The science behind one of the most unique putting strokes in golf history

There’s a big myth in golf that has lasted for most of the last century: to be a good putter, you have to prevent deceleration. The putterhead can’t slow down as you get closer to hitting the ball. In fact, it needs to speed up.

The only problem is—that’s not true, and one needs to only look at Brandt Snedeker's putting success as proof.

How the myth was born

It’s an idea that was probably born from good intentions. When people first started playing golf, the greens had longer grass than most fairways. Putting strokes were essentially modern-day chip shots, and decelerating on chip shots is, indeed, a problem.

What you need to do now

Our latest Film Study about 'The Claw' putting grip featured some interesting information from Phil Kenyon, who works with Brandt Snedeker (along with dozens of tour pros) as his putting coach. Kenyon found that the best putters:  

• Accelerate the putterhead a lot at the start of the downswing
• Coast the putterhead into impact

In other words, the putterhead is slowing down—or at the very least not speeding up—by the time it hits the ball. Bad putters, by contrast, speed up the putterhead a lot. They hit the ball trying not to decelerate. This makes distance control and face-angle control a nightmare.

The stroke that perfectly shows this

Like most concepts, this is a difficult one to grasp until you see it. Which brings us to Snedeker, this year's winner of the AT&T Legacy award.

Snedeker was one of the best putters of his generation, and he did it using a pop stroke—an up-tempo stroke with a long backstroke and a short follow-through. The putterhead “pops” into the ball.

As you can see…

Snedeker told Golf Digest that his key feeling is that he moves the putterhead more than the end of the grip through his stroke.

• His wrist provide the acceleration by hinging slightly on the backswing.
• The putterhead speeds up initially when the wrists unhinge, and then slow down by the time you hit the ball.

Whether you use this stroke as a drill or try to adopt Snedeker’s stroke entirely, the core concept is the same: If you accelerate the putter too much coming into the ball, you wouldn’t be able to stop it so quickly after impact. Your follow-through would be longer—not shorter—than your backstroke.

The key point

In other words: If you can't pop the putterhead into the ball with a long backstroke and short follow through, you're not accelerating the putterhead the way you're supposed to.

Snedeker figured out the right way to do it. And now, we have data to understand why.