan Utley is teaching these days. Whatever works best for specific individuals depends somewhat on where they start, what their special talents or disadvantages may be, and their capacity and willingness to master a given technique. So what is "optimal" for most golfers in the abstract may not be the best way to help a specific golfer.
That said, let me first discuss the two techniques and then compare them later.
STAN UTLEY’S STYLE.
In Utley's style, there is a belief that the shoulders rotate "around" the spine. He uses the word “perpendicular” in describing the rotation of the shoulders around the spine. In his SI article, he says the fellow in Missouri who originally taught him this technique described the movement as moving the lead shoulder at the chin. Utley also says he wants the left forearm to rotate in sequence with the arc. The reason he gives for preferring this sort of movement pattern is he feels the shoulder stroke causes head movement and something like a tilting back in the through-stroke.
Properly considered, I believe Utley’s stroke is a throw-back to the 1950s and 1960s, but not quite as good as that earlier stroke style, for the reasons discussed below.
It doesn’t seem to me that Utley is accurately describing what he wants the golfer to do. The reason I say this is because I have spent years examining the relationship between the shoulders, spine, upper arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, putter shaft, and putter face, and the way Utley describes the motion has some contradictions in them that seem to go beyond mere issues of terminology.
The contradiction: If you really move the shoulders “perpendicular” to the “spine,” then there is no necessity to rotate the left forearm to keep the putter face square to the stroke path (Utley’s “arc”). In fact, if you rotate the left forearm on the backstroke with such a shoulder motion, you cannot keep the face square and the face will fan open to the stroke path.
Apparently, since Utley is pretty clear about rotating the forearm, he must not be describing a truly “perpendicular” rotation of the shoulders around the “spine,” so let’s examine that a little more closely to try to get to the bottom of this issue.
The “spine” is not a straight line at all, especially the way most golfers stand at address in putting. The spine in good upright posture is very much S-shaped, and this shape alters in bending the torso and neck forward depending upon just how it is done. There is NOT a single “line” of the spine from tail bone to base of neck about which the shoulders can be turned in a “perpendicular” fashion – there are different vertebral segments from sacral, to lumbar, to thoracic to cervical, and at each segment along the way, there is a different orientation of the spine. So what establishes the “line” or axis of the shoulder rotation as described by Utley?
I strongly suspect that the axis Utley is attempting to describe is the one that basically runs from the middle of the pelvis up to the base of the neck. There’s no anatomical structure here, so it is basically just a geometric relationship. It is also possible that Utley is basing his notion of the “line” or “axis” of the spine on the cervical spine, which means the neck. Because he thinks the eyes should be slightly inside the ball, this says to me that he wants the forehead to be higher at address than the chin, and this means that the angle of the neck to the ground is tilted up off horizontal, but not as much as the angle of the back or torso as a whole. The base of the neck can easily serve as a reference “plate” that rotates about the axis of the neck like an album on a turntable and spindle. Perhaps this is what Utley means about rotating the shoulders “perpendicular” to the “spine.”
That said, either way Utley is still not describing a shoulder rotation perpendicular to a line. Even if the back in general or the neck is the axis instead of the spine, a truly “perpendicular” rotation of the shoulders around either line will move the arms and hands so that the putter face will stay square to the “arc” without any changes in the forearm whatsoever. But, hey, don’t believe me – just look for yourself!
Try this: bend forward and put both hands together like a prayer gesture with arms extended down before your lap as if in a putting setup. The two thumbs aim straight at the ground going out from the body and aim backwards into the body at the sternum in the middle of the torso or possibly at the base of the neck, depending on how you hold your hands. Now rotate the shoulders perpendicularly to any “line” you chose running up and down through the middle of your body – the back, the spine, the neck, etc. In this turn, you have a “triangle” with three sides – the two arms and hands plus the line between the two shoulders. Turning the line between the two shoulders in a rotation will necessarily carry the arms and hands around with the rotation, so the angles between the shoulder line (base line of triangle) and the two arms will stay constant as you turn. In other words, the arm pits will not alter shape, and the line of the thumbs will stay aimed at the middle of the torso. There is NO independent movement of the arms in relation to the shoulders. This is usually described in golf jargon as “keeping the triangle intact.”
Doing this, which is standard shoulder stroke advice, keeps the face of the putter square to the path of the stroke at all times. The putter face and palms stay perpendicular or square to the base line of the triangle. The outward line of the thumbs indicate the stroke path point by point as it progresses, and the inward line of the thumbs stays square by NOT changing in relation to the shoulders.
