The fix for Off-centre strike on the putter face
Fixing an off-centre strike on the putter face
What is actually happening
Contact away from the centre transfers less energy, so strokes that felt identical finish different distances. It also twists the face slightly at impact, which moves the start line as well as the pace.
- Your strike
- Sweet spot
The fix
The ball is meeting the putter face away from its sweet spot, out toward the toe or in toward the heel. The sweet spot is the point on the face in line with the head's centre of gravity, and a putt struck there leaves the putter without a twist. If your putter has a line on top, it is meant to mark that point, but it is worth checking rather than assuming. Your aim can be good and your stroke on line while this is happening. The fault is where the ball and the face meet.
Two things go wrong at once. A strike away from the sweet spot passes less of the stroke's energy to the ball, so the putt finishes short of where the same stroke sends a centred one, and the further out the strike, the shorter the putt. The head also twists around its centre of gravity during contact. For a right-handed golfer, a strike toward the toe twists the face open and starts the ball right, and a strike toward the heel twists it closed and starts the ball left. Left-handers mirror that. The twist is small, but so is the hole, and it arrives together with the lost pace.
That pairing is what separates this from the two faults most like it. A face aimed off at address, or one that turns during the stroke, sends putts wide too, but a centred strike still gives them the right distance, so they finish level with the hole or past it rather than short. An off-centre strike sends them short and wide together: short and right off the toe, short and left off the heel. A strike toward the heel or toe can send the ball off with a dull sound and a slight wobble, but it does not make it jump. A ball that hops before it rolls points to where the stroke bottoms out instead.
Start by finding the sweet spot. Hold the putter loosely at the very top of the grip between finger and thumb, so it hangs with the face toward you, and tap the face with the point of a tee. Off the sweet spot the head twists as it swings away. On it, the head swings straight back. Stick a thin strip of tape on the top edge directly above that point. Then colour the face with a dry-erase marker, roll ten putts of four paces and read the small mark each ball leaves. Marks gathered to one side of the tape, or spread across the face, confirm the fault, and so does a putt that feels dead and turns in your hands.
The change happens in two places. At address, set the ball opposite the tape, not opposite the middle of the head as it looks from above. Through the stroke, the putter has to return to the spot it left, and that depends on everything above it staying put. Rock the shoulders and let the arms hang and follow. Keep your knees, hips and head still until the ball has gone, because any move toward the ball or away from it carries the putter head with it, and it takes very little to reach the toe or the heel. Make longer putts with a longer stroke at the same rhythm rather than a harder hit, since a hit tends to pull the body along with it.
The instinctive fixes chase the result instead of the strike. A putt that finishes short gets blamed on pace, so the next one is hit harder, and a harder hit from the same stroke tends to become a jab that moves the hands and body and scatters the strike further. A putt that misses right gets blamed on the read or the aim, and a line that was never wrong gets changed. Gripping harder to stop the putter twisting in your hands does nothing about where the ball meets the face. Centre the strike first, then judge your pace and your reads from putts that were struck properly.
Drills
Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.
Tape behind the ball
Find your sweet spot with the tee tap test and stick a thin strip of tape on the top edge above it. On a flat putt of three paces, set the putter behind the ball twenty times by feel, and each time look down to see whether the tape sits directly behind the middle of the ball before you roll the putt. Count the setups that needed no adjustment. Success is eighteen of twenty. Then colour the face with a dry-erase marker and roll twenty more without checking first, reading the mark after each putt. When eighteen of those marks sit within a finger's width of the line of the tape, check your setup only on every fifth putt.
Needs A tee, a thin strip of tape and a dry-erase marker
Tee gate at the head
On a flat putt, set the putter behind the ball with the ball opposite the tape, and push a tee into the green just outside the heel and another just outside the toe, leaving a finger's width of space at each end. Roll ten putts of two paces. Any drift of the putter toward you or away from you as it returns to the ball clips a tee. Success is ten putts without touching either. Repeat at four paces and then at six. When six paces is clean, bring the tees in until they leave a tee's width at each end and start again from two paces.
