Two Setup Fixes a Top 100 Teacher Uses to Fix Your Putting

Before diagnosing a stroke, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Stephen Sweeney checks a player's setup. Sweeney, who works with Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Åberg and Joaquín Niemann, says two fundamentals cause most of the missed putts he sees: where the eyes sit over the ball, and where the putter face points at address.

What does poor eye alignment do to a putt?

When a player's eyes sit inside the ball line instead of directly above it, the setup pushes their aim out to the right of the target. Golfers then compensate the way they would in a full swing, dragging the putter on an inside path to pull the ball back on line. Over a stroke as short as a putt, that compensation rarely repeats, and the ball starts inconsistently.

Sweeney's fix is a small forward bend at the hips to bring the eyes further out and over the ball, closer to what he calls a tabletop crouch. To check the position, he drops a ball from under a player's eyes at address; it should land on top of the ball already on the ground rather than inside it.

How does eye position affect the putter face?

Sweeney says the same misalignment tends to leave the putter face aimed right of the hole at address. "We can see on every putt a little bit of face closure," Sweeney said, describing how players unconsciously pull the ball back toward the target to compensate. Once the eyes are correctly positioned over the ball, the face lines up at the center of the hole with far less manipulation.

Fixing where the eyes sit over the ball can fix where the putter face points, without changing the stroke at all.

How can golfers check their own putter face aim?

Sweeney uses a smartphone as a training aid: setting a phone flat against the putter face and sighting down it against a square edge, like a scorecard, shows exactly where the face is aimed relative to the target line. It's a way to catch aim errors that would otherwise show up only as missed putts.