Master Your Putt: The Simple Setup Test That Perfects Your Alignment

Much like the full swing, success on the greens is largely predicated upon a proper setup. Without a solid setup position, golfers will inevitably overcompensate with their stroke, making consistent putting incredibly difficult to achieve.

I speak from personal experience. As someone who has struggled on the greens for much of this season, discovering that my setup was incorrect was a true lightbulb moment for my game. When I visited GOLF Top 100 Teacher Stephen Sweeney earlier this summer for a putting tune-up, the very first things he identified were my poor setup fundamentals.

“If you look at the work I do with Tour players, a significant portion of my lessons is dedicated to the setup at the very start,” Sweeney explained. “Once we establish a solid setup, we can then move on to green-reading and speed control.”

If your setup is not solid, the rest of your work on the putting green will not yield optimal results. That is why mastering these fundamental basics is absolutely crucial.

Check out the video below for the full lesson, or continue reading to discover how you can perfect your own putting setup.

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How to Perfect Your Putting Setup

To putt at your best, proper eye alignment at address is essential. For me, this meant ensuring my eyes were positioned directly on top of the golf ball.

After Sweeney watched me hit a few putts, his first observation was that my eyes were positioned inside the ball—closer to my feet—at address. As a result, I was subconsciously aiming to the right of the hole and struggling to pull the ball back on line with my stroke.

“If a player’s eyes are inside the ball line, they will naturally tend to look out to the right,” Sweeney noted. “As you make your stroke, the putter moves on the inside, directly affecting your aim and overall stroke path.”

To help correct my eye position, Sweeney put me through a quick setup test that has long been trusted by old-school Tour players.

“It is as simple as dropping a ball from your eye line and observing where it lands,” Sweeney explained. “Right now, if I drop a ball from your eyes, you can see that it is landing inside the ball.”

This visual proof made it immediately clear that I needed to hinge at the waist further and position my eyes more out over the ball. After adjusting my posture, we repeated the test, and the dropped ball landed directly on top of the ball on the ground.

“As a general rule of thumb, I like to see about two putter-head widths between the ball and the toe line,” Sweeney said. “From there, we bend forward at the hips until the eyes are positioned directly over the golf ball.”

Once my eyes were properly aligned over the ball, it became significantly easier to consistently strike the ball and send it exactly where I was aiming.

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