I’ve been doing heads up putting for about 4 years now and I feel like I have better awareness of my face control and path in my stroke. I practiced it for a few months before trying it in the course and broke 80 for the first time that day so I’ve kept it going.
I do get some funny reactions when I play with new people and they realize I’m not looking at my ball when putting.
I sometimes putt heads-up on accident on short putts.
I’ll hit it and as it’s rolling I’ll think, “I wasn’t even looking at the ball.”
I’ve been a shockingly bad lag putter for most of my golfing life but very good at hitting my start line. Have been heads up on everything over 8 feet or so for 2 years now and it’s revolutionized my soul and golf game. Alignment can become a problem, mostly lead elbow going for a look at places it shouldn’t but overall it’s fantastic. Have been using it more and more on shorter putts too, particularly left to right putts. Also very fun to watch random playing partners try to work out if you’re having a stroke over the ball or not.
I’m somewhere in the middle. What helps me is when I’m set up over the ball I stare, stare, stare, stare, stare at the hole. I let it wash over me, then I look down and pull the putter head back.
This is me currently
I’ve been doing it for 10+ years at this point.
Say no more. Going to do a Stack session today with it and give it a whirl this weekend. It makes total sense to my brain why it would be better
I started just doing it in college during practice and started thinking to myself “man my speed is really good doing this”. And the more I thought about it and how it relates to shooting a basketball or throwing a football or baseball or whatever it made more and more sense. There’s definitely a cutoff point in terms of distance from the hole where I start looking at the ball again cause I’m worried about taking a big rip at it and really mishitting it, but inside of 20 feet it’s always looking at the hole.
Sometimes if I’m putting down a ridge or some crazy downhill thing, I’ll pick a spot out that I’m trying to stop the ball at. Genuinely, I think a lot of people will be amazed at how you won’t really mishit or push/pull many putts relative to looking at the ball.
Similar to other people here, people I play with for the first time won’t notice until way through the round a lot of the times which is always fun.
I’ve done a similar thing with claw grip. My primary miss was pulls, claw eliminated that, but outside of 20 feet it gets a little wonky
I warm up doing it. Meaning, to adjust the quickest to the speed of the greens that day, I do heads up putting so I can see the full roll of the ball to the hole.
I putt really well, with really good distance control, so I don’t putt heads up, but I kinda do… I take a “picture” of the hole in my mind and when I look back at the ball, I am still “seeing” the hole in a sort of picture-in-picture look. I’m still “putting to the picture” like Tiger talks about.
I’ve also learned that if I take it back outside a little, or roll the face open a little too much, or whatever… it probably won’t really affect the putt. I’ve holed so many putts hitting the ball with a path slightly left or right, or with the contact a little on the heel or toe… that I don’t really care if the backswing path or impact are absolutely perfect. Sometimes those imperfections might result in a make, and the make % on even a 15-footer isn’t super high.
So, is it heads up? No. But IMO I get the benefits of it without having to look away from the ball during the stroke. I am still “seeing” the hole (target) when I make my stroke.
Something I started doing last year which helped my distance control a lot, especially if the stimp changes from course to course or week to week, is a quick pre-round calibration.
Basically I find a reasonably flat spot on the putting green, hit 3 balls with a “inside big toe to inside big toe” stroke and pace it off. I then turn around and hit them back the same way and pace those off and take a general average. I do the same for pinky toes and “hands over pocket”. Typically they wind up being 4-6 paces, 9-11 paces, and 14-18 paces respectively.
It’s nice because it also kinda adjusts for any weirdness in my stroke/tempo that particular day.
I’ve found the most important part of using it on course is to not let it enter your actual putting execution.
Say its a 5-10-15 day and I quickly pace off 9 steps on a left to right downhiller, I’m not thinking 1.5 toes in or something as I hit the putt. The calibration just helps me know where I generally want to be from a stroke standpoint. I’ll make one or maybe two strokes focusing mainly on hitting that general stroke length with consistent tempo, just trying to get a feel, before I even approach the ball.
But, once I actually start execution, I’m just trying to see the hole, visualize the putt, and make the ball go there. After the preround calibrationI make sure to go through this process in full a few times on the putting green before I move to practicing a few 3-10 footers.
Once I started using it this way, it helped remove a lot of the anxiety about hammering one way by or coming up super short.
As someone who only gets to practice putting once a week at best. It’s helped a lot.
That’s great. Stealing this, playing a nice private on Sat which will undoubtedly have faster greens than my home course and practice area that I utilize
Make sure you don’t watch where the calibration putts go or you’ll naturally hit it harder/softer if you subconsciously think it should have rolled out more/less. Just keep looking down and execute the stroke length and tempo. Don’t look up til the last one comes off your putter.
It is so freeing. Only thing I will do is thud a wedge a couple of times before a pitch shot. I feel like that is the only style of shot where you would like to “feel” what you are about to hit with a practice swing. Practice swings with bigger clubs seem like they can only bring in negative thoughts unless you are really trying to groove a swing change.
Just saw @djpie insta reel of 9 holes putting heads up and I have to say that if nothing else, the pod and discussion on heads up putting has made me curious and want to go out and give it a try. I would never actively seek out a putting green just to practice, but this has me thinking about it.
I forget the hole, but he leaves one stone dead just to his right (our left) of the hole. Looks like the ball came off the toe just a hair, gotta think it drops if it comes out of the center. I wonder if he could’ve benefitted from a few strokes through the gate on the practice green???
+0.8, Scoring Avg down from 73.4 2024 to 72.2 2025, GIR up from 62% 2024 to 65% 2025
It’s been a good year 
I know exactly which one you’re talking about and it was a total misread. Still haunting me. Should have been in the jaws!
I was curious on your approach to this when you’ve got fairly large breaking putts. Of course pretty straight (edge/inside the hole) type break makes sense. but what about 10’ sliders that are well outside the hole - do you look at the hole? The side door of the hole its going in on? An aiming spot away from the hole?
Very fair. You definitely made the sale for me. Everything looked super instinctual, didn’t look like you were thinking too hard about hitting the perfect putt.
I need Dr. Mackenzie to come out with a heads up method for swinging the driver