Why You Need This:

In this video, “Putting Stroke Foundation | How to Fully Groove Your Motion,” I’ll cover the putting motion…

Do you feel like your stroke isn’t very smooth?

Do you miss the big putts when they matter the most?

If you’re serious about building a solid putting stroke foundation that will hold up when the pressure gets high, you’re in the right place.

If you want to be a fantastic putter, I’ll let you in on a little secret…

…it doesn’t make a ton of difference whether you choose to go straight back and through, putt on a slight arc, or even a little inside out with your stroke.

The one thing that does matter is that this stroke becomes fully grooved so it’s automatic.

Your putting stroke needs to be on auto pilot.

In this video I’ll show you how to ingrain your putting stroke using two great training aids, along with some setup keys.

Watch this video now if you’re ready to be the “clutch” putter you know you’re capable of being!

What's Covered: Instruction on the difference in putting strokes, stroke mechanics, stroke smoothness, grip, and how to get and keep a consistent putting stroke.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 10:05

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome to the Top Speed Golf Putting System. In this video we’re going to talk about the stroke itself.

So you’ve probably heard tons of instruction out there, it seems like most people are focusing in on what type of stroke I should have, whether that’s a stroke that’s straight back and straight through, a slight arcing stroke coming back and through, or even a little bit of an inside out putting stroke.

You’ll hear people debate for hours on which one is better, whether it’s better to go straight back and straight through, to have a slight arc, and so on and so forth. They’ll list hundreds of examples.

Well the truth of the matter is, is that you can pick just about any type of stroke that you want when we’re talking about putting, and putt very, very well.

The key here, the real key is to absolutely master whatever type of stroke that it is that you’re using.

So I’ve seen really good players putt with a straight back and straight through, I’ve seen really good putters putt with a slight arc, and I prefer the slight arc, that’s what I’m going to be teaching in this putting stroke system.

But I want to make that clear before we get started, that just because I’m teaching an arcing stroke doesn’t mean that you can’t play really, really well with a different type of stroke, even though I think the slight arc is the best.

So I think most people become obsessed with what are my stroke mechanics, what is my stroke look like, versus the full picture. That’s why we have six different pieces in this system, because putting isn’t just about the stroke.

You can be on the green put an absolutely stroke on the ball, hit it on the perfect line, and miss every single putt because you didn’t read the greens correctly. So we’re going to go over the entire system and talk about how that works.

But here in this video, we’re going to focus in on the stroke, and we’re going to groove the stroke so that way every time you put, you’re going to putt exactly the same, you’re going to get a great roll on the ball, and you’re going to be the most consistent putter out there.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right so one of the first fundamentals I think to have a really good, consistent stroke, is we have to set up to the ball in the same way every time.

What I like to do is I like to have my eyes directly over top of the ball, over top of the target line, and I have a great little putting mirror here made by Eye line. That I use a lot to help me get lined up.

It’s simply got a black line going down the center of your mirror here, and as I set up to this ball I’ll be able to see exactly when my eyes are directly over top of the ball.

So when I’m looking down, I want to see my eyes directly on this black line, and I want my lead eye almost on the back of the ball. So if I’m looking here, I want to see my lead eye just behind the back of the ball there.

I know from there, I’m set up nice and close with my target line and my eyes going directly over top of that.

Now the reason it’s so important to set up the same way with our eyes, is that your eyes are going to see things a little bit differently.

As I move back in and my eyes get on the inside of the ball, now I’m looking at the ball and the path in a different way, I’m looking at it from the inside and sometimes it’s tougher to line up.

If I’m outside the ball, now it’s really tough to line up correctly because I’m looking back down to the line and then down to my target line, and everything gets thrown out of whack.

So this is one of the first things that I’ll check when I’m lining up. I want to make sure my eyes are directly over that target line, my left eye is just behind the ball, and then from there, I’m going to make a nice smooth stroke.

I should be able to drain a lot of putts.

OK, so the next thing we really want to pay attention to when we’re grooving this stroke is being able to grip the club in the same way every time.

So one of the things that I do when I’m holding my putter is I want my forearms all the way down the shaft to be in one straight line.

So if you’re looking at this as I set up, if you draw a line up from the shaft, that should be splitting my forearms and they’re going to be lined up with that shaft.

What that’s going to allow me to do is take a lot of wrist out of the stroke, and to be able to kind of rock back and forth very easily and have that be nice and consistent.

So my elbows feel like they’re fairly close to my sides, and I’m just rocking everything back and through, not a lot of wrist action or hand action, because my grip is splitting my hands rather than being down in the fingers.

Let me explain what this means. If you take a look at the inside of your left hand first, if you look at the lifeline, so you’ll see the line that kind of runs up between your thumb and our index finger.

That line runs all the way down in between these two pads. You have one pad, kind of the meaty part of your hand underneath your thumb, and another one underneath the pinky side of your hand, and in between those if I start to bring my fingers together you can see it makes a little cup there.

As I put my putter into this line, now you’re going to see that my putter is bisecting those two pads in my hand, and the edge of the putter, the edge of the putter grip here, is going right up that lifeline.

So now I’ve taken this putter out of my fingers, and I’ve put it more into the palm of my hand. Now when we’re taking a full swing we want to be able to have lag, we want to be able to create a lot of speed, and we’re taking this in more down into the fingers.

