LONG GOLF: Long's Putting Stroke

by Steve Long

Note: This web page is at present a living document--it receives updates. And it contains original research.

Address and impact position

Table of Contents

The Geometry of the Old and the New

Learning the Shoulder Movement

The Quick Setup

The Routine

One More Piece of Geometry-- The Elbows

Hands, Wrists, and the One-piece system

Torso and Shoulders

Additional Tips

This putting stroke offers improvements for any putting style that uses shoulder rocking. It is addressed mainly to styles with one-piece arms, hands, and shoulders, but it can also work with wrist bending and elbow bending.

This stroke's main improvement is that the shoulders turn on the same axis as the upper torso. To see what this means, imagine that when the torso is rotated with the shoulders, arms, and club fixed to it, the club moves on a certain path that happens to be the very path that we want to use to hit the ball. In other words, it's the same path that the shoulder-arms-club system creates by itself (with or without the torso turning).

This sharing of one axis by the two turning systems is created by bending the torso over to just the right angle. The upper torso axis is usually more vertical than the shoulder axis, but when the torso is leaned far enough over, the two axes can become one. This is a powerful simplification of the stroke in a number of ways.

The shoulder movement is vastly simplified so that directional accuracy is much improved. The timing or coordination between the torso and the shoulders becomes non-critical, or at least much less critical.

In most putting strokes the shoulders move in the swingplane (with the arms and club) but the torso turns in a flatter plane, producing a fragile and failure prone interdependence between the two movements. This creates the same directional difficulties that exist in a full golf swing. This is eliminated in Long's putting stroke.

The Geometry of the Old and the New

In the picture above, you can see the address position for Long's Putting Stroke.

Notice how far the torso leans forward. It is uncommonly far over.

When the upper torso is at the correct angle or lean, the directional accuracy is increased by the elimination of lifting and lowering of the shoulders from the ribcage during the stroke.

Standing relatively upright, as is done in most putting strokes, and using shoulder movement to control the arms, dictates that one or both shoulders must lift off and set back down on the ribcage in a very exact way during the stroke, and also that the turning of the ribcage be closely coordinated to the shoulder movement. This makes it very easy to open or close the clubface, and is the main reason for making the modifications recommended here. This is explained more completely below.

Another feature of Long's Putting Stroke is that the elbows can be kept in close to the torso, to keep the clubface from opening or closing. Bending far enough over, to the correct degree, and with the putter shaft long enough, it's possible to have the elbows or forearms touching the rib cage on the sides, or very close to it, acting as a guide for arm movement.

For extreme accuracy of direction, the elbows can even be pressed against the ribs and made to move with the ribcage. Then the arms, shoulders and ribcage become one unit, turning together about the lower spine. It is almost impossible to lose the line with this setup, but the problem, however, is that the backswing length is most restricted this way, thus limiting the length of the putt. It makes an interesting exercise and could even be used for short putts. It might appeal especially to those individuals with the short putt yips.

Additional stroke length comes from shoulder movement on top of the ribcage and the twisting of the ribcage itself, between its top and bottom among the ribs. So the movement of the shoulders is partly the torso twisting, which carries the shoulders along, and partly the shoulders sliding on top of the ribcage.

Forces applied in the torso and shoulders control the velocity of the swing. The hands do not control velocity, unless one introduces wrist-bending.

The torso angles and ball positions referred to hereafter are to be visualized as seen by an observer looking down the target line. For example the torso angle refers to how far the torso leans "forward" toward the target line. And the ball position refers to how far the golfer stands from the target line. The target line always runs through the ball and target.

I call the amount of torso lean the "torso angle." It has to be fairly exact so as to do Long's putting stroke. I will explain how to determine this angle and how to quickly find it thereafter.

There is one more thing that must accompany the increased torso angle, and that is a more certain ball position. The ball should always be in same relationship to the torso, which is the same thing as having the swingplane in the same relationship to the torso. In practice this amounts to keeping the ball directly under the eyes or the same distance from the feet. The best way I have found to do this is to use the putter as a plumb bob under the eyes. This places the ball directly under the eyes. After learning the technique, you can find the ball position easily at the same time as you find the torso angle.

In the usual putting setup, the shoulders move "diagonally." This means that they move up and down in relation to the ribcage as well as forward and backward on the ribcage. To see this for yourself, take your putting stance in front of a mirror or window so you can see your shoulders as if you were looking down the target line. Now do your putting stroke and watch your shoulders move. On the backswing, the trailing shoulder goes up and back while the leading shoulder the other goes down and forward. On the downswing they reverse direction. So what is wrong with that?

