How To Perfect Your Distance Control With Your Backswing And Follow Through

In this video, PGA Professional Nick Drane talks about how to approach the length of your putting stroke for more consistency on the greens.

Transcript

00:00Hi my name is Nick Drain, PGA professional and Master Fitting Specialist here at the

00:09Titleist Performance Centre at Woburn. In this video we're going to talk about backswing and

00:14follow-through length in putting. A lot of common mistakes I see golfers make is the misconception

00:19that the putter head has to be accelerating into the golf ball. This can lead to a few problems,

00:25primarily distance control. Secondary can be that face alignment at impact, are you able to start

00:31that golf ball on your intended target line. To give an example of what I see in a short backswing

00:36and a long follow-through to try and propel the ball towards the target can also make it difficult to

00:41maintain a square clubface towards your intended target line like so. So not only was I struggling

00:51for distance control on that putt, I actually also pulled it to the left as I tried to increase

00:56that clubhead speed into that putt. A couple of key fundamentals to help you improve your distance

01:04control and your putting would be to get a good sound setup where you hold the putter nicely in

01:09the palms of your hands, a nice wide base. You want to eliminate any unnecessary wrist movement that's

01:17going to give acceleration to that putter head. I'm then going to use my feet as a bit of a reference

01:22for a length of stroke. So if you watch my backswing my follow-through are going to be very similar in length.

01:32I'm able to maintain that control of that clubface and also better control my distance. Obviously during

01:38the game of golf we're going to be faced with putts of different lengths. The key to being successful

01:42to putting from distance is maintaining a very similar length backswing and follow-through

01:48through keeping a good tempo. So each of us have our own rhythm or tempo built in finding what's right

01:54for you but just focusing on keeping that backswing and follow-through very similar in length is going

02:00to mean that you're going to hit those longer putts closer and causing more two putts rather than three

02:05putts. A really good drill to help you practice your distance control would be to place a t-peg at 10,

02:1120 and 30 feet then take a couple of golf balls practice putting to each t-peg see how close you

02:16can maintain that grouping. This will really enhance your distance control and also give you a feel for

02:22where your clubface is aiming at impact. A really good visual to help you focus on that clubface control

02:27is to think of a three ball window so we like that clubface to be nice and square through the three

02:32ball window with the middle ball being the ball that you're going to impact. That is going to help you

02:37start that ball on your intended target line. The middle ball being my impact ball I'm just looking

02:42to keep that putter face nice and square to those three golf balls. A couple of key things to remember

02:48then focus on your distance control through having a nice even backswing and follow-through length

02:53and you should see your distance control and speed be a lot more consistent and lower your scores.