So why does Utley want the left forearm rotating? Basically, he is not making a shoulder turn, but is instead altering the shape of the triangle by making an “armsy” stroke that changes the arm pits as the stroke goes back. In simpler terms, his technique sends the arms farther along going back than the shoulder turn. But the arms won’t normally turn “perpendicular” around the “spine” in the way the shoulders do, but instead will move more like a straight back flapping for the first foot or so and then will curl rather sharply back around the hip. Even when the shoulders are moving and the arms have some independent movement going back, so that the two movements are “melded” to some degree, the independent ahead-of-the-shoulders movement of the arms sends the hands away so that the thumb line changes from pointing at the middle of the body to sweep somewhat to the right of the torso’s middle (right-handed golfers). In plain terms, the armsiness makes the hands tend to stay “closed” to the line unless there is some manipulation. Hence, Utley needs to “open” the putter face going back with some rotation of the left forearm in order to put and keep the putter face in a square relation to the stroke path as it goes back.
He wouldn’t have to do this at all if his armsiness didn’t get the hands orientation out of square to start with.
This armsiness is exactly the same reason that Horton Smith found the need to “hood” the putter face in order to put and keep the face square with an armsy stroke path made straight along a yardstick. While Utley’s stroke “arcs” inside closer to his feet than a straight stroke, and his armsiness requires an “opening” of the putter face to keep it square to the arc he wants in the path, Horton Smith made the opposite “arc” with an armsy stroke. Whereas the crescent shape of Utley’s path, looking down at it from the golfer’s point of view, looks like a frowny face, Horton Smith’s armsy path looked like a smiley face crescent. Utley opens the face going back to keep it square to the armsy path and Horton Smith closed the face going back to keep it square to his armsy path. Once you start this game of changing the putter face in the backstroke, you need a good plan to finish the game going forward. In both cases, the whole problem is avoided by just keeping the triangle intact without independent arm motion in the backstroke – the putter face just stays square with dead hands and no armsiness.
George Low, the great putting teacher of the 1950s and 1960s, adopted an arc stroke path just to avoid the complication of forearm / hand rotation used by Horton Smith. Low advocated NO hand manipulation of the face in the stroke, albeit his path was arcing inside going back. He also advocated allowing the putter to rise going back, to allow the wrists to hinge going back, and to strike the ball with a slightly descending trajectory with an abbreviated follow-through. Utley’s stroke is very much similar to George Low’s stroke, except that Utley rotates the left forearm whereas Low would not.
Todd Sones, author of Lights Out Putting and an advocate of an armsy stroke rather than the shoulder stroke, and for pretty much the same reason Utley gives for not liking the shoulder stroke, has recently said he agrees with much of what utley says about the arcing path of the stroke. But Sones does not advocate altering the face orientation with any forearm rotation or hands manipulation. Sones says the face simply moves back to square with the “natural” arm motion, and he seems to believe the face stays square to the path of the stroke “naturally,” although he is not clear about this.
So, among the arc-path advocates George Low, todd Sones, and Stan Utley, Stan is alone in advocating the rotation of the left forearm. This suggests to me that Utley really uses and avocates more arms action and less shoulder turning than either Low or Sones would use in their personal “blend” of the shoulders and arms in motion. That creates a problem for Utley’s style not shared by the styles of Low or Sones – getting back to square by an un-rotating of the forearm.
So what’s the plan for finishing the stroke going forward, once the putter face has been rotated going back? Horton Smith clearly had a plan, and that was to “undo” the counter-rotation of the forearms that closed the face going back by opening the face going forward. It’s not real clear to me that Utley advises a similar thing – that is, opening the face going back and then undoing this going forward with a mirror-image closing or rotation of the forearms the opposite way. In his SI article, he says this explicitly. It not really necessary to re-close the face going forward, if you know what you are doing blending stroke path and face angle at impact, but I don’t think this is what Utley has in mind. So far as I can tell, he advocates a re-closing of the putter face back to square at impact by re-rotation of the left forearm (and hands) and then a continuing arcing of the stroke path around his feet going past impact.
I seriously doubt that he advocates a continued closing of the face with continued forearm re-rotation past impact. He wants a continued arcing path, but not a continued rotation closed of the forearms. I believe that Utley is describing a return of the putter face to square at impact with the forearm closing rotation, but thereafter the forearm pretty much stops rotating. This can be checked by seeing whether an Utley stroke has a slightly abbreviated follow-through – a tell-tale sign of ceasing forearm rotation.
Another thing to look for is some bending or folding of the right wrist going back and unfolding of the right wrist coming forward. This is a subtle sign, but it is part of the thumb line getting out of square to the path unless this wrist bend is allowed. This action is very evident these days among pros following the herd instinct. The typical stroke these days seen on the putting practice green at PGA Tour events has the right wrist cocking a bit going back with a touch of left forearm rotation, and then an uncocking and re-rotation coming back to square at impact, and then a ceasing of the forearm rotation but a continuation of the right wrist straightening out going past impact.
If Utley is actually advocating a continuation of closing the face with forearm rotation past impact, I don’t think pros are actually doing this to any great degree. Instead, I believe pros have learned the hard way that, at impact and beyond, the putter face needs to stay square headed squarely down the target line at least until the ball-putter contact has ended, and that usually requires a few inches at least. The smart play is to avoid any face changes at all during impact for sure, and to be safe, for a decent length past initial impact.
