30 Years of Putting Secrets in 38 Minutes (from a PGA Tour Pro)

Hi, I'm Jay Delsing, and I've played on the PGA Tour for over 25 years. Stay with me today, and I am going to give you my 11 secrets from the PGA Tour to help unlock your best putting ever. Whatever it is that ails you with your putting, we're gonna get rid of that, we're gonna show you how to do it, and we're gonna get you making more putts than you've ever made before. The first thing that we need to talk about that is a generalized statement that every tour player does. He tries to make every single putt. I've heard examples given where we're gonna try to get this ball in a three foot circle. That's baloney. I don't care if I have a putt from here to the other side of the green, or if I have a two foot putt from here to the hole. I am trying to hole every single putt. This is a mindset that we need to adopt first and foremost for you to start holing more putts and putting better than you've ever putted in your life. And that's why we're here today. And this is my first key to get you to putt better. How do we choose our putter? And choosing a putter is extremely important because you're going to use this club unlike any other in your bag on every single hole, unless you chip in. And maybe you're chipping in or pitching in because you watched my prior video. But anyway, I have two radically different putters here. I've got, this is my Scotty Cameron, and this is the Phantom, okay? They're both great putters. You can hole plenty of putts with either, but they look very different. And we're gonna show you this in a little bit. But when you're choosing a putter, you really want to be able to find one that when you look down at it, you like the way that it looks. Some people don't like the fact that my putter is shiny and we play outside in the sun. And sometimes there's a little bit of glare or a little bit of shine off of there. Some people like a black looking putter. There's so many to choose from, but I can't reiterate it enough. When you pull this club out of your bag, you really want to like the way that it looks. And the next tip, which is number two, is to get a putter that fits you and not the other way around. We are looking for you to be relaxed and as comfortable as you can when you are putting. Here's what I want you to think about. If you're using the same putter and you're six foot five or five foot five, I'm six foot five and this sits perfectly. If I'm five foot five and the toe's in the air, that's no good. We know that the most important thing about holding putts is to hit this ball in the center of that putter face. We've got to make great contact with the toe in the air or the heel in the air. That makes it so much more challenging and at times impossible. If my putter is sold like this, as I swing this putter around it, every putting stroke is on a tiny little arc. And if I have the toe up in the air and I try to arc this thing, I am going to have one hell of a time returning this putter face back to the ball to hit it square and it's so easy for the ball mostly to go left and close up on me. Now, let's say you have the converse problem or your heel is up in the air and you can see how the heel of my putter is not soling properly. Look at what it's done to my hands here, folks. Look at how uncomfortable my hand position is with that heel in the air. It's the exact same problem as we swing the putter away. Which way does this thing go? It makes, with my heel in the air, it makes me feel like I want to go like this. And then when I come in, I'm much more likely to try to open that putter to get it back on line. It's just a mess. This is what I want you to do. I want you to get your putter set up right behind the ball so that the toe's not in the air and the heel's not in the air and it's soling perfectly. And then when I make my stroke, it is so much easier for me to putt and get that ball started on line. Your local PGA professional will help you fit the putter for your size. All right? So that means we have a lofted line machine, which you may or may not be familiar with. They put your putter in this machine and they gently bend it so that it sits a little flatter so that if you're a shorter person or you have shorter arms, the putter is going to be bent to fit you. It's not too upright. It's not too flat. I call it the Goldilocks complex. It's just right. This bed's too soft. This one's too firm. I want the one that fits me and is just right. And secret number three is really important. We are going to talk about our hand position and how it relates to the ball. I see so many people putt with their hands so much farther forward like this. Look at what, when my hands are this far forward, the club face actually of the putter gets shut down. My Scottie Cameron is laser designed to have four degrees loft on there. When I hit my putts, well, I want that true four degrees loft to be hit on that. Why? Because that's going to help the ball get above the ground a little bit and then start rolling very, very quickly. When I have my hands too far forward, as you can see here, the putter face is shut down and there's actually zero loft or less in here. This is a much more common problem where I see people set up to the ball like this. If you can imagine with my hands really forward that I've taken the loft off of this thing, what's