The fix for Putter face open or closed at impact

Fixing an open or closed putter face at impact

What is actually happening

Start direction on a putt is set almost entirely by where the face points when it meets the ball. The shorter the putt, the less room there is for anything to hide a small face error, which is why short putts miss for reasons that feel invisible.

Middle of the stance
Eye line falls over the ball

Ball near the bottom of the arc

The fix

You aimed the face correctly at address, and somewhere between the takeaway and the strike it turned. It reaches the ball pointing a little right of your line, which is open for a right-handed golfer, or a little left of it, which is closed. Left-handers should mirror every direction on this page. The turn is usually too small to see, and the stroke looks and feels normal, which is why these misses seem to come from nowhere.

On a full shot the face mostly decides where the ball starts. On a putt it decides the start line almost entirely, and the direction the putter is travelling counts for much less. On a flat green the ball then holds close to the line it started on, so nothing brings it back. Short putts show this most plainly. From a metre there is little break to blame and pace is rarely the problem, so a putt that slides past the edge on a flat green started off line.

Two other faults start putts off line, and each needs a different fix. A strike toward the toe or heel twists the head at contact, and because an off-centre strike also passes on less pace, those putts finish short as well as wide. A putt that starts off line yet finishes the right distance points away from the strike. The other is a face aimed off line before the putter moves. A sound stroke returns that face to where it was set, so the miss disappears once the face is set against a straight reference. When the miss survives that as well, the face is turning during the stroke.

To check, push a tee into a flat green three paces from the ball. Standing behind the ball, lay an alignment stick parallel to the line to the tee, a putter head's width from the ball on the side away from your stance, then set the face square to the stick. Colour the face with a dry-erase marker. Roll ten putts, looking at the small mark after each one. Putts that still start off line from a face checked square, with the mark in the middle, belong on this page. So does a miss that grows on the putts that matter, as the grip tightens.

The change starts with where the ball sits. The shaft slopes down and out from your hands to the putter head, so a stroke rocked from the shoulders travels on a gentle arc. Measured against the target line, a face that stays square to that arc opens a touch going back, closes a touch after the bottom, and points straight down the line at the bottom itself, where it is turning least. Play the ball just forward of the middle of your stance, roughly under your lead eye, close to that bottom point. A ball back toward your trail foot meets a face that is still open.

The hands are the other half. Hold the putter with your palms facing each other and parallel to the face, so neither hand starts out turned. Rock the putter with the shoulders while the hands only hold on, with the pressure light and unchanged from start to finish. Make the through stroke at least as long as the backswing, because the hands take over when a stroke slows into the ball.

The instinctive fixes add a second fault to the first. After a run of pulls, the natural response is to aim a little right. Every stroke that returns the face square now misses right, so the pull has to stay in the stroke for the new aim to work, and the two errors only cancel when both are exactly their usual size. The other instinct is to steer the face down the line with the hands and a firmer grip. That makes the hands the busiest part of the stroke, and busy hands turned the face in the first place. Swinging the putter on a different path does little either, because the face, far more than the path, decides where a putt starts.

Drills

Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.

Start-line gate
Find a flat putt and push a tee into the green three paces away as the target. Push two more tees in a putter's length in front of the ball, one either side of the line and two ball widths apart. 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, and set the face square to the stick so aim is taken out of the test. Roll ten putts at a pace that would finish just past the target tee. Success is eight of ten through the gate without touching a tee. Then narrow the gap to a ball and a half, and once you pass there, take the stick away and hold the same score.
Needs Three tees, an alignment stick and ten balls
Trail hand only
On a flat putt of one metre, hold the putter in your trail hand alone, palm facing the hole and parallel to the face, and rest your lead hand on your lead thigh. Roll ten putts, feeling the palm move the putter through the ball and still face the hole when the stroke stops. A palm that turns over sends the ball left and one that hangs back sends it right, so each miss tells you which happened. Success is eight of ten holed. Then roll ten with both hands, keeping the same feeling in the trail palm, and repeat the pair from one and a half metres and then from two.
Needs nothing but a club
Round the clock
Choose the flattest hole on the practice green and place four balls one metre from it, on four sides. Go round them with your full routine on every putt, and if one misses, start the circle again. Once the circle is cleared, repeat it with the balls a metre and a half away. Success is both circles cleared in one session. Because a miss costs the whole circle, the last putt of each carries some of the tension a real one does, which is where a face that turns tends to show. Do this at the start of three practice sessions before trusting the change on the course.
Needs Four balls

Browse every drill on the site

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.

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Or turn this fix into a practice plan

With a free account, the drills above become a 14-day plan: the setup checks and the first drill for three days, then the next drill, a rest day every fourth day, and a re-test on the last day that sends you back through the questions. Each day is a short list to tick off at the range, with reminders by email or in your calendar if you want them.

How the 14 days run

Day 1Ten balls as a baseline, then the setup checks and the first drill
Days 2 to 3The first drill again, one checkpoint and one feel a day
Day 4Rest, as are days 8 and 12
Days 5 to 11The next drills in turn, each warmed up by the one before
Day 13Every drill once, then every checkpoint
Day 14Re-test: the baseline again and the questions for your symptom

Checkpoints

What to look for to know whether the change has taken.

With the face set square to an alignment stick, putts on a flat green start through a gate of two tees a putter's length in front of the ball.
In a face-on mirror or phone clip, the ball sits just forward of the middle of your stance, roughly under your lead eye, rather than back toward your trail foot.
In a mirror at address, your palms face each other and sit parallel to the putter face.
Filmed face-on, the hands and the putter head move together as one piece, and the through stroke is at least as long as the backswing.
Short putts from four sides of a hole start on line, including the last one of a circle that has to be holed.

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 shoulders rock the putter and the hands are just along for the ride.
Your trail palm rolls the ball down the line and is still facing the hole when the putter stops.
Your grip pressure at the finish is exactly what it was 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.

If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots

What this rests on

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

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