Mastering Your Golf Putt: Stephen Sweeney's Tips for Success!
Coach Stephen Sweeney breaks down the tips he provided that helped improve Michael Thorbjornsen's putting and take his game as a whole to the next level.
Video Transcript
I wanna try this, and he was gonna stand, you know, super open.
Um- and I, I brought this little thing from my, from my studio just up the street where I was just trying to get him to move the putter pretty clean on, online.
Mm-hmm.
But obviously his baseline there, you know, you can see with his lower body's just so wide open to the left and, and then- Yeah, I see that, man when we looked at his face on, it was causing him problems as well with where his ball position was relative to his feet.
Yeah.
So because he turned his feet and his whole lower body so far to the left- Mm-hmm effectively his ball position relative to his feet- Forward had gotten way, way, way back and in.
Oh, it's gotten back.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow, look at that.
So- I can see that so this was, this was at Palm Beach, at the Cognizant.
Um- He doesn't look happy in that putt either.
He didn't.
He's already mad on the putting green.
That's when you know he's a guy that's frustrated with his, with his game at the time.
Yeah, so I mean, we, you know, we, we come off, we come off this, this week and, you know, it, it wasn't a brilliant week on the greens.
Obviously Pebble he'd struggled and, you know, JJ, his caddy, and myself, we've had a, a pretty long relationship now.
You know, we both had worked together with Collin Morikawa.
Yeah.
And, you know, I feel, I feel like I've had a lot of support and confidence from JJ over the years.
And- Mm-hmm when we got to Bay Hill then the following week, you know, he was in an elevated event, but I was like, "Look, dude, do you, do you wanna look like the best putter in the world first of all?
Because we First of all, you don't look like a good putter.
And, and second of all, you know, I think there just needs to be some changes that are really gonna help you long term."
And one of the things he really struggled with when he stood like this was he would hit it off the heel a lot.
Mm-hmm.
And he draws the- Would he do that too?
Yeah, big time.
So it, you know, he draws the golf ball, so it, a lot of the draw components in his golf swing w- the path was working sup- super in to out, the ball's back in his stance.
Like- Mm-hmm.
That makes sense kinda things you'd wanna see for a draw.
Yeah.
So you know, the ball kinda starting right of his, off his baseline from his feet.
So- Yeah these were the things that I, I just didn't like seeing from him, and we got a chance to go, to go into my putting studio as well and, and baseline some numbers.
So, we just went back to, like, real basics, and I, and I said to him, I was like, "Look, if you were gonna teach a five-year-old how to putt, how would you, how would you explain it to them?"
And, you know, he was like, "Well, if they were standing on train tracks and the, the ball and the putter was on one train track and my feet were on the other train track, and then you just basically move your shoulders and the, and the putter goes back and through and the ball starts down that line."
So you can see here we worked on, on getting the shaft lined up, with that shaft on the grou- Yeah with that stick on the ground.
Mm-hmm.
The ball position looks better too.
Ball's- Yeah way more forward, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
He was, he was able to stay in the putt a lot easier.
He wasn't sort of backing up and out of it because of his ball position being so far back as well.
And you know, the first thing he said after we took these, these two videos was like, "Oh, I actually look like a good putter in these videos."
Hey, that was, something you were trying to get him to at least, visually look like that he knew what he was doing.
And I, I, I can see it here, man.
Like, when you have an open stance and the ball back, th- there's not a whole lot of good that can come from that.
You might have one hot putting round, but over the course of a season, putting on different grasses, different speeds- Mm-hmm having to adjust with wind day in and day out, you got no chance to be a good putter out there.
At least one of the better putters on the PGA Tour to get to the level that he wants to get to.
Yeah.
Yeah, and, and obviously you can see it from this angle massively where- Yeah you know, his, his knees, his feet, everything have lined up way better.
He's hitting it way more out of the center of the putter and, you know, it actually cleaned up a lot of his speed as well because he started hitting the ball way more out of the center of the face.
Mm-hmm.
And weirdly these were d- these were changes that we made the week of Phoenix when he almost won.
And then, you know, with Pebble being the week after, he You know, it had worked for one week, then obviously it went bad, and then by Cognizant he was like, "I'm just gonna try something."
Yeah.
And, and, and this was sort of JJ, you know, really being a massive help as a caddy getting into, getting into it with, with him and saying, "Look, this, this worked.
Like, don't give up on it so quickly.
Let's get back to this."
And, you know, the, the, the difference is, is obviously pretty ap- apparent from, from the eye, you know?