going to happen when I throw it way back here like this? Now, all of a sudden my four degrees has become six, eight, 10, whatever. So look, this is behind too far. This is in front too far. Right on that front edge of the ball is my ideal. Now, do I have room for some leeway here? You absolutely do. You can go as far as one inch forward, that's about right here, or you can go to the very back edge of the ball. So folks, I'm giving you about an inch or so to play with in terms of what is most comfortable for you. So folks, one of the things that I want to add to this hand position thing is how are your hands holding the putter? First of all, if I'm going to white knuckle this grip and squeeze it as hard as I can, and that's a 10 and a one is, I'm barely holding onto the club. I want somewhere between a three and a four grip pressure wise. And this is really important. We've got to relax our forearms, our shoulders. All of that will move up into your neck and things like that. If we are tense and anxious and nervous over this stuff, I'll bring up a great putter, Steve Stricker. He's about a seven. I've talked to Strick. He likes to squeeze that putter a little tighter. So play with it a little bit. We don't want to get into that eight, nine, and 10 area at all. And one and two probably is not going to give you enough control over the putter, okay? The other thing I want you to notice, my palms are facing each other and look at how this nice little V has been formed in here. Some guys like to take this little V and just move like that. I want you to stay focused more on your hands and a nice soft position, a three or a four pressure intention wise. And then we're going to get that ball just in that right spot, either on the front edge of the ball or on the back edge of the ball. Those are your variants that are acceptable. We're working on our fundamentals of our putting today. We're going to give you the 11 essential keys to unlock your best putting. And we're headed to number four now. Welcome to key number four to unlock your best putting. And remember, these are secrets from the PGA Tour. When I'm standing over this putter, this putt, I want to try to be athletic. Now I'm not going to get down in a squat like I'm going to feel the ground ball, but I'm also not going to stand there with weight on my, I'm not going to, you can probably see it better this way. I don't want a bunch of weight on my heels. I don't want a bunch of weight on my toes. I want my weight evenly distributed. I'm going to say that we're going to go 50-50 here. You can go as far as 60-40. Just don't let your head move forward with that weight. Move that weight into your left hip, but keep that head right there. So this is what it's going to look like. I'm going to be 50-50. I'm going to get nice and comfortable, and then I'm going to have my hands, I like to have my hands on the front edge of the ball. That is my weight distribution. That is another key that you have to maintain to putt well. Welcome to secret number five. And this is one of my favorites, and I just call it, where's your head? Our head and its position in our golf swing and in our putting game has so much to do with how the putter sits and how the putter, how the ball will roll. And so what I mean by that is, I see a lot of people that putt like this, and their perspective is off because their head is way, way forward. Or I'll see even more people that'll sit there and they'll be putting, and then I'll see them back like this. Here's what I want you to do. Hold the putter. I'm going to hold this thing right up in front of the camera and then I'm just going to drop it. And now my head, my putter, and everything is absolutely aligned. And so folks, here's a thing for you to realize why this is so important. Golf is a side-on game. What do I mean by that? The ball is on the side of us, okay? It's not like a basketball where it's right in front of us. It is on the side of us. And so as we're putting, we are looking down this way and we want our ball to go accurately that way. This perspective that we have here, it better be right. And as it goes this way, that changes my perspective. As it goes that way, it changes my perspective as well. All of the best putters have their eyes slightly inside of the line of the ball. So that means if this is the line of the ball, my eyes are slightly behind and slightly back here. So the second part of this, I love to say, this is where my head is literally, where's my head figuratively? What am I thinking about? Now I'm unloading on you today the 11 secrets to better putting. What I don't want you to do while you're standing over the putt is to think about any of them. I want you to practice them. And then I want you to let them slowly infiltrate themselves into your daily routine and your golf game. We used to call it training and trusting. The Olympic athletes do this all the time, especially the ice dancers. They'll go out and practice their routine and practice their routine. And as you notice, theirs is all done to music. And so they know after all of this practice that when this song is in this position, I need to be doing this. Okay, so it gets that drilled in to their muscle memory and to their routine. If you're standing over this putt, trying to hold a putt, and you're thinking about any one of these secrets, we're in trouble. Okay, yes, is