I Asked a Tour Coach to Fix My Putting. He Made Two Simple Fixes

GOLF.com game-improvement editor Zephyr Melton went through a putting fundamentals bootcamp with Tour coach Stephen Sweeney to fix his struggles on the greens.

When Melton was a kid, putting was the strongest part of his game. He did not always have access to a driving range, but the putting green was free. Most evenings after dinner, he would head to the course and hit putts until sunset.

Now, as a thirty-something living in New York City, Melton faces the opposite problem: he can practice his swing on a simulator almost any time, but there are few putting greens nearby. As a result, he has become a much better ball-striker than putter.

In recent months, his lack of confidence on the greens became increasingly frustrating. What was once a major strength had turned into an obvious weakness. Ten-foot putts that he used to welcome began to fill him with dread, and putting was no longer fun.

Melton turned to Stephen Sweeney, one of the leading putting coaches and a GOLF Top 100 Teacher. His students include Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Aberg, Joaquin Niemann and others.

Sweeney began with the fundamentals—grip, posture, aim and alignment. On a straight, flat putt, he had Melton roll several putts and used video to identify two setup flaws.

1. Poor eye alignment

Melton’s eyes were not directly over the ball. They were inside the ball line, closer to his body. Sweeney said players in that position tend to look to the right. As the putter goes back, it moves slightly inside while remaining roughly square to the intended direction.

Because of his eye position, Melton subconsciously aimed to the right of the hole. He then used an inside-to-out path, trying to draw the ball back to the starting line—similar to the compensation used during a full swing.

But a putting stroke is too short for those full-swing compensations to work. The result was poor alignment and a stroke that did not start the ball consistently on a straight line.

To fix the issue, Sweeney had Melton bend slightly more forward so his eyes moved more directly over the ball. He suggested imagining a low, tabletop-like crouch, similar to Michelle Wie West’s position at the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open.

A simple ball-drop test can check the adjustment. After the player takes their stance, a ball is held directly beneath the eyes and dropped. In Melton’s old stance, it landed about two inches inside his ball position. In the new stance, it landed directly on the ball on the ground.

“As a general rule of thumb, I like to see about two putter-head widths from the ball to the toe line,” Sweeney said. “Then we go into forward bend at the hips until we get the eyes over the golf ball.”

Once his eyes were over the ball, Melton found it much easier to start the ball consistently where he was aiming.

2. Incorrect putter-face alignment

A properly aimed putter face is another crucial element of good putting. But because of his setup, Melton was misaligned here, too: before every putt, the face was aimed roughly one to two balls to the right of the hole.

“We can see on every putt a little bit of face closure,” Sweeney said. “Then we are trying to pull that ball back on line.”

The initial cause of this error was Melton’s eye position. So even when he hit the putt “straight,” the ball started to the right of the hole.

Once his eyes were more directly over the ball, it became much easier to aim the putter face at the center of the hole. To check it, Sweeney showed him a simple method using a phone as a training aid.

“Just go ahead and set up and aim your putter face,” Sweeney explained. “If I set the back of my phone against your putter face and you look down that line, you can see the face is aimed at the right edge. It is a really simple way—if you put a scorecard or another straight edge against your putter face, you can see where you are aimed.”

Before changing his setup, Melton consistently aimed the putter face to the right. After two simple adjustments, he could easily aim it directly at the center of the hole.