In Utley’s style, even if the face is not being closed any more at and after impact, he is clearly advocating a continuation of the arcing stroke path in the follow-through. This has its own issues, mostly about consistency of ball position and correctness of ball position in the stance to get the impact square so the ball leaves the setup always in the same square way. Slight variations in ball position OR in the consistency of squaring the putter for impact unquestionably result in pushes and pulls. Here, plain-jane physics undeniably rules.
This is not to say a continuation of the arc per se is necessarily a bad thing, so long as the arc is sufficiently mild through the impact area. David Lee certainly can putt well with his “tangent line” impact using an arcing path that is nearly circular in radius. It is just to say that ball position and returning to square precisely at the right time is critical.
So, to summarize, I believe Utley’s style is a throw-back to the style of the 1950s, which explains why he learned it from an elderly player in Missouri as a young golfer. However, the lore passed along to Utley years ago seems to have gotten a little garbled in transmission about the way the shoulders move and whether the forearm should be rotated open going back. This is more than just a quibble over terminology or the way he describes his style. I believe that even as an armsy stroke, Utley’s style has unnecessary complications that make it slightly inferior to the model from whence it is derive (George Low) as well as slightly less sound than the technique described by Todd Sones.
STRAIGHT SHOULDER STROKE
The advantages of the straight shoulder stroke over an armsy stroke include
1. a clarity in the stroke path versus an armsy stroke with varying sorts of arcing paths;
2. an easy repeatability because the motion is very simple with only one moving part headed towards another body part that is always in the same place;
3. a more stable falling of the stroke into impact; no issue of ball position versus face trajectory through the impact area; and
4. the absence of any need to transition from an arcing stroke to a straight delivery of the face down the line through impact.
These are advantages over an armsy stroke whether or not the stroke style includes any forearm rotation. Let me explain these points.
1. Clarity of path. There are arcs and then again there are arcs. The degree of radiusing of the curved path in reference to a point directly below the putter sweetspot on the ground varies from person to person and will also vary from stroke to stroke unless one specific arc is practiced. This is the reason the makers of the Putting Arc training aid on their website advise serious golfers to get individually fitted for their specific custom arc shape, as the arc aid sold over the counter is a one-size-fits-all deal. In addition, there is a separate vertical dimension in the stroke path, and armsy strokes have variation in this dimension as well. There is only one straight line along the ground. A good shoulder action sends the putter sweetspot on this very clear line exactly every time. And in addition, with a dead hands and arms stroke, the rising arc of the putterhead in the vertical dimension does not ever change or vary either.
2. Simplicity of moving parts. The armsy stroke has moving shoulders, moving arms, and moving wrists (and probably moving elbows as well). The shoulder stroke has the lead shoulder socket moving down and back – down at the balls of the lead foot and then curling back along the line from front foot to back foot. There is no motion of the arms, the elbows, or the wrists.
3. Easier fall back to impact. In the armsy stroke, the putter rises only slightly and goes around laterally to the inside substantially. If someone shot the golfer in the head at the top of the backstroke so that he completely relaxed at that point, the putterhead would fall at his rear foot. In contrast, with a shoulder stroke, shooting the golfer at the top of the backstroke so that he completely relaxes results in the shoulderframe dropping back to level, which just so happens to move the putterhead straight down the line naturally into the back of the ball. If you like relaxation in the stroke, and like the perfect reliability of gravity to assist the squareness of the stroke rather than to conflict with it, then you should love a top of the backstroke position that will drop the hands square at the ball without you having to do anything. To be sure, an armsy stroke sort of “feels” like it naturally returns square through impact, but that is not actually the case. If an armsy golfer really relaxed to drop the putter through impact, his putterhead would fall inward towards his feet and pass in a line inside the ball. And if you also rotate the left forearm going back, and then “drop’ the putterhead through, you would have the putterhead wide open dropping down a line across the toes well inside the ball. An armsy stroke requires a deliberate effort to move the putterhead BACK to the putt line from the inside position.
4. No need for transition of path from arcing to straight at impact. As I said above, I believe that good putters have learned the hard way that the putter face needs to be square and moving square down the line for a nice little way at and past impact. This is true regardless of what you believe about the vertical dimension, whether the putter should stay low to the ground or rise somewhat. Bobby Locke had this transition from inside to square to straight down the line through impact even with a flowing follow through and I believe Crenshaw and other “arcing” golfers also make this transition. Those golfers who use an abbreviated follow-through are doing the same (e.g., George Low, Bob Rosburg, Don Pooley, Gary Player). I also believe those pros who adopt Utley’s style basically don’t fully accept the rotation of the forearm past impact or the continuation of the arc through the hitting area, even if the putter later falls off to the left after the real business is done. Instead, what I observe watching pros is an subtle unfolding of the wrists through impact that effectively extends the putter face square down the line, despite any leftover arcing in the path. When the wrists are moving slightly ahead of the arms at this critical section of the stroke path, the functional effect is to temporarily suspend the arcing, so long as the orientation and direction of the wrists’ unfolding is properly handled. The so-called “release” of the putter through impact is very much this move. Well, the straight shoulder stroke has no need for any of this business.