So you can see if I opened up my hand that would not be in the lifeline, that would be off the lifeline, this is going to be more in the lifeline.

So I’m going to go ahead and grip that with my left hand. I can see the tips of my fingers are kind of pressing against the side of the putter, the other side of the putter.

If I look from this way you’ll see there’s a little bit of a gap kind of between my pinky finger and the butt end of the club. That’s completely fine when we’re doing this. Again, I’m taking all the wrist out of this.

Same thing with my right hand, we’re just going to switch over and now I have that lifeline that goes down my right hand and splits those two pads.

I’m going to put that on the other side of the putter, to where now my middle of my lifeline is going right into the middle of my middle finger, that knuckle in my middle finger.

Now the palm of my hand is controlling the putter face. So it takes a lot of the wristiness out of the stroke, it allows you to be very consistent with that. I can get more and more into detail in future videos.

But in this one, I just want to make sure that we understand it’s going up the lifelines, it’s lining up my forearms, so if you check your putting grip, your putting stance and posture, as you’re looking from down the line you’re going to see that going up the lifelines, that’s going to make you a lot more consistent and you’re going to make a lot of putts.

So now let’s take the actual stroke itself which is the most important piece, and I’ve got a great tool that’s going to help you to ingrain that.

All right, so now I’ve got a great device for you, this is like cheating in golf. Now I wish there was something like this for the full swing, unfortunately things are happening too fast, you won’t really be able to do that.

But in putting I’m a huge proponent of training aids, because things are happening slow enough to where we can control what’s going on. This is what’s called the Eyeline edge putting rail. So Eyeline Golf makes it, it’s called the edge putting rail.

There’s several different devices, so you don’t necessarily have to use this one, but I like to use this one, it’s nice, it’s very affordable, and it’s small enough to where you can put it in your golf bag and take it with you, and that kind of thing.

So what this is going to do is allow me to I’ll first find my starting line to where I’m going to roll a few putts, find the line, I’m going to line this up kind of parallel with that starting line so I know I’m making the correct putting motion, the correct putting line.

Then I’m just going to simply put my putter, the edge of my putter, on this rail. As I start stroke back, so as I start to move my putter back, now you can see that the inside of my putter is moving up on this arc, or this swing plane as it’s coming back.

At the bottom of the arc, it’s going to square up with my target and then as I come on through, it’s going to rotate on through.

Now the reason this is the way to go in my personal opinion, is that if I take this putter and I simply rotate around my spine. Here my spine would be straight up and down, and I’m having my arms out to my sides, and I’m basically parallel with the ground with my putter shaft.

Now if I just rock my spine back and through, it’s going to make slightly a circular motion. So I’m just rocking around my spine, and you can see how this putter would be moving in a circular motion around that.

Now as I start to hinge forward, you’re going to see how this goes from a parallel to the ground motion into that arc or that plane-like motion.

So I’m just going to simply keep on arcing back, and then from there I’m just going to hinge forward and we’ll see how that would match up perfectly with an arcing putting stroke.

That’s why I think an arc is the best type of stroke. Again like I said, you can go straight back and straight through if you want. I think it’s a little tougher to time up because your arms and hands have to do something a little different than your body.

Whereas here we’re setting up, we’re matching that swing plane that’s on our edge putting rail, and we’re simply just rotating back and rotating through.

There we go, we’re going to make it every time with this, because we’re lined up we just keep the edge of the putter gliding right across that.

Now the real magic is how this trains your neurological system. I talk a little bit about this on how as you do more and more repetitions your body engrains what’s called a motor pathway.

So just like signing your name on a sheet of paper, you don’t have to think about the letters, you just automatically do that. I recommend about 5,000 repetitions to get used to this.

It doesn’t take that long, you do 100 to 300 a night, you can do 500 if you want to, and you do those for a few weeks or a month in a row, and that’s really going to get you to engrain this stroke.

Now when you step up over a putt, you’re automatically going to make that same stroke that you’ve trained time and time again.

After you’ve done your first 5,000 that’s going to initially get that motor pathway, it’s going to become your putting signature. Then, you can go ahead and putt on this about five minutes every single day for the rest of your life.

It’s that important, and then you’ll completely groove your stroke and it’s not going to fall apart when the pressure gets on, when things get going tough. Your’e going to have it so engrained it’s just going to become completely automatic.

So I highly recommend getting some type of a device just like this, it’s going to help you putt great.

All right, so I’ve got a challenge for your guys, if you really want to be that great putter, you want to have that fantastic stroke, I want to challenge you to do 250 reps every single day.

You can bring it out to the course, line it up and actually make it a putt, or just do it in your living room. Set up the edge rail, set up your putting mirror here, and then make sure your eyes are lined up, make sure your stroke is good, and then follow that edge.

You’ll do 250 reps a night, and it’s not going to take you very long, maybe you can break them down into morning and afternoon, 125 each.

You do those reps, you’re going to fully ingrain this stroke and you’re going to be a master of the greens.

So do those 250 reps a night for 20 nights in a row, that’s going to bring you to the 5,000 and then from there, you can just putt on this three to five minutes a night for the rest of your life, and you’re going to have an absolutely phenomenal stroke.