One of the most common reasons for missing a putt is that it trails off to the right.
When you watch a putt start out going right, or turn towards the right as it gets close to the hole, it can be very discouraging.
Luckily, you can do things to ensure that your putt starts to go straight, and you can avoid these annoying misses.
Golfers who learn to hit the ball straight at the cup have a much easier time making putts.
The more putts you make, the lower you will be able to score.
Here are some of the reasons that you may be missing putts to the right and some ways to fix them.
Missing Putts to the Right—Causes
The causes of missing your putt to the right will vary depending on what type of player you are.
It may take you a bit of time to figure out which one of these issues could be behind why you are not hitting the putt properly.
Make sure to investigate each one thoroughly before you decide which is the one you need to correct.
1. Aiming and Alignment
The most obvious cause of missing a putt to the right is that you are not aimed properly.
Aiming in putting is just as important, if not even more so, as aiming in the full swing.
You may think that you only have a short distance to go to the hole, but there is still reason to ensure you are aimed properly.
Aiming in golf takes a long time to understand.
Since your stance is facing one way and your target another, it takes a while to understand visually and mentally what is involved with aiming and alignment.
When working on aiming and alignment, use golf shaft alignment sticks to ensure that you are directing yourself appropriately to the target.
Always pick a straight target when you are practicing alignment.
Choose a putt that does not break, and set up about ten feet from the hole.
Put your lines in place, and always make sure your clubface and body are properly aligned each time.
Practice this until you feel comfortable and as if you have come up with a pre-shot routine.
Once you feel as though you have perfected something, you can then see if it impacts whether your putts are continually heading right.
Most golfers will be quite pleased to find that alignment is their issue.
2. Standing Too Far from the Ball
When you stand too far from the ball when putting, you may have a tendency to hit the ball towards the toe of the club.
Hitting the ball on the toe of the club will cause it to head to the right.
If you want to make solid contact with the center of the clubface, you must make sure that you have the ball lined up in the center of the clubface.
In addition, you have to ensure that you can return the clubface to the center of the ball as well.
Standing too far from the golf ball is one of the major reasons that golfers hit their shots to the right.
This is quite easy to fix as you can simply move closer to the ball and get the ball lined up with the center of the face again.
In addition, when you move closer to the golf ball, you should be able to get your eyes over the top of the ball.
Having your eyes over the top of the ball makes it much easier to see the line of the putt and to ensure that you are on that line.
3. Ball Too Far Back in Stance
If the ball is too far back in your stance, you may make contact with it long before you should.
If you have an arcing putting stroke, when you swing the club back, the putter face opens a bit and then squares and shuts a bit as you swing through.
With the ball being too far back in the stance, there is no time for the putter face to square up.
Essentially, you are making contact with the ball when the putter is still open and has not squared up.
Overall, the ball being too far back in the stance is an easy issue to fix.
You should be able to move your ball slightly forward of center, and everything will be just fine with your putting stroke.
It can sometimes be beneficial to use the help of a mirror and a video camera to set up and determine the lines of your putting stroke and how you should ensure that you can make solid contact.
There is a lot you can learn when you video your putting stroke and play it back in slow motion.
Putting occurs over such a short period of time that you really don’t have time to process all that is going on.
When you video yourself and then slow things down to ensure that you are doing them correctly, then you will be able to truly see what you need to work on.
4. Open Club Face at Impact
If you hit the ball to the right, chances are the clubface was open at impact.
If the clubface is open, your golf ball will end up heading to the right of the target.
There are several reasons that could lead to an open face at impact.
These things could be related to your swing path, or they can even be related to the mechanics of your golf putting stroke.
Players who use their large muscles in their stroke, such as their shoulders, are going to have an easier time than golfers who use their hands and wrists.
If you are working on getting your smaller muscles to be less active in your swing, you may notice that this has an impact on the way that the golf ball travels.
It’s essential to ensure the stroke is consistent as possible.
To ensure that it is consistent, you must have your clubface square at setup and return it to square at impact.
Overall, keeping the clubface square throughout your entire putting game is something that many players struggle with long term.
You will feel that there are times when the clubface twists and turns, and it ends up being the reason you struggle to shoot lower golf scores.
5. Stroke Path Issues
Just as a golf swing can cause an issue with the path, so can the putting stroke.
There are two basic types of putting strokes: an arc and a straight back, straight through stroke.
If you can get your club to travel on the proper putting path, chances are you will make many more putts.
Overall, stroke path issues that cause the ball to go to the right can be due to the path being too outside-in.
When you swing the putter back, the club comes a bit outside.
As you swing through, the club starts to cross through the ball, and it ends up on the inside in the finish.