The DISADVANTAGE often claimed for the shoulder stroke is that it is difficult to perform without head motion. I don’t really disagree that keeping the head still is a little easier with the armsy stroke, but I would make two points in response. First, the difficulty is not that great and the armsy stroke does not make holding the head still that much easier to the extent the little extra care on this aspect renders the rewards unattractive. To the contrary, keeping the head still with a shoulder stroke is not that hard at all, and I believe the rewards are definitely worth the trouble. Second, so what? A good shoulder stroke even with a little head roll following the shoulder rotation still gives a very straight stroke, so long as the actual pivot between the shoulders and the head in the base of the neck and the axis of rotation (line from center of base of neck out top of head) stays stable OR so long as any motion of the pivot or axis through the head is returned reliably to square as at address when the stroke returns to impact.
If you want to practice feeling a good shoulder stroke with a steady head, just hold your putter horizontally like a battering ram and stare at a point on the floor. Then rock the shoulder frame as a unit down and back to move the shaft straight above the ground, with neither end arcing off this line. The back end of the shaft will rise up but stay above the line, and will not curl inside towards the hip. Doing this with a fixed and steady head is not that hard at all. But you can also make the same motion with the shaft with a freer head and less concern about it.
The sense of tilting back through impact that Utley describes is real, but this does not mean the head moves, the pivot moves, or that this sense makes solid impact difficult. In fact, this very sense is a great anchor for the sense of body motion to get the stroke and the roll dead straight and solid. The golfer with a good shoulder stroke positively seeks out this sense of hitting into a firm left side and contacting the ball slightly on the upstroke through the ball-forward position and sending it away straight down the line. The shoulder frame absolutely tilts up as the ball is sent away. But the head can still be kept steady and unmoving if that is what you want. In fact, Ben Crenshaw has a noticeable movement in his through-stroke of the right knee – it bends and and moves slightly forward down the line with his follow through. This results from his torso tilting back through impact, so his ribs pressure his right hip, and the right knee gives to make room. It’s all very subtle, but there nonetheless. The same thing CAN be used in a good straight shoulder stroke. You don’t need the lower body of a metal robot to putt straight with a shoulder stroke.
In the final analysis, I am saying golfers should aspire to a good shoulder stroke, but if that proves too difficult for a specific individual, then some armsiness might help out. But the right sort of armsiness would not include left forearm rotation, in my view. Certainly, young kids perform better with a little armsiness in their stroke because the focus and slight artificiality of the shoulder motion is not quite within their motor development ballpark yet. But once more coordinated motion in general become part of the growing repertoire, the slight artificiality of the shoulder stroke is not really much of an obstacle in exchange for its nice advantages. If ballet dancers stopped developing their motor skills repertoire to avoid artificiality, then all ballets would look like a gang of ducks waddling across the stage. So it is with golf – a little form goes a long way.
I better stop at this point. Let me know if I’m getting all this cleared up any.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone
Here are a couple of posts from GolfingMachinePro an AI taken from www.bombsquadgolf.com. He has had a putting lesson from Stan Utley
"Stan is all about plane. From your putter to your driver you have to be on plane. A truly on plane putting stroke feels very different from the methods that are being taught today. Biggest difference..the other methods do not work...Stan's does. When I received my putting lesson from Stan it felt very different. However, I stuck with it and now I am putting the best I have in my 30 years of playing golf. I needed to get rid of old habits.
For putting, get yourself a laser that attaches to your shaft. Stike a line on the floor or on the putting green with chalk or wahtever means you have for attaining a straight line. Then, when you stroke the putt, make certain the laser never deviates from the target line. Also, Stan keeps his upper body very quiet. When you actuate the arms properly it will feel as if the right forearm is rolling somewhat. Then, the face appears to open and close. However, the face is remaining square to the arc. There are many other items but Stan does attack his putts. That is, the shaft is slightly forward leaning at impact. This places the bottom of the arc just in front or at the forward end of the ball. THis also takes some getting used to, but once you get it it feels great "
Hue...Tiger putts very similar to Stan's method. As in all golf shots, a good balanced setup is required. One thing needed to understand is that the arms tend to follow the plane established by the shoulders. With that said, pay close attention to the waist bend of Tiger. The next key component is the arm position at address. You will notice the amount of bend at the elbows. This allows the bending of the right arm on the backswing, and the bending of theleft arm on thefollow through.
Yes, I know this sounds strange. But, Stan allows a slight bending of the elbows during the stroke which facilitates an on plane motion. Stan would use the term "stay at home". Meaning, he had the feeling that the butt end of the putter did not travel very far. He wanted the putter head to swing more thereby transferring greater energy with minimal force.
