Path Vs. Line Putters

Video Transcript

Hi, I am Stan Sayers, Director of Instruction at McGetrick Golf Academy and today I am going to talk about line putting versus path putting. There are basically two types of putters, certain people putt with lines and certain people putt with paths or feels. Most line putters, in fact most that I have seen, need to have a line on the back of their putter. This is a line putter's putter. Path putters can have no lines, a line on top or three lines, those all work with path putters. The difference between the two is that a path putter might see something like this, like railroad tracks made by these two shafts on the ground going towards the hole. A line putter would see more of one straight line, usually it is very thin and very specific. Another interesting thing we have seen with line putters and path putters is line putters need to have everything perfectly aimed, feet, knees, hips, shoulders. Path putters tend never to be square. While shoulders, hips and knees may be square their feet may be pulled back, one or the other. Shoulders may be a little bit open while everything else is square, they can never keep everything square. Path putters when they are square usually lose the sight of the hole. Line putters need to be able to stay square to again not lose sight of the hole or lose the feel or line that it is on. Line putters need to work on lines, as they see a putt they need to draw that line back all the way to where the ball is, see it clearly and then set up to make a putt. Path putters need to work on feels and slopes and almost painting a picture. The clearer that is the better they are. Usually, the quicker they putt the better they will be. The more the path putter gets too analytical the more difficult that putt will be for them. The line putter needs to go through every process that they have, read it, aim it, everything has to be good, then they can make the putt. On the path putter that does not mean to say that the routine is different every time, it just means that the routine is probably a little more casual and it is less focused on the exact line and more on the feel and the break of the putt. That is the difference between line putters and path putters.