You should try this for yourself to see how it works. Move only the leading shoulder up and watch the clubface open. Move the leading shoulder down and watch the clubface close. Do the same with the other shoulder. Now try the forward-backward movement of the shoulders. Moving the leading shoulder forward opens the face. Back closes it. On the follow through the leading shoulder goes up and back. While the up movement opens the face, the back movement closes it, so that if both movements are done together in exactly the right amounts, they cancel out and keep the face square. The same correctness is required in both shoulders. At impact the positions of the shoulders have to match exactly the positions they had at address, in order to hit the ball straight, or the mistakes have to cancel, or the mistake has to be the same every time in combination with faulty aim. And during the stroke the shoulder movements have to be proportioned exactly or the clubhead will move off the proper path.

Long's putting stroke eliminates the up-down shoulder movement and uses only the forward-backward shoulder movement. If you accidentally do the up-down shoulder movement, you have a good chance of feeling it. Therefore you can learn to not do it, and the clubface stays square.

Another control problem is that the diagonal shoulder movement rides on the torso. For most golfers, the torso turns a little during the stroke, contributing additional movement to the movement of the shoulders atop the torso. So the forward-backward movement of the shoulders is actually made of shoulder movement and torso turning. Any one or a combination of all three elements, the torso, the left shoulder, and the right shoulder, can be moved off their respective intended paths or gotten out of sync with each other, and bam, you have an opened or closed clubface, if you are using a typical putting setup. And there is another problem, last but not least, the arms rotation, explained later.

No wonder it is so difficult to hit straight putts with a typical putting stroke!

That's why I was happy to discover this new stroke.

To get an idea how it works, do the following: Stand in front of a mirror or window so you can see your profile. Stand upright, straight up. Grip the putter and raise the club and forearms until they are horizontal. Then swing the shoulders, arms, and club back and forth horizontally.

The clubface should be vertical and stay that way throughout the stroke. In order to keep the face vertical, you will have to abandon any diagonal shoulder movement. This means you must keep the shoulders at the same level. If you see the putter face close on the backswing, you are still using the diagonal shoulder movement. The muscles that move the shoulders up and down on the rib cage must become static. This eliminates the complexity of shoulder movement. If you now move either shoulder forward or backward, the clubface does not open or close, it just moves left or right. Lifting or lowering of a shoulder of course still opens or closes the clubface, but this movement is no longer used, except by mistake, and the mistake is relatively easy to avoid.

If you have trouble executing the new shoulder movement, read this paragraph and try the exercise. Stand upright and let the arms hang with no club. Move one shoulder forward and the other backward, without raising or lowering. Then reverse the direction. Then try purposely lowering or raising the shoulders. Keep comparing the raising and lowering vs. the level motion until you have it down pat. Next make the same level shoulder motion with your hands clasped together in front of you, as in a putting stroke. Now bend slowly over while continuing this motion.

If you now have the correct shoulder movement, you can almost do Long's Putting Stroke. You still need the setup position with the proper torso angle and ball position. There is a quick way to approximate it.

The Quick Setup: The quick way to approximate the proper setup is to put yourself into the position shown in the following picture: with hand on knee and putter hanging as a plumb below an eye. This gives both torso lean and ball position. (the picture is incorrect at the moment. I have decided to put the right arm on the right knee and the left arm holds the putter).

Quick Setup: finding ball position and torso lean at the same time. This picture will be redone to instead show the right arm on the right leg and the left arm holding the putter. See the text for the reason for the switch.

The sweet spot of the putter will hover approximately over the target line on which the ball should be located. Your back should be as straight as possible. Retain the torso lean and lower the putter until it touches the ground. Retouch the ground with the putter until it doesn't swing when you lift it. Then tilt the putter shaft into address position. Put your hands into address position on the grip. Now you are in a setup that is close to the correct setup.

For a right hander, the right hand should be on the right leg and the left hand holding the putter. Doing this will help to orient the torso slightly away from the target, meaning slightly to the right of perpendicular to the target line. This is desirable so that when the ball is played forward of center the club path will be tangent to the target line at impact. I know, I need to add a drawing of it.

To check if lean is correct, slowly straighten up without changing the relation of the arms and club to the torso, as in the double picture below. Run your cursor over the picture to see the second picture. The club will be horizontal if the address position was correct.

Run your cursor over the above picture to see the alternate position.

