Gatekeeper Resolutions Day 12: Extreme Putting Styles You Can Borrow
Day 12! Today we’re going to mess around with some extreme putting styles. When you’re building or learning how to putt, it’s a good habit to have a “default” putt that you rely on. But what do you do when you’re on a slope, or it’s really windy, or there’s trees in your normal stance? Let’s experiment with a couple of players’ styles that are at the edges of what most pros do, and see what elements of that we can adapt to be useful to our own games.
Grab a long C1 from Brinster in a deep straddle. Highlight that his body is “square” to the basket (arrows or circles on feet, hips, shoulders, head ). Clip a frame showing the putter nose-down in flight. Steve Brinster is well known for “driving the bus” in his standard straddle putt. I think the key to Steve’s putt is that he is always square to the basket, from his feet through his hips, shoulders, and head. He brings the putter down with both hands, and uses his arm as a lever to turn the push-putt into more of a projectile than a disc. The nose-down release limits glide. This makes the flight predictable and unlikely to carry far. Steve’s misses, when he’s putting well, tend to be vertical, rather than horizontal. The thing to “steal” from Steve, regardless of your putting style, is to keep your movements on-line with the pole.
Grab a jump putt by Lisa Fajkus where she sets up, brings her feet together, and begins leaning forward as she’s gathering to putt. Can you do an outline/overlay of her body to show how far her center of gravity moves? Lisa Fajkus is one of the best distance putters in the game. I love that she has several different kinds of releases, from a slow floaty anhyzer to a driven spin-putt. One particular unique set-up Lisa does is to bring her feet together on a jump putt, bend her knees, and begin leaning before the putt and jump. This provides a little extra momentum moving toward the basket. The thing to “steal” from this set-up of Lisa’s is that your lower body is really good for generating power, so find ways to use those big muscles so that your upper body can do the control parts.
Grab a putt by Anthony Barela. Anthony Barela is well-known for his powerful shots, but he’s also one of the highest-velocity putters out there. Spinny putts are increasingly common, but AB is kind of on the fringe of aggression. The two things to take from his putt are the way he uses his left arm as a counterbalance–-it moves backwards to initiate the opposite reaction from his putting arm, and he is fully committing to velocity. AB spins the disc as well as anyone, and as a result he’s able to optimize his leverage to putt from very far away.
Written By Andrew Fish, PDGA 58320
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