Great putting tip; done with Stockton!

Earlier I had written a post on the Stockton putting method and my attempts to implement.  A few rounds of trying to pull my left hand at the target eventually killed all feel on my lag putts and I hit rock bottom last week with my career worst 98, which included 40-putts.  Dave Stockton doesn’t take 40 putts in a round of golf but I cannot endorse his method any longer; it’s clearly not for me.  I’m now in full ‘Stockton recovery, ‘ and have adopted a new simple pre-shot routine of two practice strokes with the right hand only (looking at the hole) and BINGO, roll, feel, and confidence are back!  With the right hand only practice stroke, I take the club back considerably farther, which appears to be the key to regaining touch on the long putts.  Prior to making the actual stroke, I gently place my left hand on the club and then stroke the putt without delay, making a totally right hand dominated stroke and attempting to duplicate the length and feel of the practice stroke.  This is completely opposite of the Stockton notion of pulling the putt with the left hand and consciously trying to keep the blade low to the ground.  I now feel relaxed and able to make a free flowing non-mechanical stroke.

I played today, one round removed from the 98 and validated with a great putting effort and managed to sink three lengthy birdie putts on my way to an even-par 70, which was my lowest score for the season.  I now have come across several web sites advocating for the method and interestingly enough, Tiger Woods reportedly practices routinely by just stroking right-handed putts to ensure he’s releasing the putter properly.  Here’s the best site I’ve found detailing the benefits of right hand dominance.  Anyone out there had any luck with this method?

2 thoughts on “Great putting tip; done with Stockton!”

  1. I like this drill for some people, but for me it gets me into using my left arm as a piston on the through swing which for me results in inconsistent strokes, inconsistent distance control, and an inconsistent face angle. But obviously for Tiger it works so I guess it is kind of a preference thing.

  2. Julia, you have hit the nail on the head. Putting, more than any other part of the game is an individual preference thing. I have tried putting with my right hand, left hand, taking it back with my right and pulling it through with my left; just about everything. I still vary my technique if my feel goes awry, as I’m sure most players do. A couple things I’ve found have stood the test of time. Must keep your head still. Must keep the putter low to the ground. I’ve also settled on using this right hand only practice stroke on only long putts, where I can’t get the distance feel with two hands while looking at the hole. Purely my preference. Thanks for the comment!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s