The outside-in path tends to cut across the ball and create a side spin on the ball that will eventually make the ball spin or roll more towards the right side of the hole.
Stroke path issues can also be from an inside to outside putting stroke.
If you are taking the club too far inside and not rolling the clubface over, chances are it will be open at impact.
As you can see, if your swing path is off, it can cause your putt to miss to the right.
6. Deceleration
One of the most common mistakes that golfers make is they slow down their swing as they get close to the impact position.
Many players feel like they can’t be confident as they make their way through impact.
This, in turn, means that the golfers have a hard time feeling as though they can keep their acceleration up as they move through the impact position.
In every shot you hit in golf, you should be moving the clubhead forward with speed.
As soon as you slow down this speed, the chance for error is significantly increased.
Keep the club accelerating, and you will see lots of shots start to straighten themselves out.
Missing Putts to the Right—Fixes
As we have mentioned, there are several reasons you will miss the ball to the right when you putt.
Finding out which of these reasons is causing you the most trouble in your game is an essential step towards finding a fix.
Once you have the reason down, you can start to figure out if there are ways you work on fixing them.
There are, however, some general good practices to follow when you want to become a better putter.
Let’s look at some of these and see which ones make the most sense for your golf game.
1. Practice with Chalk Lines and Alignment Sticks
One of the things to make sure of is that you are always practicing your putting stroke the proper way.
If you don’t practice appropriately, there is no way to bring it to the golf course.
To practice properly, you should have lines on the ground that show exactly where your club should be and the line where your ball should travel.
If you have the putting green set up with this information, then you will likely be able to work on perfecting your stroke and the angle of your shots.
When your alignment is off, and you have no baseline for what you are practicing, things get quite a bit more complicated.
2. Ensure You Have the Right Equipment
You should have the right equipment when you are putting.
Is the reason you are leaving the putt to the right so often that you don’t have a putter that fits you well?
Make sure that, in addition to choosing the putter style, you also get something that has the right feel and length for you.
If putters are too long, sometimes you stand far from the ball, and it causes the ball to go to the right.
In addition, you must ensure that you have either a mallet or a blade that will help you make more consistent contact.
If you play on fast greens, always consider the weight of your putter as well.
There are many factors that go into putter fitting and they all must be in place in order to hit a great shot and make more putts.
3. Always Keep Your Head Down While You Putt
When you are putting, it is essential to keep your head down and swing through your shots.
If you pick your head up, the ball will go to the right.
One way to practice this is to hit shots on the green with your head down, not even looking at the hole.
The more you do this, the better chance you have of making real changes and seeing improvement in your putting abilities.
When your head turns too much, the result will be that the ball goes to the right.
Best Drills for Practicing Putting
Now that you have a better idea of what it takes to fix the issues of hitting your putts to the right, it can be helpful to have a few drills to get better at putting.
These drills are known for helping golfers who have had trouble with the ball going too far to the right.
If you use these drills properly, you should have no issues learning to hit the ball straight again.
1. Two-Ball Drill
The next time you head out to practice, take one ball and put it just above the toe of your putter.
Then take a second ball and put it just below the heel of your putter.
When you swing the club back and through, ensure that the putter fits between these two balls at the point of impact.
If you happen to tap either of the balls, you will know that your putting stroke is off and could be causing these missed shots.
The two-ball drill is a classic, and it works pretty well to help you square up the lines on your putter, and it gets you hitting the ball straight.
2. Track Drill
Another idea is to set up a track on the putting green using your clubs or even golf alignment sticks.
When you set up a track, you will want to set it up just a bit wider than the width of your putter.
The idea is to swing your putter within the track and keep the ball within the track the entire time.
You can putt to a hole or just a spot on the green.
The main purpose behind a drill like this is to get you to see some lines on the putting green and how they will work to affect your impact position.
3. One Third, Two Third
Another great putting drill is the one third, two third putting drill.
With this drill, you are going to work on taking a short backswing and a longer follow through.
This concept helps players who have a hard time with deceleration through the golf shot.
As you swing through the ball, you always want the club to be moving forward at a higher rate of speed.
As the club moves forward at the proper pace, you can see that the ball will roll on a better line, and it will travel to the intended target a bit more easily.
When your golf club slows down, the hit will feel less clean, and the ball will wobble and vibrate a bit as it rolls.
Sometimes this tiny bit of movement and wobble will end up causing the ball to go offline and miss the cup.
Putting is a precise game, and learning to be more intentional about your swing is only going to make you a better player.
With the one third, two third drill, put a golf tee in the ground about five inches back from the ball and another about ten inches in front of the ball.
Work on making sure that your backswing stops at the back tee and finishes through towards the front tee.
This putting stroke length will vary depending on the length of the putt, but the concept is a good one to get down.
Leave a Reply