If you have it correct, skip down the page to here.

If the club was not horizontal, you make slight adjustments to the Quick Setup until it is.

If the club is below horizontal, you need to lower the torso at address. Take the Quick Setup position using a lower position of the hand on the leg. Try lowering the hand to the kneecap from the original position just above the knee. Then proceed into the setup position and test it by standing up straight again. If the club shaft is horizontal you have got it. If not, try again with a different hand position on the leg.

If the putter shaft is above horizontal when you are standing up straight, use the Quick Setup with your hand higher on the leg.

When you finally get the correct setup, remember the hand position and use it from then on.

Now take a few strokes. Can you stroke it without any shoulder movement errors? If so, hit some balls. Can you hit straight each time?

On numerous occasions, especially at first, you will need to use the Quick Setup to check your torso angle to make sure it has not changed. Maybe you will remember the position easily. Maybe not. This can become a smooth and quick motion so that you could do it on each putt if necessary.

Even the amount you bend your knees makes a difference in the torso angle, so bend them the same amount each time.

Here is the routine I use at present: Read the green. Use the Quick Setup (as often as you feel it is necessary) slightly away from the ball but parallel to the target line. Make some practice swings, attempting the correct speed. Choose, practice, and remember the swing to use. Step into hitting position without losing posture or position. Aim the clubface first, then make stance adjustments, if required. Make any micro-adjustments to clubface direction by rotating the wrists. Raise the putter into hitting position and wait until the arms and clubhead are stable. Copy the stroke practiced in the set-up.

One More Piece of Geometry-- The Elbows

In the control of direction, there is another failure mode and a way to counteract it. For most putting styles where the arms are bent at the elbows, it is easy for the elbows to move faster or slower than they are intended to do, which causes the clubface to open or close. Either or both arms can rotate. If both arms rotate in the same direction, the effect is worse.

To prevent this, you can place the elbows very close to or lightly against the sides of the ribcage. You might need a longer putter in order for the elbows to reach the sides, or to make them slide smoothly. Depending on your shape, it might not be possible to achieve a smooth motion. And there is a danger of accidentally making too much contact between some part of your arm and some part of your body, such as a pelvis bone or even the belt on you pants, with the undesirable result of opening or closing the clubface. This is a dangerous procedure! In fact, I was mysteriously pulling short putts way left, and didn't notice for a long while that my right elbow was hitting my belt just before impact, causing the whole arms-putter mass to close. So I have given up trying to keep my right elbow close.

But if you want to try this, just try to keep your elbows in close to your ribs so your elbows or forearms rub your torso on the sides a little when you make your stroke. I hope your body shape and putter length allow you to do this. I had to lengthen my putter to get my elbows high enough contact on the sides of the torso. This technique stops each arm from being able to rotate toward the body. The arms can still move away from the body, but you can feel when this happens and you are learning exactly where the arms or elbows are traveling most of the time. This is especially useful on short putts when direction is critical and the elbows don't travel far.

You can even "pin" your elbows to your ribcage and turn the arms and torso together as one unit. This is the most accurate way to swing, but it makes the maximum restriction on the length of the swing. It can work well for short putts, after some practice. Like for example when you need a three footer to win the Masters or the Open.

It is easier with Long's stroke to have the arms pass smoothly around the ribcage than with more upright torso positions. With a more upright torso, the leading elbow travels toward the torso on the backswing and the trailing elbow travels toward the torso on the downswing, so you cannot really start out with the elbows close and still use a one-piece stroke.

If you can't keep both elbows close, keep one close. I think it might be easier to keep the leading arm or elbow in close, compared to the trailing one. If you find it interferes on longer putts, try it only for shorter putts. The shorter putts are more amenable to the delicate control required to keep the elbows on path.

In addition, the elbows/forearms don't have to actually touch your sides, but the closer they are, the less is the room for error. I don't know what happens with a large belly; I don't have one to experiment on.

Sometimes the trailing elbow hits the pelvis bone or one's belt on the downswing. Assuming you have a somewhat normal body, there are two main causes and three possible cures, in addition to just getting good about grazing the obstacle. After all, the important position is at impact, so if the arm or elbow barely touches something at address, it should also do so at impact. But to avoid the belt or bone in the first place, try to straighten the spine even more (the spine was already supposed be as straight as possible), and perhaps arch the lower back, so the hips stick out more to the rear. Make sure the hips and torso are not turned open; a square position keeps the pelvis bone back out of the way. If these two measures do not solve the problem, I would raise the trailing shoulder until the elbow clears. The shoulder can still move forward and backward (slide) without raising or lowering in relation to the ribcage.

