Belly Putters

Video Transcript

If you struggle with one of these regular length conventional putters, you may want to try one of these, a belly putter. They come in different sizes, different shapes of heads, different materials and some come with inserts and some without. So find what you like, what you are used to, and here is how you use it. You are going to be able to anchor the putter against you belly button or slightly ahead. The guys on tour tend to have it anchored slightly forward to get more of a descending strike on the golf ball. Here is why they are so good. Because you are anchoring the putter against your torso you now have a repeatable and consistent stroke. In other words it is not moving all around so that when you come back to impact you are going to come back to impact with the same face angle, which is presenting the same loft back to the ball. You are also going to have a chance to have your stroke bring the putter back square to your target line, so you can send the ball down your target line more consistently and repeatably. The stroke, you are going to take the same grip that you would on a conventional putting stroke. You can either take your grip left hand high or left hand low, you can take a claw or some kind of modified grip, it does not matter. You are anchoring against your body, arms are folding on the way back, arms are folding on the way through, and you are swinging on a pendulum like motion. This may be a wonderful way for you to actually putt significantly better. All the stories that they are telling you that with a longer putter you have a harder time controlling distance, all wrong information. It is the beat of your stroke that you make that helps you control distance. A little bit of practice with this and you will be able to control your distance just fine. It also can be a nice training tool to get better at your putting with a more conventional stroke, here is why. When you anchor the putter against your body it makes your arms fold and then refold on the forward side, making a beautiful arc back and through. When you take a conventional putter you are basically doing this same thing. The handle is pointing towards your belly button but the length of the belly putter helps you to get that same feeling of releasing the putter or swinging the putter. So, this can be a wonderful training tool to help your regular putter get better, or you can just give the belly putter a go. Anyway you do it your putting will improve.

Laird Small
Pebble Beach Golf Academy
1700 17-Mile Drive
Pebble Beach, CA 93953
Tel: 831-622-8650

Laird Small is Director of The Pebble Beach Golf Academy and is listed as one of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers and Golf Digest's #23 instructor in the world.

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