it okay to go? Oh yeah. Delsing said I had to, yes, fine, click and then done. Now get into that putt. I think it's incredibly important for you to make sure that we've got your head in the right spot for you to make putts. And it's not about thinking about all of these things that I'm telling you while we're over the putt. That's all done in our pre-shot routine. That's all done when we're practicing. And then when we're out playing, remember, I'm here to help you play better golf, which means to shoot lower scores. When we go out on the golf course, our focus is one thing, scoring. How do I score lower? How do I score better? How do I save shots? We're on the putting green. One way we're saving you shots with your putter is we're gonna eliminate three putts. We're gonna talk about some drills that are gonna help you later on in this episode. But we've gotta have our head into holing all the putts. Okay, every single putt, we need to hole. We're gonna try to hole. And I'm giving you the 11 secrets from the PGA Tour to get you there. Okay, secret number seven is what you just saw. I walked onto the green for the first time. The only part of my body that is touching these playing surfaces, these putting greens, are my feet. I get such a kick out of Aimpoint, and I think Aimpoint is a fine system to use. As a PGA Tour player that played for over 25 years, I always used my feet to give me information. First of all, it can give me slope information. Wow, this putt is much more downhill. Second of all, it gives me texture information. These greens are firm. These greens are, and it's even easier the other way, when they're fluffy or spongy. That makes a huge, huge difference. When you plug in to what information your feet are giving you, it's another set of data points to put in that brain to help you putt better. It might seem odd at the very beginning because you never thought that way, but it makes sense. If you walk into your home and say you're on a hardwood floor and you're wearing bare feet, there's a feel there. If you're wearing bare feet and walk on the carpet, there's a different feel there. Use that sense to help you get an idea of what these putting surfaces are gonna be like today. Okay, so the second part of this component, and this is a little more straightforward. It may be obvious, but what do my eyes tell me? Think about where you enter the green at your local municipal, your muni, your country club, wherever you're playing. It's wherever the cart path drops you. But what I want you to start doing is looking around and looking at the features of this particular green that you're on. Where's the high point? No matter what anybody says, putts go downhill. They don't go uphill unless they're hit by something or deflected. Grain runs 99% of the time down the hill. It'll face the setting sun, it'll chase the water, but that is all the same. It's down the hill. Water runs down the hill. It doesn't roll up the hill. Enter the green. We're gonna use our feet. What does this green feel like today? Oh my gosh, this green feels more spongy than the first green or than some other green that I'm on. And then secondly, I'm gonna look around and go, wow, that is much more of a high point to the left. And this to the right, there's a lot of slope on this green that goes from left to right. And if I'm putting up that hill, I need to know that. And more importantly, if I'm putting down that hill, I need to know that. So look around, check out your surroundings, make some mental notes of what's going on, especially if you're playing the same golf course all the time, folks, this will really help you putt better. This is tip number eight. And we are getting our bodies stacked by knees, hips, shoulders stacked right on top of each other. And then you'll see how my forearms will fall right into place. Patrick, would you come take and take one of these aiming rods and stick them on my forearm, please? Or you can use your putter just to show the folks how this matches right down the line. That's so important. Now, when I'm set up like this, now I'm prepared to hit this putt. So knees, hips, shoulders stacked, hand on the front edge of the ball, and we just roll it right in the hole. Without a question, the most common error for the amateur golfer is the open shoulders. So they'll do a pretty good job of their knees and hips being stacked, but I'll see this look here. So when you see me ready to hit this putt, you can see my left forearm, you can see how my body is stacked in a way where I am solid and right on top of each other. Now look what happens when I adopt what most amateurs feel like is a square position to them. Where has my left side gone? You cannot see my left side at all. Here's what happens next. The putter comes out this way, and here's where the ball goes. Almost every time, but it makes sense. Our arms are connected to our shoulders. If our shoulders are misaligned, our arms are gonna swing on that line. You can get to the point where you can start sensing something's wrong, and then when you go this way, then you'll start to go this way to try to get the ball back on line, and guess what you've just created? The hips. Get those shoulders stacked on top of those hips. Get this putter soling correctly, nice, even distribution, hands on the front edge of the ball, and let the putter go back and