Some Thoughts on Upswing Putting

You may additionally bear in mind a publish I did about putting with terrible loft. I'm on document as being "less than enthusiastic" approximately the concept, ordinarily because it does not permit a whole lot of room for mistakes and therefore calls for loads of practice. I'm now not towards exercise -- all of us need a few -- however I see no cause to apply strategies that require hours of practice whilst a miles less difficult technique will do.

During the final round of the ShopRite LPGA Classic, we were treated to an excellent example of this when Stacy Lewis 3-putted the 17th from around 3 feet or so. Judy Rankin noted that Stacy is an upswing putter -- that is, she likes to catch the ball when the putter is swinging up into the finish -- and that this sometimes caused a problem. This past week, that problem made her miss. (I'll come back to this in a moment.)

The reasoning for upswing putting is similar to the negative loft concept. The idea is to create overspin on the ball, thus getting a smoother roll that (supposedly) tracks to the hole better. Golf Digest did an article some time ago that says Jack Nicklaus did the same thing -- and we can trust it since the late Jim Flick, who became Jack's instructor after Jack Grout died, wrote the article. As you can see in the photo at the right, Jack accomplished this by leaning the putter shaft forward at impact, swinging upward as he did so, and not letting the club head pass his hands until the ball was long gone.

Now, given how legendary Jack's setting is, why might Judy Rankin say this approach is difficult and why might I discourage you from the use of it?

Simply placed, unless you do it the manner Jack did, you may not grow to be a legendary putter. You'll discover your self suffering at times, the manner Stacy does.

You see, as Judy explained, when Stacy moves the ball at the upswing, the course of her stroke is starting to curve around her body and her arms start to near the putter face. As a end result, she will get unpredictable pulls that leave out the cup... Until she consciously holds the face open, that could reason a push.

How does Jack keep away from this hassle?

• He addresses the ball in a much more bent over position than Stacy does. In fact, if you look at the photo, you can't help but notice how much this looks like Michelle Wie's tabletopping technique. What this does is make Jack and Michelle's stroke paths go less around their bodies than Stacy's; instead, the path is much more of a straight line.
• The Golf Digest article also notes that Jack kept his lead arm and elbow close to his side. This minimizes the chance that the hands will rotate because they stay in the same relationship to his body all the way through the stroke. If his arm moved away from his side and past his body, his trailing hand would force his forearms to twist.

And if you check out my post on Wie's technique, you'll see that Michelle does both of these things.

So if you want to apply upswing placing, you want to do it like Jack and Michelle, not Stacy. Otherwise you are including unneeded complexity on your putting stroke. But be organized to install some more practice time due to the fact this isn't always the maximum natural manner to putt. It took Michelle a year or greater to get wherein it appears herbal whilst she does it, and I imagine it took Jack a while as well.

If it was easy, everybody would do it!