The fix for Putter aimed off at address
Fixing a putter aimed off line at address
What is actually happening
The face is aimed somewhere other than the intended line before the stroke starts, usually because the eyes sit inside or outside the ball and distort how the line looks from above. A stroke that returns the face perfectly still misses.
- Middle of the stance
- Eye line falls inside the ball
The fix
Before the putter has moved, the face is already pointing somewhere other than the line you chose, a little right of it or a little left. This page is written for a right-handed golfer, so left-handers should mirror its directions. The stroke can be flawless. It returns the face to exactly where you set it, and the ball rolls away cleanly, at a good pace, on the wrong line, which is what makes the fault so hard to believe.
Where the face points as it meets the ball sets a putt's start line almost entirely, so a stroke that delivers the face as it was set carries the aim error straight into the roll. On a straight putt the miss is plain. On a breaking putt it hides. A ball that starts on a different line from the one you read finishes on the high or low side, which looks exactly like a misread, so the read gets changed and the aim stays wrong.
Aim is judged from beside the ball, looking down, and that view distorts the line. With your eyes directly over the ball you look straight down on it. With them inside the ball, between it and your feet, or outside it, you see the line at an angle, and a face that looks square from there can be aimed off. A head tilted so the line across your eyes points left or right of the target line does the same when you turn to look at the hole. Squaring the face to your feet instead of the line hands any error in your stance straight to the face.
Ten minutes on a flat green will prove it. Find a straight putt of three paces and roll ten with your normal routine. Then, standing behind the ball, lay an alignment stick parallel to the line to the hole, a putter head's width from the ball on the side away from your stance. Set the face square to the stick and roll ten more. If the first ten miss mostly to one side and the second ten start on line, your stroke is doing its job and your aim is not.
The two faults this gets confused with fail that test differently. A face that turns during the stroke was square at address, so the stick changes nothing, and putts still start off line, sometimes to both sides. An off-centre strike twists the head as the ball meets the toe or heel, so those putts finish short as well as wide. An aim fault leaves a clean strike and the right pace, and it is the only one of the three that disappears with the stick in place.
The fix belongs in the routine, before the stroke. Choose your line from behind the ball, where you are looking straight along it, and pick a spot on that line no more than a putter's length in front of the ball, such as a discoloured blade of grass. Walk in, set the face square to the line through the ball and that spot, and only then settle your feet. Stand so your eyes are directly over the ball, with the line across them parallel to the target line. To look at the hole, turn your head rather than lifting it, so your eyes travel along the line instead of across it.
The instinctive fix is to blame the stroke. A golfer whose putts keep starting right decides they are being pushed, and starts turning the face closed through the ball to drag them back. Now a stroke fault is cancelling an address fault, and the two only agree when both are exactly their usual size. Aiming at one edge of the hole to allow for the miss is no better, because it moves the target and leaves the error. Expect a square face to look aimed off for the first few sessions, closed if you have been aiming right and open if you have been aiming left. Trust the stick over your eyes.
Drills
Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.
With and without the stick
Find a straight putt of three paces on the practice green. Roll ten putts using the routine on this page and count how many you hole. Then, standing behind the ball, lay an alignment stick parallel to the line, a putter head's width from the ball on the side away from your stance, set the face square to the stick and roll ten more. Alternate the two sets for three rounds, noticing how the squared face looks from address. Success is the sets without the stick holing as many as the sets with it. Once they do, move to five paces, then to a gentle breaking putt with the stick laid parallel to the start line you read rather than to the hole.
Needs An alignment stick and ten balls
Line the ball from behind
Draw a straight line around a ball with a marker pen. On a straight putt of three paces, crouch behind the ball and turn it until the line points at the middle of the hole. Walk in, set the putter so its sight line carries straight on from the line on the ball, and only then take your stance. Check that the two lines join, and do not re-aim by looking at the hole. Roll twenty putts this way. Success is twenty setups where the lines joined without adjustment, with the misses falling on both sides of the hole rather than one. Then use the same routine from five paces and on breaking putts, pointing the line along the start line you read.
Needs A marker pen and a few balls
Eyes over the ball
Take your putting address to a ball. Hold a second ball against the bridge of your nose and let it drop. Ignore where it lands along the line and note only whether it lands on the ball, short of it on your side, or beyond it. On the ball, or touching it, is right. If it lands beyond the ball, stand a little taller or a little further away; if it lands inside, bend a little more from the hips or stand a touch closer. Repeat until five drops in a row land on the ball or touch it, then roll ten putts from that posture. Check it at the start of every session for two weeks.
Needs A spare ball
Phone on the line
Push a tee into the green three paces from a ball on a straight putt. Stand your phone on the ground two paces behind the ball, lens on the line running from the tee through the ball, and record five setups using the routine on this page. Pause each clip just before the putter moves and look at the sight line on top of the putter. Success is five setups with that line pointing straight at the tee. Repeat the check at the start of practice for two weeks and then once a month, because aim drifts back without anything in the stroke to warn you.
Needs A phone and a tee
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.
- On a phone clip taken from the ground on the line behind the ball, the sight line on the putter points straight at the target before the stroke starts.
- Straight putts rolled with the face set against an alignment stick and putts rolled without it start on the same line.
- A ball dropped from the bridge of your nose at address lands on the ball or touches it, rather than landing inside it or beyond it.
- On a phone clip of your routine, the face is set to your line before your feet settle, on every putt.
- Misses on straight putts fall on both sides of the hole rather than repeating on 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.
- The putter goes down first and your feet arrange themselves around it.
- Your eyes look straight down onto the ball, not across at it.
- Turning to look at the hole, your eyes run along the line on the grass as though following a rail.
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.
- 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.
- Misreading the breakPutts you struck the way you meant take more or less break than you allowed for, and miss, often below the hole on the low side.
- I've lost my putting strokePutting that used to be the best part of your game has fallen apart over a few weeks or rounds, and nothing you have tried has brought it back.
If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots
What this rests on
- Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
- The Influence of Face Angle and Club Path on the Resultant Launch Angle of a Golf BallPaul Wood, Erik Henrikson, Chris Broadie, 2018
Did this help?
One answer, and nothing is published from it. A fix that keeps getting a no is a fix that is wrong, and this is the only way that shows up.
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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