What Is Putting in Golf?

Putting in golf is far more than just tapping the ball into the cup, it's the art and science of finishing the hole. Known as the great equalizer, a strong putting game can save a day of poor ball-striking, while a shaky putter can ruin a great one. This guide will walk you through the essential components of putting, from the fundamental setup and stroke mechanics to the finer points of green reading and practice, giving you a complete framework to build confidence on the greens.

What Putting Represents in Your Golf Game

You’ve likely heard the old saying, "Drive for show, putt for dough," and it holds a lot of truth. On average, putting accounts for about 40% of a player's total strokes in a round of golf. That’s a huge chunk of your score. It’s a completely different skill set from the full swing. Power takes a back seat to precision, touch, and mental strength. Mastering the greens involves developing a reliable stroke, learning to judge speed and slope, and holding your nerve under pressure. Think of it as a game within the game, and the player who wins this game most often usually posts the best score.

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The Tools of the Trade: Your Putter and Grip

Before you even think about the stroke, you need to be comfortable with the club in your hands. Your putter is the most personal club in your bag, and finding the right one, along with a comfortable grip, is the first step.

Choosing Your Putter

Putters generally fall into two main categories: blades and mallets.

• Blade Putters: These are the traditional, sleeker-looking putters. They offer a great deal of feel and feedback, which some players love. However, they are typically less forgiving on mishits. Blades are often better suited for players with a slight arc in their putting stroke because of how the weight is distributed.
• Mallet Putters: These feature larger, more modern head shapes. The main advantage of a mallet is its higher Moment of Inertia (MOI), which is a fancy way of saying it’s more stable and resists twisting on off-center hits. If you hit a putt a little toward the toe or heel on a mallet, it will still roll pretty straight and lose less speed. They are excellent for players who struggle with consistency and often suit a "straight-back, straight-through" putting stroke.

How to Hold the Putter

There is no single "correct" way to hold a putter. The goal is to find a grip that feels stable, keeps your wrists quiet, and allows you to control the clubface. Let's look at the three most popular styles:

• Reverse Overlap: This is the most traditional grip. It's similar to a standard full-swing grip, but the index finger of your top hand (left finger for a right-handed player) rests outside the fingers of your bottom hand. This helps unify the hands and encourages a shoulder-driven stroke.
• Cross-Handed (or Left-Hand Low): In this grip, you reverse the position of your hands. The left hand (for a righty) is placed below the right. This grip is fantastic for leveling out the shoulders at address and preventing the dominant right hand from becoming too active and "flippy" during the stroke.
• The Claw: A more modern style with many variations. Typically, the top hand holds the club conventionally, while the bottom hand is positioned differently. The palm faces inward, and the grip is held between the thumb and index finger, with the other fingers resting away from the club. This style almost completely removes the bottom hand from the stroke, promoting a pure pendulum motion.

Experiment with these grips. The key, no matter which you choose, is **light grip pressure**. Holding the putter too tightly creates tension in your forearms and kills your feel for distance.

The Foundation: Your Putting Setup

A consistent, repeatable setup is the bedrock of good putting. If you set up differently every time, you’ll have to make small adjustments in your stroke to compensate, which kills consistency. Here’s how to build a solid foundation.

Posture and Stance

1. Stance Width: Place your feet about shoulder-width apart. This provides a stable base so your lower body stays still during the stroke.
2. Knee Flex: Have a slight, athletic bend in your knees. You want to feel balanced and comfortable.
3. Upper Body Tilt: Bend forward from your hips, not your waist. Your goal is to let your arms hang straight down from your shoulders naturally. Sticking your bottom out a bit helps achieve this posture.
4. Eye Position: Ideally, your eyes should be directly over the golf ball or just slightly inside the line. A simple way to check this is to get into your putting posture and drop a second ball from the bridge of your nose. It should land on or very near your golf ball. This helps you see the line correctly.

Ball Position

Unlike with an iron, where you want to hit down on the ball, with a putter, you want to strike the ball on a slight upswing. This makes the ball roll smoothly end-over-end, rather than skidding or bouncing at the start. To achieve this, position the ball slightly forward of the center of your stance, generally aligned with the inside of your lead foot's heel (your left heel for a right-handed player).

