Why it’s so important to hit your putts out the centre

How much do off-centre strikes with your putter affect the roll? We join Gary Nicol up at Archerfield for some putting tips using Trackman software to validate the data.

“What do you use an alignment aid on your putter for? Many amateurs use the alignment aid to simply line up the ball, but forget that it can help them simply find the middle of the putter.

With having lines on the ball it can be really easy to start matching those lines up with the alignment aid and forget about where the centre of the clubface is.”

Gary asked Michael to hit three putts, one out of the centre, one out of the heel and a final strike from the toe. He then measured each putt with the Trackman performance software. The results are below…

As you can see from the results the centre-striked putt traveled an extra four feet and made it past the hole, the two poor strikes came up two feet short of the target.

You will also notice a very similar ball speed from the two poor strikes in comparison to the faster ball speed of the good strike…

Hitting a  putt out of the centre sounds like an obvious ting you need to do, but many amateurs can get too fixated on the line. Even if you get the line right, if you don’t strike the centre of the putter face the chances are you won’t hole the putt.