Is there anything worse than three or four putting a hole? Missing putts—especially short ones—hurts no matter what course you play. It inflates your scores and erodes your confidence. Draining more putts, on the other hand, lowers scores, builds confidence, and makes you a force on the greens.

A critical step in improving your putting is matching your putter style to your putting stroke. It’s also the first step in improving. Below is a “cheat sheet” with golf tips on matching putter style and putting stroke:

Use an offset putter for aim. It’s an ideal putter if you miss putts right or left. Often, this comes from aiming errors. Putters with offset hosels help curb this tendency.
Use a “toe hang” putter for a better arc. If you tend to swing your putter to the outside on your backstroke, you could benefit from using a toe-hang putter. It promotes an in-to-in stroke.
Use a face-balanced putter for control. Some arc in your backswing is natural. If it exceeds four degrees, however, it opens your putter face when putting. That creates misses. A face-balanced putter induces a straight-line stroke.
Use a center-faced putter for solid hits. If you tend to catch the toe or heel of your putter, try a center-shafted putter. It twists less than other putters when you hit off-center.

This cheat sheet is just a basic overview of the topic. Its golf tips can help you sink more putts. If you’re serious about breaking 80, you’ll want to match putter style and putting stroke.

Bonus golf tip: Practice the way you play.

Putt several balls to the same location for the first few minutes of practice. That will help you get warmed up and groove your swing. After that, you should putt one ball at a time to a different cup, from a different distance and on a different slope. Hit a short one followed by a long one. Then reverse the order. Practice extreme putts you’re not likely to face on a course. It develops touch and feel.

Sink More Putts with

Center-shafted Putters

Most golfers use heel-shafted putters, which are generally considered the best choice for putting. But they don’t work in every case. That’s especially true if you use a straight back and straight through stroke. Center-shafted putters are excellent alternatives to heel-shafted putters—especially if you’re left eye dominant.

Center-shafted putters have the hosel attached to the center of the clubface. They’re easier to line up, increase your line of sight, and boost putting accuracy. They’re worth a try if you’re not sinking putts and costing yourself strokes:

Here are five golf tips on putting with a center-shafted putter:

No forward press
Put eyes directly over the ball
Use the alignment mark
Use a solid strike
Hands will sit nice and square

Many LPGA and PGA professionals like to use center-shafted putters. Advocates of center-shafted putters include Luke Donald, Stewart Cink, and Padraig Harrington.

Many golfers that use a heel-shafted putter use a slight forward press to get the ball to roll nice and straight. You don’t need to use a forward press with a center-shafted putter.
Place your eyes directly over the ball. Doing so will help you square up the putter before stroking the ball.
Many center-shafted putters are faced balanced. That means the sweet spot is in the center of the putter’s face.
Use the alignment mark to line up your putt. With center-shafted putters, the shaft may obscure the ball slightly. The alignment mark helps make up for this.
Place your hands directly over the ball. With heel-shafted putters, your hands sit slightly behind the ball. Placing your hands over the ball boosts accuracy.

Bonus tip: Try using a counterbalanced putter if you’re putting is off. They have as much weight at the top of the putter as at the bottom of the club. That enables you to “feel” the putter face more when putting.

Putting with a centered-shafted putter takes a little getting used to for some golfers. Our golf tips above will help. But once you get used to a center-shafted putter, you may find yourself draining more putts. And that can take your putting—and your game—to the next level.

Synch Putter Style, Posture, And Stroke

to Become a Force on the Greens

Want to lower your scores quickly? Drain more putts. That’s right, drain more of those makeable putts. You know the ones I’m talking about. The five- to six-foot putts that seem so easy to make. Yet you miss them. Missing these putts hurts. It can spoil a solid round of golf if you let those misses get to you.

But sinking 5- to 6-foot putts is tough. How tough is? PGA players sink only about 50%-60% of their six-foot putts on average. And they practice putting a lot. So how do you improve your short putting? Stroking putts at the right speed helps. Using a pre-putt routine also helps. So, does learning to rea greens better.

One putting golf tip that golfers sometimes overlook is matching their putting posture to their putter style. That can make a huge difference in your putting. This factor might not seem significant, but it is. Below we provide golf tips on how you can leverage this factor to shrink your scores.

Putting Posture and Putter Style

Your putting posture should match your putter style. That the first step in improving your putting. In other words, find a comfortable putting posture first, then match your putter style to it. Here are the basics of assuming a sound putting posture.

· Ideally, you want to stand with your weight balanced on the middle of your feet. Then lean forward and let your arms hang straight down with your palms facing each other and a little flex in your elbows. That’s the conventional putting posture. Golfers, however, tend to either stand up straight or crouch more using this basic posture.

Standing straight up is the more conventional posture. Think Phil Mickelson. This posture lets your arms and shoulders move more around than up and down. So, when you stroke the putt, the putter moves in an arc. So, you want a putter style that works well with this type of stroke.

Crouching Is Less Popular

A crouching posture isn’t as popular as standing more upright. Crouching positions your hands and arms more vertically. So, when you stroke the ball, it will have little or no arc to it. With this posture, you’ll need a putter style that supports a straight back and straight-through stroke. More on putter styles are below.

But be careful with this posture. If you try to swing the putter in an arc from a crouch, you’ll have to manipulate your hands and arms. Anytime you have to move your arms and hands, you stand a good chance of missing the putt.

Your posture, however, is a matter of personal choice like many things inputting. Several factors can affect the type of posture you use. If you have a bad back, for instance, you might use a more upright posture. Be aware of these factors.

If your vision isn’t the best, you might bend over more, giving you a crouched posture. Whatever posture feels comfortable to you is your putting posture. What’s important is to go with the stroke produced by your posture. Once you have a comfortable posture, you can now select a putter style to match your putting stroke.

Putting Stroke and Putter Style

Two basic putting strokes exist—straight back and straight through and on an arc. Each putting stroke works. Each putting stroke also has its supporters. Dave Peltz, the well-known short game guru, favors the straight back and straight through style. Stan Utley, another golf guru, prefers an arcing stroke.

If you have an arcing stroke, you’ll probably putt best with a heel-shafted putter with a weighted flange. That’s where the shaft meets the clubface at one end. The weight distribution of the clubface helps to open and close the putter face smoothly and accurately. This putter style matches an upright posture and a curved stroke.

If you have a straight back and straight through stroke, you’ll probably putt best with a center-shafted putter and a more crouched posture. This putter’s design works to keep the putter from opening or closing during the stroke. In addition, most center-shafted putters are faced balanced, which means the sweet spot is in the putterface’s center.

Synching your putting posture and stroke with your putter style isn’t something weekend golfers think about a lot. But it can make a difference in your putting. If you want to drain more putts—and take your game to the next level—match your posture, stroke, and putter style. Then, practice, practice, practice.

Match Putter Style to Putting Stroke to Drain More Putts Next Time Out