The above arm movement also facilitates the correct shoulder motion. Whereby the feeling is the left shoulder moving more horizontally or towards the chin. This also facilitates a steady head. Too many players "rock" their shoulders downward too much causing the putter to get closed on the backstoke and causing their head to move. This is due to the fact that player has wrongfully caused his shoulders to move improperly relative to the spine angle. The shoulders must move 90 degrees to the spine angle.
Other key items to look at are the plane of the forearms and the putter shaft..they should be the same. This may require a modification of your grip. Notice the length and the lie of the putter. Most putters today are too short and too upright which will not allow an on plane motion. Stan's putter was 36" long with a 68 degree lie angle.
This length allows the arms to relax with the appropriate amount of elbow bend.
I hope I answered your question. Once again, Stan's method may feel different at first, but stay with it. You will be amazed how your putting will improve. The main reason is it is a natural motion. Watch any child and he/she will putt this way!! We need to undue the poor teaching and habit's we developed.
Here is a post by Geoff Mangum from his website http://www.puttingzone.com/ He has more posts on Stan
Sure!
By the way, the TGC Academy Live will air again October 21 at 1 pm. I'll try to watch.
Let me start by saying that I advocate a particular technique as the one I believe is optimal for a number of different reasons, taking all things into consideration. I also work hard to understand a wide array of alternative techniques, including the pop putt, the wrist putt, the "arc" putting of David Lee, the styles of Crenshaw, Roberts, Locke, Charles, Furyk, Faxon, and many others, including the technique that Stan Utley is teaching these days. Whatever works best for specific individuals depends somewhat on where they start, what their special talents or disadvantages may be, and their capacity and willingness to master a given technique. So what is "optimal" for most golfers in the abstract may not be the best way to help a specific golfer.
That said, let me first discuss the two techniques and then compare them later.
STAN UTLEY’S STYLE.
In Utley's style, there is a belief that the shoulders rotate "around" the spine. He uses the word “perpendicular” in describing the rotation of the shoulders around the spine. In his SI article, he says the fellow in Missouri who originally taught him this technique described the movement as moving the lead shoulder at the chin. Utley also says he wants the left forearm to rotate in sequence with the arc. The reason he gives for preferring this sort of movement pattern is he feels the shoulder stroke causes head movement and something like a tilting back in the through-stroke.
Properly considered, I believe Utley’s stroke is a throw-back to the 1950s and 1960s, but not quite as good as that earlier stroke style, for the reasons discussed below.
It doesn’t seem to me that Utley is accurately describing what he wants the golfer to do. The reason I say this is because I have spent years examining the relationship between the shoulders, spine, upper arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, hands, putter shaft, and putter face, and the way Utley describes the motion has some contradictions in them that seem to go beyond mere issues of terminology.
The contradiction: If you really move the shoulders “perpendicular” to the “spine,” then there is no necessity to rotate the left forearm to keep the putter face square to the stroke path (Utley’s “arc”). In fact, if you rotate the left forearm on the backstroke with such a shoulder motion, you cannot keep the face square and the face will fan open to the stroke path.
Apparently, since Utley is pretty clear about rotating the forearm, he must not be describing a truly “perpendicular” rotation of the shoulders around the “spine,” so let’s examine that a little more closely to try to get to the bottom of this issue.
The “spine” is not a straight line at all, especially the way most golfers stand at address in putting. The spine in good upright posture is very much S-shaped, and this shape alters in bending the torso and neck forward depending upon just how it is done. There is NOT a single “line” of the spine from tail bone to base of neck about which the shoulders can be turned in a “perpendicular” fashion – there are different vertebral segments from sacral, to lumbar, to thoracic to cervical, and at each segment along the way, there is a different orientation of the spine. So what establishes the “line” or axis of the shoulder rotation as described by Utley?
I strongly suspect that the axis Utley is attempting to describe is the one that basically runs from the middle of the pelvis up to the base of the neck. There’s no anatomical structure here, so it is basically just a geometric relationship. It is also possible that Utley is basing his notion of the “line” or “axis” of the spine on the cervical spine, which means the neck. Because he thinks the eyes should be slightly inside the ball, this says to me that he wants the forehead to be higher at address than the chin, and this means that the angle of the neck to the ground is tilted up off horizontal, but not as much as the angle of the back or torso as a whole. The base of the neck can easily serve as a reference “plate” that rotates about the axis of the neck like an album on a turntable and spindle. Perhaps this is what Utley means about rotating the shoulders “perpendicular” to the “spine.”
That said, either way Utley is still not describing a shoulder rotation perpendicular to a line. Even if the back in general or the neck is the axis instead of the spine, a truly “perpendicular” rotation of the shoulders around either line will move the arms and hands so that the putter face will stay square to the “arc” without any changes in the forearm whatsoever. But, hey, don’t believe me – just look for yourself!
