Just like the golf swing, there are basically only three things that make the ball go on line or off line: the path, the position of the clubface and the quality of impact.

If you have control of your path, then you have control of your initial direction; if you have control of your initial direction (with a putt), you can then let the green do the work (in a full shot, you let the spin do the work). The way I teach putting and the full swing is to focus on these three principles.

People forget that the quality of the strike is everything in putting. Within a fraction of a second of hitting the ball, you know whether or not you have struck it on the correct line. It’s instinctive; you feel it off the putter-face.

Another thing people tend to forget is that there is a vertical as well as a horizontal sweetspot on every putter-face. The ball is 1.68 inches in diameter, so the sweet-spot on your putter needs to be 0.84 inches above the ground to strike the equator of the ball, which is your goal. You want to get the sweet- spot of the putter meeting the sweet- spot of the ball.

And you can see that when I match the sweet-spots, the putter is raised up a little. In other words, the putter has to be released on the up as it works through impact in order to strike the equator of the ball. The whole of the putter – i.e. head, shaft and grip – has to be released (not ‘blocked’ or manipulated) as it swings up through impact.

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