title: The stroke has only a minor influence on direction consistency in golf putting among elite players.
abstract: In the golf instructional literature, the putting stroke is typically given higher priority than green reading and aiming. The main purpose of this study was to assess the importance of the putting stroke for direction consistency in golf putting. Kinematic stroke parameters were recorded from 71 elite golf players (mean handicap = 1.8, s = 4.2) on 1301 putts from about 4 m. Of the different factors deciding stroke direction consistency, face angle was found to be the most important (80%), followed by putter path (17%) and impact point (3%). This suggests that improvements in consistency of putter path and impact point will have very little effect on overall putting direction consistency and should not be prioritized in the training of elite players. In addition, mean stroke direction variability for an elite player (European Tour) was found to be 0.39 degrees, which is good enough to hole about 95% of all 4-m putts. In practice, however, top professionals in tournaments only hole about 17% of 4-m putts. We conclude that the putting stroke of elite golfers has a relatively minor influence on direction consistency.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway. jon.karlson@nih.no
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Karlsen
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Johnny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nilsson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003163:Competitive Behavior; D004864:Equipment and Supplies; D006055:Golf / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis