Symptom
I've lost my putting stroke
Putting 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.
This usually traces to something already true before the club moves: grip, aim, posture, or where the ball sits in your stance. All of those are checkable standing still, which is why the questions ask you to look rather than to guess.
Common ways golfers describe this
Lost my putting stroke
I can't putt anymore
My putting has gone
Putting suddenly got worse
I used to be a good putter
- Feet, in the footprints: square to the line
- Hips, cross ticks: square to the line
- Shoulders, round ends: square to the line
- Target line
Narrow it to one cause
Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.
A few questions · no account needed
What you will be asked
- How did it go: over time, or all at once?
- What do the misses look like now?
- Hold a ball on the bridge of your nose at address and let it drop. Where does it land?
- Aim a putt of four paces by eye, then lay an alignment stick along the line you chose and step behind it. Where does it point?
- Mark the putter face and roll ten putts of five paces. Where are the marks?
- Roll ten putts of five paces on a flat piece of green. What happens to the pace?
Where this can come from
These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.
No repeatable setup or routine
Aim, ball position, stance width and grip get rebuilt slightly differently on every shot, so face angle, low point and strike location all vary with them. Address is the reference the whole swing is measured from, and a reference that moves explains misses that seem to have no pattern.
Read the fix
Putter aimed off at address
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.
Read the fix
Off-centre strike on the putter face
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.
Read the fix
Putter face open or closed at impact
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.
Read the fix
Grip pressure too tight
Holding the club hard enough to tense the hands and forearms makes the delivered face angle less repeatable and shortens the motion. It is the most common physical expression of pressure, which is why the same golfer strikes it well on the range and loses the face on the first tee.
Read the fix
Related symptoms
These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.
- I putt well in practice and badly on the coursePutts that drop on the practice green start missing once you are on the course, and the misses get worse when the putt actually matters.Shares no repeatable setup or routine
- 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.Shares putter aimed off at address
- 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.Shares putter aimed off at address
- I play much worse when it countsYour scores in competitions, matches and any round with something riding on it are far worse than your casual scores, and a good score coming into view only makes it worse.Shares no repeatable setup or routine
- I overthink my swing on the courseSeveral swing thoughts compete while you stand over the ball, the swing comes out stiff and unfamiliar, and the harder you try to apply what you have been working on, the worse the shots get.Shares no repeatable setup or routine
- Great on the range, lost on the courseYou strike it well ball after ball on the range, then the same swing starts topping and chunking it, or sending it sideways, as soon as the round begins.Shares no repeatable setup or routine
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
- Experimental study of the gear effect in ball collisionsRod Cross, University of Sydney, and Alan M. Nathan, University of Illinois, 2007
If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
Discussion
Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.
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