The fix for Putting low point in the wrong place

Fixing a putting stroke that bottoms out in the wrong place

What is actually happening

The stroke bottoms out behind the ball and drives it down into the turf, or catches it above centre on the way up. Either way the ball hops and skids before it begins rolling, which costs distance and sends it offline on the bounce.

Middle of the stance
Eye line falls over the ball

Ball just ahead of centre

The fix

A putting stroke is a small swing, and like any swing it has a lowest point. A clean roll comes from the putter reaching the ball at that bottom, or just as it starts to rise, with the face carrying the small amount of loft it was built with. This fault comes in two versions. In one, the stroke bottoms out behind the ball: the putter brushes the grass first or is already climbing when it arrives, and meets the ball above its middle. In the other, the putter is still travelling down at contact, usually because the hands are pressed well ahead or the ball sits back in the stance, and the ball is squeezed down into the turf.

Every putt leaves the face skidding, and friction with the green turns that skid into roll. The ball also sits slightly down in the grass, even on a good green. Met level with its loft intact, the putter lifts the ball just clear of that nest and the skid stays short and low. Driven down, the ball is pinched into the turf and springs up out of it. Caught on the way up, it is launched. Either way it lands and hops before it settles, and a hopping ball loses pace by an amount that changes every time. Each landing is also a chance for the grass to knock it off line, which is why putts that looked well struck wander in the first foot or two.

You can see this rather than guess at it. Set your phone on the green face-on, level with the ball and about a metre away, recording in slow motion, and roll five putts of three or four paces. A clean strike stays on the surface. Daylight under the ball, or a bounce in the first foot of travel, confirms it. Listen too: a stroke that clips the grass behind the ball makes a brush before the click. Then check your address in a mirror or on the same camera. For a right-handed golfer the lead side is the left, and left-handers mirror it. A ball well back toward the trail foot with the hands pressed ahead, or hands sitting behind the putter head, is the setup that produces this.

Three neighbours are easy to confuse with it. If the ball rolls cleanly from the start but distances still vary, the strike is off the centre of the face. If a flat putt starts off line without bouncing, look at the face at impact or your aim at address. If the camera shows a long backswing and a short jab through, that is deceleration, and it moves the bottom of the stroke as a side effect, so fix the length first.

The change starts at address. Play the ball just forward of the middle of your stance, roughly under your lead eye. Set your hands level with the ball or a fraction ahead so the shaft stands close to vertical and the face keeps its loft. The bottom of a stroke rocked from the shoulders sits roughly below the middle of your chest, so a ball just ahead of that point is met level. In the stroke itself, keep the wrists quiet so the hands and putter head travel together, and let the putter swing through the ball at the same low height it had at address.

The instinctive fixes pull in opposite directions and both make it worse. Golfers who see the ball skid try to hit up on it to make it roll, which flicks the wrists, adds loft and moves the bottom of the stroke further back, so the ball spends longer in the air. Golfers who see it hop press the hands hard toward the target to keep it down, which removes loft and drives the ball into the turf. Hitting harder to get through the bounce just makes a bigger bounce. The green supplies the roll once the strike is clean. The stroke only has to deliver the putter level.

Drills

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

Lead eye ball drop
Take your normal putting address without a ball. Hold a ball against the bridge of your nose just in front of your lead eye and let it fall. Ignore how far from your toes it lands and note only where it lands between your feet. Place your putting ball there or a ball's width behind it, with your hands level with the ball and the shaft close to vertical. Repeat the drop five times and mark the spot with a coin so your ball position is the same every time. Success is five drops landing within a ball's width of each other. Use that coin mark for the next three drills, then take it away once your ball position matches it without looking.
Needs A spare ball and a coin
Slow-motion roll check
Set your phone on the green face-on, about a metre from the ball, lens level with it, recording in slow motion. Roll five putts of three or four paces from your coin-marked ball position. Watch the first foot of each putt frame by frame. Success is five out of five putts that stay on the surface with no daylight under the ball and no visible bounce. If two or more hop, check that your hands have not crept ahead or behind, then roll five more. Once you pass twice in a row, move on to longer putts of eight to ten paces and check again.
Needs A phone that records slow motion
Lead hand only
On a flat putt of two or three paces, grip the putter with your lead hand only and rest the trail hand on your trail thigh. Roll ten putts, keeping the lead wrist flat so the grip end and putter head move together through the ball. A wrist that flicks shows up at once as a ball that jumps or a putter head that races past the hand. Success is eight of ten rolling cleanly and finishing within a putter's length past the hole. Then roll ten with both hands and the same quiet wrists before stretching the distance.
Needs nothing but a club
Ten to one group
Pick a flat putt of five or six paces with no hole, and push a tee into the green as the target. Roll ten balls with the same stroke length and rhythm, from your checked setup. A clean strike repeats its pace, so the balls should gather. Success is all ten finishing within a putter's length of each other. If one or two run noticeably short, film those strokes, since a sudden short one is usually a hop. When the group holds from two sessions in a row, repeat the drill on a gentle uphill and downhill putt, then take it to real holes.
Needs A tee and ten 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.

Free, and there is no password: you sign in with a link sent to your email, and you come straight back here.

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.

Filmed face-on in slow motion, the ball stays on the surface from the moment it leaves the face, with no daylight under it.
At address, the ball sits just forward of the middle of your stance, roughly under your lead eye.
In a face-on mirror, your hands are level with the ball or a fraction ahead, and the shaft stands close to vertical.
Through the ball, the putter head stays low and does not pass your hands.
Putts struck with the same stroke finish at similar distances rather than some running short for no visible reason.

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 head skims the top of the grass through the ball, as though it were sweeping a table rather than chopping at it.
Your hands and the putter head are one piece, rocked by the shoulders, with nothing happening in the wrists.
The ball is rolled off the face, not lifted or knocked down.

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 Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013

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