This is the final installment of a three-part series on putting with instruction by Stonecrest golf director Marvin Lessin.
IF you've played golf - even miniature golf - you know the feeling. You line up your putt, hit the ball just how you wanted, and the ball rolls by the hole.
What went wrong? You had a line picked out; you hit the ball with the right speed - why did you still miss that putt?
The answer, Stonecrest golf director Marvin Lessin said, might not be in the mechanics or the line, but in the alignment.
"Some golfers line up over the putt wrong, and they don't even know it," Lessin said. "They think they're doing everything right, but they keep missing putts."
The putting stroke and style can be individual to any golfer, but Lessin said there is one cardinal rule: Golfers who line up properly over a putt will make more than golfers who don't.
Just like a car rolling down the highway with unaligned tires, an unaligned putt will pull to the left or push to the right. Just as you can realign the tires on your car, you can realign your putt for straighter results.
To test your alignment, Lessin suggests to first stand over the ball with the putter like you're about to take a normal stroke. Then pull another ball from your pocket, raise it to your forehead, and drop it straight down.
"Ideally, you want the ball you're dropping to hit the ball you're putting," Lessin said. "If the ball hits just inside, that's OK."
"But if the ball you drop hits outside of the ball you're putting, then you have a problem."
Lessin says that golfers who line up outside the ball stroke across the ball from the outside in rather than straight through. This results in a pulled putt that misses to the left of the hole. By the same token, golfers who line up too far inside push their putts from the inside out, missing the hole to the right.
"The bottom line is that you want to be relaxed with your arms hanging naturally," Lessin said. "The way you lean over the putt and look at the ball, it should always feel natural.
"But if you're missing putts and you feel like you're doing everything right, you may want to check your alignment first."
- Joe VanHoose