Photographs by Walter Iooss Jr.“IF YOU FEEL TENSE
OVER A PUTT,
BACK OFF AND RESET.”
bury the putt▶ Hopefully you’ve chipped to
within gimme distance. But the
nip-spinner is often needed for
tough situations, so even leaving
a six- or seven-foot putt might
be a good outcome. Regardless
of the length, I’m going to let
you in on a recent revelation I’ve
had with my putting: I need to
get lazy. By that, I mean I want
everything about my stance and
stroke to feel super-relaxed,
almost sleepy. When my putting
is off, there’s usually tension
somewhere in my body. I think
everybody is the same when
they start missing putts—they
start making tiny adjustments as
they search for something that
works. Before you know it, you’re
standing uncomfortably. Get lazy
is a great thought to get back to
making a good stroke. When I
was struggling with my putting
for a period, my coach, Cameronmaintain belief▶ When you first practice this
shot, be prepared that you’ll
probably blade a lot of them.
Don’t worry. Stick with it, and
you’ll figure out the feeling of
suppleness in the wrists that
lets you pinch the ball off the
turf. Keep asking yourself:
How fast can I swing while
making the ball travel the
shortest distance possible?
When I’m in a tournament
and the opportunity comes
to hit this shot, my typical
mistake is not committing to
the necessary speed. I’ll
decelerate, and the ball will
pop up high, right and short
of where I intended. Depending
on the slope of the green,
the ball still might finish a
reasonable distance from the
hole, so it’s not a horrible miss.
Still, if you want to get it
close, you’ve got to keep the
speed up through impact.McCormick, did an amazing
amount of work studying video
of me from 2015 and 2016. We
discovered that I had developed
this unnatural C-shape look to
my back and that my arm plane
was disconnected from the shaft
plane. Though these problems
were unique to me and my
cross-handed putting style, the
universal lesson is that whenever
you have a great putting day, ask
someone to snap a photo of you
at setup. If/when things go awry,
you’ll have a useful image to work
back to. It’s about the easiest
way for golfers to make use of
their phones, and it’s visual proof
that you’re capable of burying a
putt and saving par. •commit to speed
▶ I learned how to hit the
nip-spinner when I was 13 or 14.
Before then, I didn’t have the
strength and swing speed to
pull it off. I use a lob wedge, and
to the untrained eye the motion
looks similar to a flop shot. It’s a
long backswing relative to how
short the shot travels, and the
downswing path is heavy out-
to-in, cutting across the ball.
The difference between it and
a flop is impact. With a flop, the
club comes in shallow and slides
under the ball. With the
nip-spinner, the club comes
in steep to meet the ball first,
then the turf. There’s a lot of
interaction between the club and
the turf, so you’ll make a divot—
or at least scuff the grass pretty
good. My main swing thought
is, hold my left wrist flat through
the shot so the clubhead never
passes the hands. It’s a low,
cut motion at the bottom of the
swing. Instead of the ball sliding
up the clubface, the grooves grip
the cover of the ball to create a
lower trajectory and a ton of spin.