Try this: bend forward and put both hands together like a prayer gesture with arms extended down before your lap as if in a putting setup. The two thumbs aim straight at the ground going out from the body and aim backwards into the body at the sternum in the middle of the torso or possibly at the base of the neck, depending on how you hold your hands. Now rotate the shoulders perpendicularly to any “line” you chose running up and down through the middle of your body – the back, the spine, the neck, etc. In this turn, you have a “triangle” with three sides – the two arms and hands plus the line between the two shoulders. Turning the line between the two shoulders in a rotation will necessarily carry the arms and hands around with the rotation, so the angles between the shoulder line (base line of triangle) and the two arms will stay constant as you turn. In other words, the arm pits will not alter shape, and the line of the thumbs will stay aimed at the middle of the torso. There is NO independent movement of the arms in relation to the shoulders. This is usually described in golf jargon as “keeping the triangle intact.”
Doing this, which is standard shoulder stroke advice, keeps the face of the putter square to the path of the stroke at all times. The putter face and palms stay perpendicular or square to the base line of the triangle. The outward line of the thumbs indicate the stroke path point by point as it progresses, and the inward line of the thumbs stays square by NOT changing in relation to the shoulders.
So why does Utley want the left forearm rotating? Basically, he is not making a shoulder turn, but is instead altering the shape of the triangle by making an “armsy” stroke that changes the arm pits as the stroke goes back. In simpler terms, his technique sends the arms farther along going back than the shoulder turn. But the arms won’t normally turn “perpendicular” around the “spine” in the way the shoulders do, but instead will move more like a straight back flapping for the first foot or so and then will curl rather sharply back around the hip. Even when the shoulders are moving and the arms have some independent movement going back, so that the two movements are “melded” to some degree, the independent ahead-of-the-shoulders movement of the arms sends the hands away so that the thumb line changes from pointing at the middle of the body to sweep somewhat to the right of the torso’s middle (right-handed golfers). In plain terms, the armsiness makes the hands tend to stay “closed” to the line unless there is some manipulation. Hence, Utley needs to “open” the putter face going back with some rotation of the left forearm in order to put and keep the putter face in a square relation to the stroke path as it goes back.
He wouldn’t have to do this at all if his armsiness didn’t get the hands orientation out of square to start with.
This armsiness is exactly the same reason that Horton Smith found the need to “hood” the putter face in order to put and keep the face square with an armsy stroke path made straight along a yardstick. While Utley’s stroke “arcs” inside closer to his feet than a straight stroke, and his armsiness requires an “opening” of the putter face to keep it square to the arc he wants in the path, Horton Smith made the opposite “arc” with an armsy stroke. Whereas the crescent shape of Utley’s path, looking down at it from the golfer’s point of view, looks like a frowny face, Horton Smith’s armsy path looked like a smiley face crescent. Utley opens the face going back to keep it square to the armsy path and Horton Smith closed the face going back to keep it square to his armsy path. Once you start this game of changing the putter face in the backstroke, you need a good plan to finish the game going forward. In both cases, the whole problem is avoided by just keeping the triangle intact without independent arm motion in the backstroke – the putter face just stays square with dead hands and no armsiness.
George Low, the great putting teacher of the 1950s and 1960s, adopted an arc stroke path just to avoid the complication of forearm / hand rotation used by Horton Smith. Low advocated NO hand manipulation of the face in the stroke, albeit his path was arcing inside going back. He also advocated allowing the putter to rise going back, to allow the wrists to hinge going back, and to strike the ball with a slightly descending trajectory with an abbreviated follow-through. Utley’s stroke is very much similar to George Low’s stroke, except that Utley rotates the left forearm whereas Low would not.
Todd Sones, author of Lights Out Putting and an advocate of an armsy stroke rather than the shoulder stroke, and for pretty much the same reason Utley gives for not liking the shoulder stroke, has recently said he agrees with much of what utley says about the arcing path of the stroke. But Sones does not advocate altering the face orientation with any forearm rotation or hands manipulation. Sones says the face simply moves back to square with the “natural” arm motion, and he seems to believe the face stays square to the path of the stroke “naturally,” although he is not clear about this.
So, among the arc-path advocates George Low, todd Sones, and Stan Utley, Stan is alone in advocating the rotation of the left forearm. This suggests to me that Utley really uses and avocates more arms action and less shoulder turning than either Low or Sones would use in their personal “blend” of the shoulders and arms in motion. That creates a problem for Utley’s style not shared by the styles of Low or Sones – getting back to square by an un-rotating of the forearm.