The Motion: How to Make a Putting Stroke

The putting stroke should be a simple motion, free of complicated moving parts. The main idea is to create a pendulum effect using your shoulders and torso.

The Pendulum Stroke

Imagine a triangle formed by your shoulders and arms. The goal of the putting stroke is to rock this triangle back and forth without changing its shape. The power and movement should not come from your wrists or hands. Instead, think of your shoulders as controling the swing.

This "rocking" motion from the shoulders creates a consistent pendulum arc. It keeps the clubface square to the path of your stroke and delivers a reliable strike to the ball. Your hands are just holding on for the ride, your bigger muscles are doing the work.

Tempo and Rhythm

Great putters have impeccable tempo. Their stroke is smooth and unhurried. Avoid a quick, jerky takeaway or a forceful jab at the ball. A common thought is a "tick-tock" rhythm. The backswing ("tick") should take about the same amount of time as the follow-through ("tock"). This consistent rhythm helps you control speed and makes your stroke much more repeatable under pressure.

Controlling Your Speed (Pace)

Distance control is arguably the most important skill in putting. Poor speed control leads to long second putts and dreaded three-putts. Distance is not controlled by how hard you hit the ball, it's controlled by the length of your putting stroke.

Think of it this way:

• Short Putt: Small backswing, small follow-through.
• Long Putt: Longer backswing, longer follow-through.

The tempo remains the same ("tick-tock"), but the size of the pendulum swing changes. Practice this by making strokes of different lengths and seeing how far the ball rolls. This will build your internal "calibration" for distance.

The Skill: How to Read a Green

You can have a perfect putting stroke, but if you misread the green, the ball still won't go in. Green reading is about predicting the path the ball will take based on the slopes and grass.

Finding the Break

"Break" is the term for how much a putt will curve due to the slope of the green. Here are a few ways to spot it:

• Your Feet: Your sense of balance is a powerful tool. As you walk onto the green, you can often feel the uphill, downhill, and sidehill slopes through your feet.
• Look from All Angles: A common mistake is only looking at a putt from behind the ball. Walk halfway to the hole and look from the side (the "low side") to see the curve. Looking at the putt from behind the hole can also give you a great read.
• Find the Apex: On a breaking putt, there will be a highest point of the curve. This is the "apex" of the break. Instead of aiming at the hole, aim to have your ball roll over that apex point.

Don't Forget the Speed

Line and speed are completely connected. You can’t choose one without considering the other. The faster you hit a putt, the less it will break. The slower it rolls, the more the slope will affect it. Most great putters choose a speed that would cause the ball to roll about 18 inches past the hole if it misses. This positive speed gives the putt a better chance of holding its line and falling in the cup.

Essential Putting Drills

Putting is a skill that requires practice just like any other part of your game.

• The Gate Drill: To work on starting your putts on line, place two tees on the ground just wider than your putter head, about a foot in front of your ball on your target line. Your goal is to swing the putter through the "gate" without hitting the tees. This proves your putter face was square at impact.
• The Clock Drill: Place four to six balls in a circle around the hole, each about three feet away. Work your way around the circle, trying to make all of them in a row. This drill builds immense confidence on the short putts you need to make to save par.
• The Lag Putting Ladder: To improve your distance control, place tees at 15, 20, 25, and 30 feet away from a hole. Hit a few balls to each tee, with the goal not of making the putt, but of getting your ball to stop inside a three-foot circle around the hole. This drill is vital for eliminating three-putts.

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Final Thoughts

Putting brings together technique, feel, and strategy into one fluid motion. By building a solid setup, developing a shoulder-driven pendulum stroke, and practicing both line and speed, you can transform your performance on the greens and significantly lower your scores.

Even with a great routine, reading a tricky, multi-breaking putt on the course can be a challenge. Situations like these are precisely where we designed Caddie AI to help. Instead of guessing, you can get instant, expert-level feedback on green reading and strategy for any putt, helping you understand where to aim and how hard to hit it so you can step up and roll it with full confidence.