When you come down to it the only thing that matters when you putt is the moment that the putterhead makes impact with the golf ball. It is at that moment, and at that moment alone, that the direction and the speed of the ball is determined. Everything that happens before that in the putting stroke has one purpose – to make that moment of contact as precise as you imagined it should be based on your sensory inputs of the distance to the hole, the slope of the green, and the condition of the putting surface. If you are a bad putter it may be because you got some bad advice.
Try this thought experiment and you’ll see what I’m getting at. You all know what a grandfather clock looks like, right? It’s a clock in a tall, maybe 6 ft. high or more, cabinet, with a pendulum the length of the cabinet that hangs underneath the clock face and swings back-and-forth. If you put a bowling ball at the bottom of that pendulum and dropped it from shoulder height what do you think would happen with the cabinet that the grandfather clock was in? The whole cabinet would rock back-and-forth violently and maybe even fall over.
The same thing is happening to you when you make the putting stroke. You do not have a bowling ball hanging from the end of your putter but the physics work the same way as they do for the grandfather clock. The momentum of the putter head swinging back-and-forth like a pendulum is trying to rock your body like that grandfather clock cabinet.
You probably do not sense it but one of two things is happening. Either your whole body, including your head, is rocking back-and-forth in the same direction as the putter is moving, or you are using your head as a counterweight to stabilize your body against the destabilizing force of the putter movement.
Anybody can be an excellent putter if you go here to learn the right putting techniques.