So what’s the plan for finishing the stroke going forward, once the putter face has been rotated going back? Horton Smith clearly had a plan, and that was to “undo” the counter-rotation of the forearms that closed the face going back by opening the face going forward. It’s not real clear to me that Utley advises a similar thing – that is, opening the face going back and then undoing this going forward with a mirror-image closing or rotation of the forearms the opposite way. In his SI article, he says this explicitly. It not really necessary to re-close the face going forward, if you know what you are doing blending stroke path and face angle at impact, but I don’t think this is what Utley has in mind. So far as I can tell, he advocates a re-closing of the putter face back to square at impact by re-rotation of the left forearm (and hands) and then a continuing arcing of the stroke path around his feet going past impact.
I seriously doubt that he advocates a continued closing of the face with continued forearm re-rotation past impact. He wants a continued arcing path, but not a continued rotation closed of the forearms. I believe that Utley is describing a return of the putter face to square at impact with the forearm closing rotation, but thereafter the forearm pretty much stops rotating. This can be checked by seeing whether an Utley stroke has a slightly abbreviated follow-through – a tell-tale sign of ceasing forearm rotation.
Another thing to look for is some bending or folding of the right wrist going back and unfolding of the right wrist coming forward. This is a subtle sign, but it is part of the thumb line getting out of square to the path unless this wrist bend is allowed. This action is very evident these days among pros following the herd instinct. The typical stroke these days seen on the putting practice green at PGA Tour events has the right wrist cocking a bit going back with a touch of left forearm rotation, and then an uncocking and re-rotation coming back to square at impact, and then a ceasing of the forearm rotation but a continuation of the right wrist straightening out going past impact.
If Utley is actually advocating a continuation of closing the face with forearm rotation past impact, I don’t think pros are actually doing this to any great degree. Instead, I believe pros have learned the hard way that, at impact and beyond, the putter face needs to stay square headed squarely down the target line at least until the ball-putter contact has ended, and that usually requires a few inches at least. The smart play is to avoid any face changes at all during impact for sure, and to be safe, for a decent length past initial impact.
In Utley’s style, even if the face is not being closed any more at and after impact, he is clearly advocating a continuation of the arcing stroke path in the follow-through. This has its own issues, mostly about consistency of ball position and correctness of ball position in the stance to get the impact square so the ball leaves the setup always in the same square way. Slight variations in ball position OR in the consistency of squaring the putter for impact unquestionably result in pushes and pulls. Here, plain-jane physics undeniably rules.
This is not to say a continuation of the arc per se is necessarily a bad thing, so long as the arc is sufficiently mild through the impact area. David Lee certainly can putt well with his “tangent line” impact using an arcing path that is nearly circular in radius. It is just to say that ball position and returning to square precisely at the right time is critical.
So, to summarize, I believe Utley’s style is a throw-back to the style of the 1950s, which explains why he learned it from an elderly player in Missouri as a young golfer. However, the lore passed along to Utley years ago seems to have gotten a little garbled in transmission about the way the shoulders move and whether the forearm should be rotated open going back. This is more than just a quibble over terminology or the way he describes his style. I believe that even as an armsy stroke, Utley’s style has unnecessary complications that make it slightly inferior to the model from whence it is derive (George Low) as well as slightly less sound than the technique described by Todd Sones.
STRAIGHT SHOULDER STROKE
The advantages of the straight shoulder stroke over an armsy stroke include
1. a clarity in the stroke path versus an armsy stroke with varying sorts of arcing paths;
2. an easy repeatability because the motion is very simple with only one moving part headed towards another body part that is always in the same place;
3. a more stable falling of the stroke into impact; no issue of ball position versus face trajectory through the impact area; and
4. the absence of any need to transition from an arcing stroke to a straight delivery of the face down the line through impact.
These are advantages over an armsy stroke whether or not the stroke style includes any forearm rotation. Let me explain these points.
1. Clarity of path. There are arcs and then again there are arcs. The degree of radiusing of the curved path in reference to a point directly below the putter sweetspot on the ground varies from person to person and will also vary from stroke to stroke unless one specific arc is practiced. This is the reason the makers of the Putting Arc training aid on their website advise serious golfers to get individually fitted for their specific custom arc shape, as the arc aid sold over the counter is a one-size-fits-all deal. In addition, there is a separate vertical dimension in the stroke path, and armsy strokes have variation in this dimension as well. There is only one straight line along the ground. A good shoulder action sends the putter sweetspot on this very clear line exactly every time. And in addition, with a dead hands and arms stroke, the rising arc of the putterhead in the vertical dimension does not ever change or vary either.
2. Simplicity of moving parts. The armsy stroke has moving shoulders, moving arms, and moving wrists (and probably moving elbows as well). The shoulder stroke has the lead shoulder socket moving down and back – down at the balls of the lead foot and then curling back along the line from front foot to back foot. There is no motion of the arms, the elbows, or the wrists.
