Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins
Yup.
He has a fatal flaw in his putting stroke and it always shows up in majors.
People forget that after he laced that 6-iron from the pine straw at Augusta he missed a four footer straight up the hill, a hole cut in a location he had played, literally, about 20 years in a row.
You can putt effectively with three strokes. A swinging gate stroke where the putter opens way up on the backswing then closes to square at impact. A stroke with a slight arc, and a stroke that is straight back and straight through.
Phil actually starts the putter outside the line, then cuts across the putt. His margin of error is a fraction of other putters, because his path is closed to the target line, which means that his face has to be marginally open to offset that. It's too hard to control in pressure situations. The forward press exacerbates problems by making his putter loft inconsistent and driving the ball into the ground rather than using the putter's effective loft to get it out of the small depression and then on line.
Tiger's stroke was always square to the path of his stroke, which allowed him to focus on pace, and if he got that down he was either making everything or burning edges on 15+ foot putts.
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Phils hands are so great, that they actually get him into trouble in pressure situations. In those times, you can't rely on your hands.
Thats why Tiger was so great of a putter for so long, he had a pretty simple stroke.