Rinker’s Golf Tips Mike Shannon Top 100 Teacher and putting expert got into golf by caddying at a new golf course where he grew up in western North Carolina. “After 23 years of teaching putting I’ve concluded that every single player can putt as well as a Tour player but, in order to do that, there are certain commonalities of great putters with number one being able to aim the putter correctly. If you aim poorly then you will have to manipulate your stroke and anytime you manipulate the putter, that hole keeps getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper.” A caller asked about the grooves on a putter which Mike described as a “friction face” and he did a study about eight years ago with a very high speed camera with identical putters except one had a smooth face and the other had a friction face. With the smooth faced putter the ball moved up the face and the ball came off like a knuckle ball. The groove faced putter held on to the golf ball and as soon as that ball left the face of the putter, it was already turning over. Mike likes the ball to start turning over right after it leaves the putter face because the ball will roll more accurately. That’s why we are seeing less loft in putters today. They actually found that when a smooth faced putter hit the ball with an open club face, the ball slid more to the right than with the friction faced putter.
We had another caller ask about face-balanced putters vs toe hang and Mike said, “There is a natural straight back and straight through putting stroke because of the incline of the shaft at address which creates a slight arc. A perfect face rotation would be the putter open four degrees and close four degrees with a six inch follow through. We are not machines and the average college player has a total of 24-28 degrees of rotation where on Tour that is six to twelve degrees.” Face balanced putters will reduce rotation so if you are pulling putts this could help you to make more putts. However, if your putter doesn’t rotate enough, then you need a toe hang putter. Have to get a putter that matches your stroke. “Anytime manipulation is a part of the stroke, we are never going to putt as well as we should.”
Linear vs non-linear: “One of the first projects that I was involved with, when I really started to move in the direction of being a putting instructor, was that I worked with seven optometrists on the role that the eyes played in aiming a putter,” Mike said. This took a year and a half and they started with a ten foot straight putt because they assumed if they could get a player to aim well on a straight putt, then as they read the break of a putt, there would be no problem for them to aim at the point where they want the ball to start on a breaking putt. One of the first players they worked with was Mark O’Meara and he was one of the best aimers on a straight putt that they had ever seen. However, on a breaking putt, he read 6” of break and aimed 12” to the right on a right to left putt, and did the same thing on a left to right putt. Payne Stewart had exactly the same results as did Stuart Appleby. So the group turned their focus to breaking putts and concluded there were two kinds of players on the PGA Tour; Analytical or left brain players and more freedom players or right brain. Left brain saw straight lines and were linear, and right brain saw curved lines and were non-linear. So O’Meara, Stewart, and Appleby saw their aim point as the end of the putt or stopping 6” to the right of the hole. Non-linear players look at the hole and picture where the ball is going into the cup, say 4:00, with the feel in their body. If non-linear players have a line on their ball and or putter, it actually creates a conflict between that player’s sense of sight, touch, and feel. As a result they get caught up in this conflict and just don’t make as many putts as they should. For linear players it’s ok to have a line on their ball and putter because they see straight lines and there is no conflict. “65% of the population is non-linear with 50% of that group trying to putt in straight lines and struggling. Tour players are 85% non-linear and 70% of that group is trying to use the linear approach. Good putters know which one they are.” Mike Shannon can be reached at the Sea Pines Golf Learning Center at 912-638-5119.