You’ve read the break perfectly. You’ve squared the face to your line. You trust the putt. And then… it misses. Lip out. Or worse, it starts online only to dive left or slide right.
Most golfers blame their read. But often, the culprit happens in the milliseconds before impact. You change the clubface angle during the stroke. You roll your wrists, closing the face for a left miss (anti-clockwise spin). Or you let your hands lead too much, leaving the face open for a right miss (clockwise spin).
Here’s the problem with that side spin: when your ball hits the lip, that spin acts like a slingshot, ejecting the ball out of the hole. To make putts, you need near-zero side spin—so the lip guides the ball in with overspin.
You don’t need a launch monitor to fix this. You need a pen and an elastic band. (See photo 1)
Take any standard pen. Using the elastic band, strap it horizontally to the front face of your putter grip (the flat surface) just below your bottom hand (see photo’s 2 and 3). The pen should point at 90 degrees to the angle of the putter’s face – meaning that the pen is parallel to the aim of the blade.
The Test
(I have placed down some alignment rods to assist with visual understanding)
Address the ball. Make your normal putting stroke. At the exact moment of impact, freeze. Now look down at that pen. Ask yourself:
- Is the pen parallel to my target line? Perfect. Your face is square at impact. (photo 4)
- Is the tip of the pen pointing left of the target? This means the toe has overtaken the heel. Your clubface is closed at impact. You’re imparting anti-clockwise spin. (photo 5)
- Is the tip of the pen pointing right of the target? Your heel is leading. The face is open. That’s clockwise spin. (photo 6)
The Fix
Make practice strokes while simply watching the pen. Your only goal is to return the pen so it points parallel to your starting line at the moment of impact (as in photo 4).
This visual feedback is brutally honest. If the pen isn’t parallel to your target line at impact, your putt never had a chance as the putter face wouldn’t have been square at impact either.
Try it for five minutes before your next round. You’ll stop blaming the green and start controlling the face and in doing so apply over-spin to the ball which will keep your putt online and get rid of any unwanted sidespin. That’s how you will turn lip-outs into drop-ins.