What can I study from Cameron Smith’s placing to make me higher on the greens?

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Welcome to Play Good, a recreation enchancment column and podcast from editor Luke Kerr-Dineen that will help you play smarter, higher golf.

With the mud properly and really settled on Cameron Smith’s 2022 Open Championship win, we’re developing for air to interrupt down the actually essential query about Cameron Smith’s iconic placing efficiency?

What can I study from Cameron Smith’s placing to make me higher on the greens?

That’s the query my co-host Reed Howard and I break it in our inaugural episode of the Play Good podcast. The podcast drops twice every week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and every episode solely spans about 10 minutes, so it’s a tidy means of getting some good golf data in small, manageable doses.

In relation to Cam Smith, we break down a number of attention-grabbing issues he does that assist him carry out so properly. Smith himself says he pays additional shut consideration to his setup place, taking about “20 minutes” per day to ensure the whole lot is aligned. He’ll additionally forgo apply strokes and as a substitute rely closely on intense visualization earlier than he hits his putt.

However the true key? Ensuring his follow-through is shorter than his backstroke.

It’s the alternative of what most of us have been taught, but it surely’s one thing Cam Smith’s placing coach Grant Subject have labored onerous on previously, and there’s a superb cause behind it, says Reed:

“Should you hit a secure piece of mass, like a golf ball, that really takes velocity off your putter, and due to this fact creates a shorter comply with by means of,” Howard says. “Should you’re making an attempt to hurry up your putter by means of the ball, it’s essential compensate with the muscle tissues in your arms and wrists. There’s no manipulation of the putter in [Cameron Smith]’s placing stroke, he’s simply utilizing gravity to let the putter hit the ball.”

You may take heed to the total 13-minute episode the place we dive just a little deeper above, and subscribe to the Play Good podcast on iTunes, or on Spotify proper right here.

Luke Kerr-Dineen
Patacon.org Contributor

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Sport Enchancment Editor at GOLF Journal and Patacon.org. In his function he oversees the model’s recreation enchancment content material spanning instruction, tools, well being and health, throughout all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the Worldwide Junior Golf Academy and the College of South Carolina–Beaufort golf crew, the place he helped them to No. 1 within the nationwide NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters diploma in Journalism from Columbia College. His work has additionally appeared in USA At this time, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Every day Beast.