through. That is a massive way to make more putts and to putt better. Welcome to tip number nine, and number nine is getting the ball started on line and aiming your putter. I've got the putting template right here. What's cool about this, the putting template, is that it's got a mirror on here so I can see, and I want my eyes right in this area right here, just on the inside part of the ball, and then I've got my hands lined up there. As I look down at this, folks, you can see your eyes, you can see the hat, you can see what you need to see. It's a nice little, okay, cool, I'm in the right position, now let's putt. So I'm gonna stand here, look at the hole, do my routine, putt, and knock that thing in. Okay, we're keeping it really, really simple, especially on these short putts. Now, we've mentioned earlier, the most important thing for holing short putts is getting that ball hit out of the center of the clubface. With it aimed correctly from my putting template, I know that I'm pointed in the right direction. Now I'm gonna hit it solidly in the middle, and I'm gonna pick it up out of the hole. So now I'm gonna go show you my next favorite device to help me make more putts. And this is called the putting arc, and it's super, super cool. There's actually two ways you can use this putting arc. You can use it with the heel of your putter and keep the heel of the putter, or you can use the toe of your putter. You can go either way with this. The key on this is getting the ball the right position away from the arc so that when I swing it, I can hit the ball in the center of my face. And once it's lined up just right, folks, this is going to feel magical to you. It is going to be hard for you to miss this putt once you get her lined up right. Every time, every time, the putting arc. So what I'm doing with this putt, you guys, is I'm keeping the heel of my putter squarely on the arc. Look, I'm not going like this, and I'm not going like this. So this also helps you with your face rotation. I'll give you a little secret, another secret from the tour. When you get this just right, take your tee and make a little hole in the ground. So now you know that when you hit your next putt, because none of us want to just hole one, we want hole 15 or 20, I stick it in that hole. You're just going to fill them up. Get ready to do this. It's a great feeling. This putting arc, you can buy it online, anywhere. It's a great little device. But if you notice, it's got a built-in arc for you already. So when I have the heel of my putter on this arc, I track it along the arc, and it takes care of how much my putter needs to move for me. This is a way to help. We mentioned training and trusting. This is a way that makes it so, so easy. I also told you there's two ways to use it. You can also put the toe of your putter. It might help you visually to do that. I'll show you what that looks like. Now, again, I can't reiterate to you enough. We've got to get this ball, the correct distance away from the arc so that I'm striking the putt right in the center of my putter face. So here we go. This is the putting arc. I've got the toe of my putter on here. I'm just going to let the toe of my putter track along there. I'm going to stroke it through there. Guys, this is such a great tool to help you with your putter because it will help you train just how much arc you need in your stroke to hold more putts. It's designed for you already. You're there. One of the reasons why I like to have the folks that I'm helping with their game use the arc on the toe is because the majority of amateurs, they like to take their putter too far inside. And when you have this arc on the toe, you need to keep a slight amount of pressure on the toe of your putter, which actually gets it to go a little straighter back and take away a little of that inside path rotation, which I think is a killer for putting. So use the arc, use both ways. You can use it on the heel. That's self-explanatory. Turn it around and put it on the toe too. It'll help you hold more putts. We're at tip number 10. So how do we read greens? And how do we make putts that break? I'm a feel-oriented guy and a target-oriented guy. So when I go up there, I am looking at a spot where I want my ball to roll, but depending on the speed that I choose, how do I know what the line is going to be? It's really, really an interesting, I'll say formula for lack of better words, but when most people get on to the green and they hit their first putts, usually they charge it way, way by the hole. And I want to tell you that the ratio from the stroke to the ball that you hit is not one-to-one. It's nearly two-to-one. What most people come right out of the gates with is usually twice as hard. And this is everything in putting because it's about speed and line. What you have to learn is which length of stroke with how much acceleration gives me what distance. That's everything. I can't help you with that. Only you can help you. I can put these concepts in your mind and then it will help you solve those so much faster. But it's all about speed and your line. So when we're stroking putts, how do we match our line and our speed? Well, I've got this little breaking putt right here. It's not very long. It's about a 10 footer. But if you see what I did, I placed a tee out to the left of the hole right here. That's just under a cup left of the hole because that's what I've determined how much this putt's gonna break. So I want to aim my face of my putter at that area and try to match up my speed to get it to take that much break to have it go in the hole. Folks, really crucial. I am trying, and every other tour player is trying to hit a true straight putt and let the contours of the green move the ball. I'm not trying to hook it. I'm not trying to cut it. I got a left to right putt. I'm not trying to hit a little bitty fade. I'm trying to hit it straight and start it on this line. So how am I gonna do that? My body's going to be stacked. I've got a putter I love. I'm soling it correctly. My hands are on the front end. My head is in great position. I'm lining at that tee and I'm stroking it there and I'm going to get it because I just got a ball up and down or I made a birdie or I just made a putt to win my club championship. That's why we're here to help you make more putts. We're finally here to tip number 11. This last part is about face and path. How much face rotation do I want? What do I want my path to look like? We'll talk about path first. Everything in golf, everything in golf is a circle. It's an arc. There are no straight lines. If I took a straight line with my putter, it would look like that. There's a tiny, tiny little arc. What we don't want to get too much of, folks, is this. We don't want to get too rounded. We don't want to get up and down this way. We want our path. If you can get yourself set up like we mentioned, your path is going to work itself out beautifully. Here's what I mean by that. We're stacking knees, hips, shoulders. Again, hate to be redundant, but it's that important. You need to get set up perfectly here. Hands on the front edge of the ball. We use our bigger muscles to start to putter back and then to stroke it through. I can't tell you how hard you have to hit a putt. I can't tell you how soft to hit it. You've got to figure that out, but that's the fun part. It's like everyone's fingerprint. It's different for everybody. We're talking next part that is really important that you'll see most tour players have very, very little face rotation. What is face rotation? It means how much of this putter face is rotating. I'm a right-handed golfer, so it's rotating to my right as I stroke it back. How much of it goes like that? Let me get it over here so you can see. How much of it goes like that? The answer is next to none. I will say this, for the countless amateurs that I have helped with their putting, they rotate the face of the putter too much, too much. And they also have too much path movement, too much path rotation. So their path usually comes too far in and their face matches it. So it looks like this, folks, huge errors. I want a red X over that. I don't want you to ever, ever do that. Here's why. When I come this far inside with my face open, how much do I need to rotate that face back and on what path to get me square to knock this putt in? The answer is I have no idea. The problem is when you're under pressure, good luck. This never works. You will miss all of your putts. You'll hit your putts long and short and left and right. Every single problem you can have, this is why. This is why. So what are we going to do? We're going to stack it up. Hands on the front of the ball, 50-50 on our weight. You can go as far as 60-40. I remember telling you that. Our forearms are locked up. See how nicely you can see part of my left arm? I stroke the club back. I roll the club back and I stroke the putt through. I'm aiming towards that little aiming practice device that I stuck out there. In this case, it's a tee. And then I'm going to go get the putt after I make it. That's how you putt better. That's how you shoot lower scores. Don't go away. We got a bunch of drills to help reiterate all the things that we taught you today. Okay, so folks, one of the things we talked about earlier is that we gave you the 11 secrets to great putting straight from the PGA Tour. Now I'm going to give you drills to help you implement all of those things that you learned. And the first one is absolutely my favorite. It's called the clock drill. So it goes like this. Very simple. We start with four balls around the hole at two feet. After we knock these four in, we go to three feet. And then after we knocked the three footers in, we go to four feet. We need to make 12 putts. Here's the caveat. As soon as you miss, you got to start over. And people think, oh, this is easy. Just try it. And why is this drill so good? Because it puts pressure on you. You are practicing directly the way and how things are going to happen to you on the golf course when you're playing. You need this two footer to go in to win your club championship or to win your match or for whatever. So I run through my entire process, right? My stance, my head, my hands. Tap it in. I go through every one of these. Same thing. No shortcuts. Here's the point on why when we're putting with four balls that surround the hole, we're getting everything. Straight putts, left to right, right to left, uphill, downhill, everything. It's really, really crucial. We started two feet from the hole. We knocked those four putts in. We started three feet from the hole as I have it set up here. We knocked those in. And then we go to four feet. After we make all four of