If this technique does not work for you, just forget about it.

Internal Dynamics

Hands, Wrists, and the One-piece system

Many great putters have used a wrist bending stroke. It is out of fashion today, perhaps because it is difficult to control direction with it or hit the ball solid. It can have all the faults of the stiff-wristed swing, but in lesser amounts, as all the movements except the wrist movements are smaller, and it also has the advantage of allowing close-in elbows. The stiff-wristed stroke, on the other hand, helps to keep the wrists from changing the alignment of the club, reducing by one, but only one, the causes of misalignment, and normally it must use elbows away from the torso, which is another source of misalignment during the stroke.

If we want to use the "one-piece" stroke, in which arms, shoulders, and club are intended to move as one or approximately one solid unit, then we have to exert force with the wrists and hands to keep the club from "lagging" behind the rest of the unit. "Lagging" refers to the tendency of the club to resist acceleration and hence fall behind its intended position. In this process of maintaining the "one-piece," there is always the risk of using too much or too little force, so the club precedes or lags behind the correct position.

The one-piece stroke is difficult to perform perfectly. It has been problematic for demanding players, leading many to adopt unusual techniques, including longer putters and unusual ways of holding the club.

In a one-piece putting style, in regard to lagging of the club, there are two jobs for the wrists. The main one is to keep the wrists straight and keep the club from leaving the "one-piece" relationship on the forward stroke. The club would lag behind and bend the wrists backward. So the wrists must at least be kept from bending backward. The other job is to deal with the movement of the club in the hands. The club moves in the hands because the hands are soft and flexible.

First we look at general wrist bending. When you accelerate the club the wrists are forced to bend backward, so you apply an opposite or forward bending force to counteract that, attempting to maintain something similar to the original wrist bend. The higher the acceleration rate of your downswing, the greater the wrist force required to keep them straight. The wrist's muscle system has a nice built-in adjusting mechanism to keep the angles of the wrists the same. Or at least I have one. I am not sure it is a universal feature of humans but I expect it is. It works quite well.

The other problem is the movement of the club in flexible hands, which we all have. During acceleration, the club lags in the hands. Unless you put a death grip on the club, it will lag. It happens more with a loose grip and less with a tight grip. As the club lags in the hands, the wrists can almost neutralize the lag by small forward re-positioning of the wrist angle. A continuous greater force is not required. Only a momentary force is required to make the correction. I am not saying that you have to do this.

More succinctly stated, the amount of correction for hand softness depends on two factors: the rate of acceleration of the system and the tightness of the grip. The higher the acceleration rate the greater the correction angle needs to be. The tighter the grip, however, the less the wrist angle compensation required.

All this complication, and a frequent lack of success, results partly from trying to achieve a perfect one-piece swing. But what if perfection is not required?

My solution to the problem is to use the new geometry of Long's putting stroke to allow the club to lag a "small" amount without causing any ill effects.

You can use a firm hand pressure to minimize the club movement in the hands. A firm grip that is too firm may have a disadvantage in that the hands can no longer feel as well just how much acceleration of the club is being applied. Without this information it may be difficult to improve or make exact the acceleration that is used.

I tried a modified Varden grip instead of the double-overlapping grip for a while, so as to reduce the amount of lag, but have rejected it for the latter. The problem with the Varden grip was that, among other things, I could not feel the acceleration as well. I had to produce distance adjustment by estimating the speed of the clubhead on a practice stroke and then copy that for the actual strike. It just doesn't work that well compared to the other method. The "other method" is the backswing length-acceleration method, which requires choosing a backswing length and a downswing acceleration. Although the latter sounds more complicated, it works better because I think the brain cannot accurately measure the speed of anything using a timing method. Trying to note the time it takes for something to happen depends too much on an internal clock which varies with tiredness and other things. On the other hand, the backswing length-acceleration method uses the body position to measure the backswing length and the feeling of pressure, mostly in the hands, to measure acceleration on the downswing. These latter factors remain fairly accurate over time.

The double-overlapping grip is inherently looser, but that works to the advantage of measuring acceleration, and also helps regulate lag better than the Vardon grip. Because it is inherently looser, it requires more exertion to limit club lag, thus creating more feeling in the skin and muscles.

The double-overlapping grip also seems to do what it traditionally has been said to do: make the hands work better together.