3. Easier fall back to impact. In the armsy stroke, the putter rises only slightly and goes around laterally to the inside substantially. If someone shot the golfer in the head at the top of the backstroke so that he completely relaxed at that point, the putterhead would fall at his rear foot. In contrast, with a shoulder stroke, shooting the golfer at the top of the backstroke so that he completely relaxes results in the shoulderframe dropping back to level, which just so happens to move the putterhead straight down the line naturally into the back of the ball. If you like relaxation in the stroke, and like the perfect reliability of gravity to assist the squareness of the stroke rather than to conflict with it, then you should love a top of the backstroke position that will drop the hands square at the ball without you having to do anything. To be sure, an armsy stroke sort of “feels” like it naturally returns square through impact, but that is not actually the case. If an armsy golfer really relaxed to drop the putter through impact, his putterhead would fall inward towards his feet and pass in a line inside the ball. And if you also rotate the left forearm going back, and then “drop’ the putterhead through, you would have the putterhead wide open dropping down a line across the toes well inside the ball. An armsy stroke requires a deliberate effort to move the putterhead BACK to the putt line from the inside position.
4. No need for transition of path from arcing to straight at impact. As I said above, I believe that good putters have learned the hard way that the putter face needs to be square and moving square down the line for a nice little way at and past impact. This is true regardless of what you believe about the vertical dimension, whether the putter should stay low to the ground or rise somewhat. Bobby Locke had this transition from inside to square to straight down the line through impact even with a flowing follow through and I believe Crenshaw and other “arcing” golfers also make this transition. Those golfers who use an abbreviated follow-through are doing the same (e.g., George Low, Bob Rosburg, Don Pooley, Gary Player). I also believe those pros who adopt Utley’s style basically don’t fully accept the rotation of the forearm past impact or the continuation of the arc through the hitting area, even if the putter later falls off to the left after the real business is done. Instead, what I observe watching pros is an subtle unfolding of the wrists through impact that effectively extends the putter face square down the line, despite any leftover arcing in the path. When the wrists are moving slightly ahead of the arms at this critical section of the stroke path, the functional effect is to temporarily suspend the arcing, so long as the orientation and direction of the wrists’ unfolding is properly handled. The so-called “release” of the putter through impact is very much this move. Well, the straight shoulder stroke has no need for any of this business.
The DISADVANTAGE often claimed for the shoulder stroke is that it is difficult to perform without head motion. I don’t really disagree that keeping the head still is a little easier with the armsy stroke, but I would make two points in response. First, the difficulty is not that great and the armsy stroke does not make holding the head still that much easier to the extent the little extra care on this aspect renders the rewards unattractive. To the contrary, keeping the head still with a shoulder stroke is not that hard at all, and I believe the rewards are definitely worth the trouble. Second, so what? A good shoulder stroke even with a little head roll following the shoulder rotation still gives a very straight stroke, so long as the actual pivot between the shoulders and the head in the base of the neck and the axis of rotation (line from center of base of neck out top of head) stays stable OR so long as any motion of the pivot or axis through the head is returned reliably to square as at address when the stroke returns to impact.
If you want to practice feeling a good shoulder stroke with a steady head, just hold your putter horizontally like a battering ram and stare at a point on the floor. Then rock the shoulder frame as a unit down and back to move the shaft straight above the ground, with neither end arcing off this line. The back end of the shaft will rise up but stay above the line, and will not curl inside towards the hip. Doing this with a fixed and steady head is not that hard at all. But you can also make the same motion with the shaft with a freer head and less concern about it.
The sense of tilting back through impact that Utley describes is real, but this does not mean the head moves, the pivot moves, or that this sense makes solid impact difficult. In fact, this very sense is a great anchor for the sense of body motion to get the stroke and the roll dead straight and solid. The golfer with a good shoulder stroke positively seeks out this sense of hitting into a firm left side and contacting the ball slightly on the upstroke through the ball-forward position and sending it away straight down the line. The shoulder frame absolutely tilts up as the ball is sent away. But the head can still be kept steady and unmoving if that is what you want. In fact, Ben Crenshaw has a noticeable movement in his through-stroke of the right knee – it bends and and moves slightly forward down the line with his follow through. This results from his torso tilting back through impact, so his ribs pressure his right hip, and the right knee gives to make room. It’s all very subtle, but there nonetheless. The same thing CAN be used in a good straight shoulder stroke. You don’t need the lower body of a metal robot to putt straight with a shoulder stroke.
In the final analysis, I am saying golfers should aspire to a good shoulder stroke, but if that proves too difficult for a specific individual, then some armsiness might help out. But the right sort of armsiness would not include left forearm rotation, in my view. Certainly, young kids perform better with a little armsiness in their stroke because the focus and slight artificiality of the shoulder motion is not quite within their motor development ballpark yet. But once more coordinated motion in general become part of the growing repertoire, the slight artificiality of the shoulder stroke is not really much of an obstacle in exchange for its nice advantages. If ballet dancers stopped developing their motor skills repertoire to avoid artificiality, then all ballets would look like a gang of ducks waddling across the stage. So it is with golf – a little form goes a long way.
I better stop at this point. Let me know if I’m getting all this cleared up any.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone