PGA Tour player Alex Smalley vaulted into surprise contention at the Players Championship earlier this month off the back of a hot putter, which itself was inspired by a recent change: using the line on his golf ball.
It was a change he adopted on the suggestion of his new putting coach, Ralph Bauer:
“I never used a line on the ball until last summer. I used to just kind of put the ball down and lined it up with my putter. But now I’ve got a Sharpie line on the ball and I line it up where I want to start it. I think that has probably been the thing that has helped me most because obviously, if you’re not aiming it correctly, then the ball’s probably not going to go where you want it to. I would probably say more the line on the ball… [has] been a huge contributing factor.”
Bauer says he recommends using the line to most golfers – or to at the very least, try it – but does offer up one warning about how to use it best.
“A lot of golfers don’t use the line correctly when they’re standing on a sideslope,” Bauer explains. “They align the line along the slope, then adjust their setup so the line looks straight. They should be doing the opposite.”
Here’s Ralph demonstrating what he describes.
When the ball is on the right-to-left slope, golfers will often set their ball down so the line on the ball sits parallel to the slope.
A good way to check this is to simply take your setup and check if your eyes are way inside the ball. If the putter falls notably inside the ball, but the line on the ground appears straight, you’ve aligned the ball incorrectly.
When this happens, Bauer says golfers often subconsciously adjust their setup by sitting further back into their heels. It keeps their eyes way inside the ball. It makes the ball on the ground look straight, but screws up their posture.
“Now that your eyes are so far in the ball, it can mess up your stroke because your posture is all different than what you’re used to,” Bauer says.
Instead, Bauer explains that golfers should make sure they align the ball so it’s pointing where you want it to, but not so it’s parallel to the slope. It’ll almost feel like the ball is slightly on its side.
Run the same putter-under-eyes test and it will reveal what’s going on. Take your setup making sure your eyes are over (or close to directly over) the golf ball. If the line on your ball looks crooked when you do this, even though your eyes are over the ball, you probably aligned the ball on the ground incorrectly.
The key note here is that you don’t need to adjust your posture to the slope. The only thing that will change is the angle between your feet and shins.
“It’s just a little bit of an ankle adjustment,” Bauer says. “Nothing else should change.”
A small mistake to avoid, which will help you get the best of both worlds on the greens.