I see no reason why the grip pressure cannot be left firm enough before the stroke so as to eliminate the need to increase it during the stroke. This reduces the risks associated with any pressure change. At least with myself, increasing the grip pressure usually results in a slight opening or closing of the clubface. If it is done just right the alignment stays square, but it is not simple to do. The less increase in grip pressure during the stroke, the less chance of face misalignment.

When the club lags a little, no harm is done, as long as the hands don't rotate, opening or closing the clubface. If the lag is minimal, the misalignment, if there is any, is minimal. There are much bigger sources of misalignment to worry about in a putting stroke. If you try to get too fancy and eliminate lag entirely, your hands or something else could twitch and cause misalignment and/or bad distance. You can test the accuracy of the lagged position by "locking it in" and then returning the clubface to address position. Even though the hands are now forward of the address position, the clubface should still be square to the line.

If you know the acceleration forces of the forward stroke ahead of time, it is easier to control club lag. If you swing without a pre-ordained acceleration rate, the wrist correction, if done, is created in real time, making it more difficult.

Another problem with a light grip is that it may promote a predominately arms stroke in which the elbows bend, whereas a firm grip keeps the arms more rigid.

When and how much the wrists need extra force depends on the way the stroke is done. It will happen either at the end of the backswing or the beginning of the downswing. Most golfers will use a slow backswing with low wrist-bending forces. This delays the application of wrist-steadying force to the beginning of the downswing. If the backswing is fast enough and decelerated quickly enough, the wrist force can happen during the transition to the downswing.

It is possible to use gravity as the only accelerator of the club and arms during the downswing. It can be done in such a way as to eliminate the hand and wrist pivot--the hands and wrists therefore experience no propelling forces during the downswing. This is possible but the maximum club speed is slow. To do this with Long's putting stroke, the torso must still be active, however. Assuming that the backstroke includes some torso twisting, then the downstroke is begun by releasing the muscles that wound up the torso on the backswing. This allows the torso to move back toward the neutral address position, but it is a decelerating movement. In order to keep the torso moving steadily or accelerating during the downstroke, and to stay out of the way of the shoulders, the torso must be purposely twisted in the forward direction. This torso twist can be performed so that the shoulders move without restriction or propulsion from the torso, while gravity works on the arms and club. For most putts however, gravity power is not forceful enough.

I propose that in theory the best way to vary the stroke for distance control would be to attempt as a rule to use one acceleration rate and then vary the length of the backswing. The purpose and value of this is that only one wrist correction force is then required, which should eliminate any gross errors in the wrist correction. Unfortunately I have not worked out a way to objectively yet easily measure the acceleration rate. You could use a ticking clock or metronome and set two objects at the swing endpoints, but I haven't tried that yet. In everyday putting you have to use feel to set the acceleration.

There may be times when this rule would be abandoned. For extra long putts or long putts on slow greens, higher acceleration may be more accurate than a longer swing. You could attempt two acceleration rates: one for short and medium length putts and a faster one for long putts.

Or you might find it too tedious or too difficult to adjust the backswing length exactly while using one acceleration. Instead you could try to produce the required velocity of the clubhead as a custom creation for each putt, after practicing a customized backswing length and a customized acceleration rate just for that putt. A variation of this that saves some time is to finish your setup and aiming, then practice backstrokes until you like one, then hit the ball with this backstroke and an improvised acceleration rate on the downswing.

A common maxim calls for the acceleration to be continued until after impact, so as to not "quit" on the ball. This seems a good idea, although it may not be absolutely necessary, if the clubface does not open or close when acceleration changes. It should not, if any club movement in the hands is only due to hand flexibility and not hand turning.

After impact, you could reduce acceleration on the follow through just in the amount that gravity slows the clubhead, thereby preserving the wrist angle without changing the wrist force. You could also just end the stroke more abruptly than that. See what you like and let me know if you find any advantage of one way over another.

Torso and Shoulders

Here we are assuming the use of some combination of a torso twist and a shoulder slide, as in Long's putting stroke.

A torso twist starts the backswing of the putting stroke more accurately than shoulder sliding. At least it does for me. It is quite amazing how well it starts the stroke, in that the club doesn't wander off in the wrong direction. The shoulders, even as they slide accurately on the torso, can allow the club and arms to wander off line, because, with the elbows bent, the club and arms are pulled by gravity away from the body. (The only way to escape this is to use a short putter and straight arms.) Throughout the stroke the arms are opposing this pull of gravity and preventing the club and arms from moving outward from the body. When they fail in this task, the club goes inside or outside the intended path on the backswing or downswing. But if we use the torso twist to start the club direction correctly and the shoulder slide occurs mainly to allow the club to continue on its motion according to momentum, path accuracy is much better.

To learn a smooth takeaway, hang the club in the air in address position for a few seconds until all movement is reduced to a minimum, then carefully make only a torso twist and watch the clubhead's path. The shoulders travel with the torso without independent movement. You can do this in the backswing direction and/or the followthrough direction. Relax the torso muscles and return to address. Repeat. In this way you learn a quiet stroke and what a torso twist feels like.

If you play the ball ahead of mid-stance, as most do, and you want to hit the ball with the club path tangent to the target line at impact, i.e. not cut or hook the ball, then your torso must be oriented slightly from perpendicular to the target line at address, in the direction toward the trailing side. This is a minor adjustment from perpendicular, with the greater risk that of being far from perpendicular on the open side. If your torso has been square or open to the target line, you might have noticed that the club liked to start back outside the line. Adjust the torso direction until torso hinging or twisting moves the club perfectly tangent to the target line, not going over the target line before or after the impact position.

Another important adjustment of the torso and shoulders at address is to make sure that they are all in a neutral position with regard to muscle tension. Most importantly, the torso should be neither twisted to the left or the right. The shoulders should hang the same, unless you decide to raise the trailing shoulder to allow your elbow or forearm to clear your belt or hip bone (it's better if you don't have to). With the torso and shoulders in a neutral position, you then adjust the arm positions to set your hands.

Because the shoulders hang somewhat forward naturally, the leading shoulder might reach the endpoint of its movement before the other shoulder, on a very long backswing. If this happens the trailing shoulder might continue onward without the leading shoulder, causing a breakdown of the one-piece arrangement. To handle this event, or to see if it happens to you, you should practice it.

The clubhead is moving on a circle with the axis somewhere in the spine. If your eyes were in or on the swingplane, the club would seem to move on a line, but your eyes are located above the swingplane, so you can see the arc or curve of the clubhead path.

A torso turn or twist carries the shoulders, arms, and club along. It is possible to start the backswing with a shoulder slide, but I would argue against it. The shoulder slide is better utilized later when the torso twist decelerates in the second phase of the backswing, and then, at that phase, the shoulder slide is better kept to a minimum. To repeat, the shoulders and arms should be first moved by the torso, with the torso therefore controlling the speed. When the torso slows, the shoulders and arms can easily continue on, lengthening the backswing. The torso movement is more accurate so it is preferred over the shoulder slide. Use the shoulder slide to a comfortable minimum. Or don't use it all for very short putts.

Now there are at least two ways to make the transition from backswing to downswing. To perform these two transitions, you either apply the downswing forces slightly before the club has come to a stop on the backswing, or just at the moment the club comes to a stop. The first way seems smoother than the second, but I don't know if it is more accurate. Try both ways. The nice thing about the first way is that the club lag occurs during the transition and is somewhat hidden from our awareness. It also is a faster transition.

For me, the way I do the stroke now, the torso and the shoulders at impact are both returned to address position. But you could lead the forward stroke with either the torso or the shoulder-arms-club system. It is possible.

Luckily, with Long's Stroke, the torso and the shoulders are traveling in parallel planes, so that they do not have to be exactly synchronized. If the shoulders get a tiny bit ahead of the torso turning, or vice versa, it doesn't matter for the directional accuracy, and it may not affect distance either. This freedom allows you to ignore things which before you could not and thereby have more concentration available for other things.

If you putt more upright than in Long's stroke, turning the torso out of sync with the shoulders is a frightening mistake. I leave you to try it. To see how it is not a problem when the torso turns in the swingplane, as in Long's stroke, and turns ahead of or behind sync, you may have to try it quite a few times until you believe it doesn't ruin your stroke.

To repeat, one good thing about turning the torso in the swing plane, as is done in Long's putting stroke, is that the torso turning does not have to be perfectly synchronized with the arms-shoulders movement. This freedom, I think, allows you to slightly adjust the acceleration of the clubhead on the downswing more easily than would be the case for other strokes. In any case it shows that the stroke was not planned well enough. If you absolutely must adjust the speed a little for any reason, do it without any hand activation. The club will pivot (lag or precede) in the hands a little, but that should not affect direction. Hand activation is dangerous. In addition, it is probably a good idea to make a slight speed adjustment during the stroke by quickening or slowing the torso during the downswing without adjusting the shoulder slide. It is safer and easier to adjust than the shoulder-arms system, I think.

If you are ready to make your hit but want a little more or less distance without starting your routine over, you could try making the backswing respectively a little faster or slower than you had planned. I have not experimented with this much and don't know why it happens, but it seems to happen. I notice it especially when I accidentally take a slow backswing and the ball runs short.

For distance control, I would experiment with awareness of the rate of turning of the torso or the shoulders, rather than or in combination with the appearance of the clubhead speed. The reason is, when you make your practice strokes, you can sort of watch the clubhead speed, but during the ball-hitting stroke you are most likely going to be looking at the ball and unable to monitor the club. In addition, it is probably a bad idea to try to adjust or change the plan during the stroke. During the stroke in which you hit the ball, it will be something in your body that you must focus on, if you must focus. For distance, I think that focus should be on the torso or shoulders. Therefore, if during the practice strokes you use the clubhead speed as a gauge, once you have decided upon a particular speed, practice it again so as to make a mental impression of the torso or shoulder speed that produced it, so that you can copy that in your actual hit. It might be even better to keep ones focus entirely on the torso and/or shoulders during the practice swings, if it were not for the need to sometimes monitor the clubhead path.

With this stroke, the torso muscles, and noticeably the belly muscles, are more active than in other putting strokes. This is no surprise, because the torso is turning a lot more. But the intensity of it may surprise. It takes quite a force to twist the torso away from the center or address position. You will feel it on the backswing, the downswing, and the followthrough. Just because it is big does not mean you cannot control it accurately. On the contrary, I would suppose that control is enhanced, especially under performance pressure.

There is extra muscle work going on during the beginning of the downswing. The muscles that turn the torso on the backswing are relaxing while the muscles that turn the torso on the downswing are taking over.

In addition, in my body anyway, the air transfers from one lung to the other as the torso twists. I don't usually notice this, but it must be adding to the feeling of movement.

What are the disadvantages of Long's Putting Stroke? The only problem is that it taxes the back, because of the extreme lean of the torso. It takes getting used to, a little more time each day. You have to do it on a regular basis in order to stay in shape. But you can ameliorate the problem somewhat by standing up frequently.

This concludes the basic elements of Long's Putting Stroke. Below are some additional recommendations for putting and the putting stroke.

Additional Tips

You may need to warm-up for this putting stroke so as to get the muscles of the torso ready to be used. The torso seems to require some stretching before it's able to move properly. I suggest making a careful setup and then slowly doing a very long backswing. Hold the end position for a few seconds and then return slowly to address position. Repeat this motion in the follow-through direction. Then slowly make a few complete strokes. That should be enough for the stretching. If you wish to turn this exercise into a practice exercise for long putts, do the stretching exercise and then add a gradual speeding up of the full stroke. Then hit some putts with this full stroke to see how far they go.

To groove your stroke quickly, use a routine similar to the Special Swing Exercises. Swing back and forth continuously with growing length while working on the proper line and getting everything right. Then do the backswing continuously, then with separate moves. The four-step is especially good. Just like the Special Exercises.

I highly advise the use of locked wrists and elbows with this stroke, and especially with this stroke, because the shoulder movement is so accurate. In fact, the entire write-up above assumes locked elbows and wrists. Most professionals use locked wrists and elbows, which is a good recommendation, but the strange thing about pros is that they often can make anything work. Tiger stands upright and has to have supreme control to get it to work, as does everyone else using that type of stroke. The greater the talent, the more difficult a move that can be performed. On the other hand, the easier a move is to make, the better the result, even for a pro.

If you find it difficult to keep the wrists unbending, try increasing the firmness of the grip.

Some golfers find that wrist bending gives greater control over speed than unbending wrists. Probably this happens because their putting was learned with wrist bending, and that is what they know best. You could test which way works best by hitting the same putt over and over, using wrist bending and locked wrist in equal numbers, switching numerous times between the two. You need plenty of repetitions to make sure that your body has learned the swing speed that is required. This is a test of your body's ability to produce a certain swing speed. If you find no difference in the two methods, definitely go with the locked wrist. With both methods your brain still has to learn to estimate what will produce the desired distance for a given putt, so if you change from your traditional method, there will be a learning curve as you learn to use the new stroke. Hopefully it will not be more difficult than adapting to fast or slow greens.