our four footers, we get to call the drill a day. But miss any one of the 12 putts, and we gotta start over and start from the beginning. Good luck with the clock drill. The next one I call the penny drill. And here's why the penny drill is so important. I mentioned to you before, golf is a side-on game. And what does that mean? That means as I stand to the ball, it's on my side. It's to the side of me. So when I look down at this ball and I wanna go towards the hole, I've got to make sure that my perspective as I look down at this ball is correct because my perspective is gonna affect the way my putter soles. It's gonna affect the way the putter aims. That's gonna trickle down and affect the path. It affects every single thing. In putting, I'm looking down at the ball to go in front of me. It's weird. It's just different. And so here's what we use for the penny drill. Here's about a five-foot putt. I've got a penny in my hand. I get behind this and I am gonna place this penny within one foot of my ball so that when I putt this putt, it needs to roll directly over the center of that penny to go in the hole. Now I'm gonna stand over the putt and what I know from using my binocular vision that if I hit this putt the way that I want to, it's gotta roll straight over the penny. Now when I stand over here, where does that penny look like it is in my vision? Oftentimes, folks, and I love to hear from you on this, oftentimes it's gonna look right or it's gonna look left. For most right-handers, they're left-aimers, so it's going to look left. And you're gonna go, wait a minute, wait a minute, that is completely off, something's wrong. And you're correct, it's your perspective. So we're gonna get over this thing. Now I'm gonna go through my normal routine, look at that penny, stroke the putt, roll it straight over the penny and into the hole. So we talked about a lot of things today in our 11 tips, but the positioning of your head and how it sits, is it back like this? That changes your perspective. Is it up like this? We showed you those examples earlier. It changes your perspective. Look, even tilting your head this much changes your perspective. I know it sounds like a lot of details and perhaps it is for you, but it's crucially important that we get you playing out of the same place every single day so that when you're striking that putt, it comes off the center of the face and goes in that hole. We're lowering your scores by helping you putt better. Okay, so now I'm here and I'm gonna show you a couple tips to help you with your speed control, especially on your longer putts. Remember, we're eliminating three putting. How are we doing that? We're gonna try to hole every single putt. We are not trying to get this ball close, we are trying to hole every single putt. So here's the putt that I'm faced with. It's severely downhill and it's 60 feet of putt. There's two ways to work on your speed control here. You can close your eyes when you putt or you can look at the hole. I'm gonna show you both. I want you to go through your normal routine. I get a feel for what I'm doing. I feel how hard I wanna hit it. I'm setting up to the ball. Now I'm ready to go. And instead of going back to the ball, I look at the hole and off it goes. That putt felt really, really good. Here's what's interesting when you don't look at the ball. First of all, it'll freak you out. It completely strips away your visual side here. And all you have left is how did I hit the ball in the face of my putter? Did I hit it fat? You might experience that when you start. I'm gonna do that again. I'm gonna go through my routine. Oh, that felt good. I wanna try to duplicate that stroke. Looking at the hole and off she goes. Look at how good my speed control is on that, folks. Okay, so let me show you the other way to do it. So we're gonna do the exact same routine. I'm gonna make my practice stroke. That feels good. Get myself all set up. Look at the hole. When I come back to the ball, I close my eyes. That one felt really, really good. Let's see what happened. So guys, I just hit three 60-footers. I've got one, what, six inches from the hole, Patrick? One eight inches from the hole and one a foot and a half from the hole. So that can really, really help you. Let me give you another tip that doesn't need a drill, but this needs to be in the back of your mind. I watch this all the time. Amateurs will get a downhill putt that they misread and hit too hard. And inevitably, 98% of the time, that next putt, you guys, is short. And I'm gonna help you with that right now. The downhill putt is super fast and you misjudged it. You're right. Okay, I hit it too hard. But now I don't have the same conditions. I've got an uphill putt. That uphill putt is probably twice as slow as the last putt so I can be more aggressive with that second putt. The bottom line is, we talked about this when we entered the green. Use your eyes to help you figure out, oh, this is a little uphill. Where's the high point? Oh, it's over here. So this ball's gonna go to my right or whatever it is. But just because your first putt was really fast, it probably means the next one is gonna be much, much slower so you can be much, much more aggressive. I see that all the time with amateurs. And if you can just get to that realization that this is an uphill versus a downhill, you'll hold more putts.