Needs Two tees
Elastic bands on the face
If the shape of your putter allows it, stretch two elastic bands around the head so they cross the face either side of the sweet spot, a ball's width apart. A centred putt rolls normally, and one that catches a band comes off dead and short, so every strike gives you an answer. Roll ten putts of four paces to a tee. Success is nine of ten rolling normally. Then move the bands in to two fingers' width apart and repeat, and when nine of ten pass there, take the bands off and roll ten more, judging each strike by feel and sound alone.
Needs Two elastic bands and a tee
Toe, heel, middle
On a flat putt of four paces, roll three putts deliberately off the toe, three off the heel and three off the sweet spot, all with the same length of stroke. Watch where each one finishes and listen to each strike. The toe and heel putts should finish short of the centred ones, the toe putts tending right and the heel putts left. Do three rounds. Then roll ten ordinary putts and call where each was struck from the feel, the sound and the roll, before checking a dry-erase mark on the face. Success is eight correct calls out of ten, and once you reach it you can catch this fault on the course without a marker.
Needs A dry-erase marker and a few balls
Practice plan and log
Practise this fix, day by day
Keep a dated log of every session against this fix, so in a few weeks you can read back whether the change has taken instead of trying to remember.
Checkpoints
What to look for to know whether the change has taken.
- Hanging from the top of the grip and tapped with a tee directly below the tape, the putter swings straight back without twisting.
- At address, the tape on the top edge sits directly behind the middle of the ball.
- A dry-erase mark on the face lands on or just beside the sweet spot, putt after putt.
- The putter returns through a gate of two tees at the heel and toe without touching either.
- Putts rolled with the same length of stroke finish at the same distance, without odd ones dying short and sliding off to one side.
Feels
A feel is not a description of what the club does. It is whatever gets your body to do it, and a correct change usually feels exaggerated long before it looks correct.
- You are striking the ball with one small spot on the face and nothing else.
- From the knees up you are a statue, and only the shoulders move.
- The putter swings back through exactly the spot where it sat at address.
Symptoms that lead here
Each of these can resolve to this cause. If the page above does not match what you are seeing, start from the symptom instead and let the questions narrow it.
- Three-putting too oftenToo many greens take three putts or more, usually because the first putt leaves a second that is longer or harder than it should be.The usual cause of this
- No distance control on the greensLong putts finish well short or well past the hole, so the first putt seldom leaves you a tap-in.
- My head moves or I look up too early on puttsYour head turns or lifts to follow the ball before the stroke is finished, and your shoulders and the putter go with it, which costs both the start line and the strike.
- Putts bounce or skid instead of rollingThe ball hops or skids off the putter face before it starts to roll, so it bobbles off line in the first couple of feet and finishes shorter than the stroke deserved.
- Missing short puttsPutts from three to six feet, the ones you expect to hole without a second thought, keep sliding past the edge or lipping out.
- Putts don't start on the line I pickedThe ball leaves the putter left or right of the line you chose, so a putt you read correctly still misses.
If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots
- Fixing deceleration into impactDeceleration into impact
- Fixing an open or closed putter face at impactPutter face open or closed at impact
- Fixing a putting stroke that bottoms out in the wrong placePutting low point in the wrong place
- Fixing a setup that changes every shotNo repeatable setup or routine
What this rests on
- The physics of golf: The convex face of a driverA. Raymond Penner, 2001
- Experimental study of the gear effect in ball collisionsRod Cross, University of Sydney, and Alan M. Nathan, University of Illinois, 2007
- What is Smash Factor in Golf?TrackMan, accessed 2026
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
Did this help?
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If something here is wrong, or contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
The weekly fix
One fault a week, written the same way this page is.
Discussion
Golfers who have worked on this fault, on what helped and what did not. Read it as experience rather than evidence.
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