The biggest factor in distance control is judgment. You brain has to somehow figure how long to make the backswing and how much force to apply on the downswing. I have found a large difference in my mind's ability to judge the required speed depending on how well I slept the night before.

A factor involved in distance control that is probably not understood well, because it's pure physics, is the effect of dead face inserts. Use the deadest face insert you can find. This means using a plastic or rubber insert instead of metal, and one that acts as a damper. This would have a low coefficient of restitution (COR). The ball jumps off the insert more slowly than would be the case with a higher COR. By using a lower COR insert, you gain the advantage of using a greater force increment applied by your muscles to get a given increment in putter speed. This means that it will be easier for you to produce the ball speed you want because your muscles are using bigger differences in force for given increases in clubhead speed. The mistakes you make in muscle force become less noticeable, because the same mistake produces less difference in distance. Your distance control improves. This is especially noticeable on short putts but it works throughout the spectrum.

In case it is not mentioned above, I want to say that it is more reliable to decide upon your stroke before making it. This means choosing its speed beforehand. If your mind knows exactly what the stroke will be then perhaps a practice swing is not necessary, but usually I would make a practice stroke, for a number of reasons. One, to see if I could do it right, according to plan. Second, to improve the odds of doing it right in the actual putt, and third, to provide the opportunity to notice if the speed is wrong. If I was not sure of what speed to use, I would make a practice swing without thinking too much about speed and then see if that speed seems right. If it seems right I would use that one. This probably means that the stroke doesn't stand out particularly as too fast or too slow. If it seems too fast or too slow, make new strokes until it does not seem so. If this procedure doesn't work well enough for you, or if you like to experiment, and you have lots of time, try this: after finding a practice stroke that seems right, make a practice stroke that is faster and then one that is slower, just to see if they seem worse or better. This should verify or disqualify the choice you had made before. When you finally decide upon one, don't forget to register it in your memory, however you do that, so you can perform it again in the hitting stroke.

You might at first find yourself changing your mind during the actual hitting stroke, but eventually discover that it is best to stick with the practice stroke.

If you do adjust your speed during the stroke, I think you will find that it is easier to do so with this Long's Putting Stroke than with others. If you must increase (or decrease) speed midstroke, try turning the ribcage faster (or slower) without changing anything else.

I don't know why, but for me a faster backswing hits the ball further, and a slower backswing hits the ball shorter. This would advise us to use one backswing speed for all strokes. It also allows us to change the speed, for better or worse, right before starting the hitting stroke, instead of adhering to the better practice of starting the whole procedure over. Sometimes we just don't have time to do that.

When the ball is higher or lower than your feet, the setup is almost the same except for one thing: the arms are extended less or more so the clubface reaches the required height. Theoretically the torso angle should change slightly to get it perfect, but the adjustment is very small and probably not worth worrying about.

When putting uphill or downhill, you can lean right or left so as to keep the clubhead arc in the same tangency relationship to the ground.

When address is incorrect, you will notice the "groove" is gone or changed. The body movement feels different. The putter may want to go a different way. That is why it is important to set up accurately-- so you're ready to make the move you have learned, learn it better each time you use it, and not start learning a new stroke in a new position. So when in doubt, do the quick setup.

An important part of the stroke is control over the eye movement during the stroke. I see at least three ways to do it. I don't know which is the best yet. The common one is to watch the ball until it is hit and then keep looking at the spot where it was. The problem with this is that the eye tends to follow movement, in this case the ball and clubhead, and perhaps to move the whole body toward the hole too soon, causing a pull, especially under pressure. Another method might be to look at a spot near the ball, to try to avoid catching the eye. Another would be to follow the clubhead during its entire movement. This latter I have found makes a smooth but less accurate stroke.

To aim better, I think it is legal to hold your putter's shaft under your eyes so the shaft points at the target and the edge of the shaft covers half the ball. You look down past the shaft so you can line up your shoes parallel to the shaft and you can pick a point on the grass in front of the ball as well. You still have to align the clubface but it should be easier with this aid. I personally don't have the patience to do this for putting, but I use it always for any shot over about 25 meters.

Regarding putters, heavier can give more control over putt speed. Heavy putters have a bigger sweet spot as well. As described above, dead inserts can reduce ball speed for given clubhead speed, thus increasing control of distance. Another advantage of soft inserts is that they take out of play the variation in golf balls that would otherwise produce distance variation. I am referring to ball variation which is evident by various rebound heights of balls dropped on hard surfaces.

I wish you increasing success on the greens.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please email me at the address on the home page.