A kinematic investigation of five golf putting techniques

Golf putting accounts for roughly 40% of the strokes in a round of golf. Therefore, the ability to consistently make putts has great potential to lower the overall score of a round. The Professional Golf Association has recently implemented Rule 14- 1(b) stating no golfer can anchor the putter to any part of the body starting in January 2016. The purpose of this study was to see if there were kinematic differences between the anchored and unanchored putting techniques. This study took 21 expert level golfers (10 male, 11 female) and tested them for the following variables: Peak acceleration, acceleration at impact, time of peak acceleration, club path, club impact angle, swing displacement and putts made. Results showed that the anchored belly putting technique had significantly greater peak acceleration in the forward swing than unanchored belly putting. No other significant difference was found between anchored and unanchored putting techniques, rather between conventional, belly and long putting in general. A significant difference was found between males and females for club path as males had a path from left to right (inside to outside), while females path was from right to left (outside to inside) for the same recorded putt. In conclusion the data in this study did not clearly find a significant difference between anchored and unanchored putting techniques to support the new rule change.