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GOLF
TEACHING PRO®
DR. PAUL HURRION
Europe’s Top Putting Coach
 When it
comes to studying the science behind using the flatstick, few golf
coaches can match up to the résumé of Dr. Paul Hurrion. No less than
Padraig Harrington and Lee Westwood are under the tutelage of
Hurrion, who has a Ph.D. in biomechanics.
Hurrion was kind enough to take time from his schedule to talk with
us at Golf Teaching Pro. He explains how he came into coaching
putting.
“Track and field and cricket were my two main sports,” he said. “I
went into golf really as a result of high-speed photography, looking
at how clubs and balls impacted each other from an equipment side.
That lead to looking at what the ball does on the putter. It was
quite scary to see the little amount of time the ball spent on the
clubface. In fact, it’s less than the driver.”
The cornerstone of Hurrion’s teaching involves posture. While many
golf teachers merely repeat age-old
instruction by advising students to assume a comfortable stance,
Hurrion takes a more scientific approach.
“Posture is everything,” he stated. “If your posture is out of
kilter when you set up to a putt, you’re going to need manipulation
to square the clubface. What I try to do when I teach putting is to
take manipulation out of the stroke.”
Hurrion’s research led him to conclude there are important aspects
in taking the setup, rather than merely trying to feel comfortable.
First, from a square stance to the intended starting line, the
golfer should bend slightly from the hips, knees slightly flexed.
The weight should be either 50-50 between the left foot and right
foot, or slightly favoring the left foot. Hurrion conducted a study
that showed most amateurs set up with their weight favoring the
right foot – a recipe to induce manipulation.
The upper arms should be against the body, but not pressing. The
putter shaft is in line with the forearms, and the eyes should be
over the ball. The putter should be soled directly under the center
of the chest. Hurrion believes many golfers use a putter that is too
long for them, preventing them from reaching this ideal setup.
Finally, the putterface should be square to the intended starting
line.
Interestingly, Hurrion says that working out is beneficial in
achieving this proper posture.
“You can get into good posture without getting strong,” he said,
“but the key thing is to hold that posture
during the stroke. It’s tough to stay still and keep in balance. If
you start to measure the body’s center of gravity movement, it can
be quite substantial even trying to stand still, let alone hit
anything. Your body is constantly sort of moving around, because
your heart is pumping and your blood is moving around your body.”
Achieving this posture is key to preventing or reducing manipulation
during the stroke. The stroke itself involves maintaining the
triangle formed by the shoulders and arms while keeping hand and
wrist action out of the stroke. Hurrion believes that rhythm is very
important, advising that the length of the follow-through be at
least as long as the length of the backswing. The ball should be
struck with a slight ascending blow. This can be achieved by placing
the ball position one inch ahead of a line drawn vertically down to
the green from the sternum.
Hurrion’s work with Harrington was particularly interesting. The
reigning two-time Open Championship winner had too much body
movement in his stroke.
“That was one of the very first things we tried to target,” said
Hurrion. “If your body is moving during the stroke, and you got this
half a millisecond that you’ve got to get the clubhead right when
you hit the golf ball, it becomes very difficult to time the
clubface being square if the body is moving. We wanted to eliminate
the body movement and keep the pivot point of the stroke, which is
the seventh cervical vertebra [editor’s note: the knobby one at the
top of the back] and your sternum. That part of your body is
effectively the hub of the putting stroke. If that is moving around,
then you need hand-eye manipulation to try to square the clubface.”
A debate among golf teachers is the straight-back straight-through
stroke vs. an arc stroke. Hurrion weighed in on this, too.
“Well, the putter can’t ever go straight back and straight through,
because of the laws of the game,” he remarked. “The only way you can
get it straight back and straight through is if the center of
gravity of the clubhead is directly under the pivot point, and that
would mean that the shaft would be vertical – 90 degrees – and the
rules of the game says it has to be 80. That’s the most upright you
can get a shaft.”
Hurrion has also designed a line of putters with GEL, based on the
concepts that he teaches and the research he had done.
“GEL approached me about 18 months ago,” he said. “The putters are
designed from an alignment point of view, from the grooves to help
create forward roll, with the weight distribution in the head to
increase moment of inertia. There are a couple of tungsten weights
in the heel and toe that you can’t see that really do enable the
ball to still go straight and have the same energy.”
The putters are also weighted differently than traditional putters,
which have most of the weight at the bottom of the clubhead.
“Imagine if you are going to kick a soccer ball below the center of
gravity, what happens?” he asked. “It goes up, and you get backspin.
What I’ve done is bring the center of gravity of the putter’s face
in line with the middle of the golf ball, so the energy of the
putter goes through the energy of the ball, so you don’t have this
spin effect.” Information on GEL putters can be found at
www.gelgolf.com.
Hurrion has his own website,
www.paulhurrion.com, which contains a number of educational
articles that are of great interest to any golf instructor. Golf
Teaching Pro once again would like to thank Dr. Hurrion for taking
time out of his busy schedule to provide this interview. Dr. Paul
Hurrion is affiliated with Groove Equipment LTD. For more
information about Dr. Hurrion and Groove Equipment, please log onto
www.paulhurrion.com
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