Putting your Golf Ball- Body Placement vs. Putter Alignment

I will go against what some people that give advice on putting assume as almost established knowledge.  A great deal of anything you learn about dependable putting is that you need your feet, hips and shoulders entirely parallel to the target line.  This seems to be one of these matters that are so incredibly apparent that little real reasoning is provided as to just why.  Yet Jack Nicklaus had an open foot position when putting, and Jim Furyk's stance is closed, and most of us would be pretty thrilled to putt as well as these two outstanding professionals.

So just why is a square body positioning a necessity?   In my opinion body alignment while using the full golf swing is critical, though most people have an open foot position with the pitch and chip golf shots.  And no person is going to argue that a putter face must be perfectly aligned perpendicular with the golf ball.  However for some reason some say the only way to putt is with the feet perfectly aligned across the putting line.  This could be the best strategy for some, but not for everyone,

The goal of most good putters is always to roll the golf ball over the chosen line in the direction of the golf hole.  They decide on the line based on the anticipated break the golf green will give to the shot, and then roll the ball over that line with enough pace to get just beyond the golf hole.  To put it simply that's what we attempt to do with our putts.  Looking at this to another sport, bowling, these objectives are alike: to roll a ball over a precise line toward a target.

The difference obviously is we're hitting the golf ball and kind of throwing a bowling ball.  But when a golfer has the target arranged when putting the one thing that's imperative is the putter face will have to be perfectly square to the target line at the moment the golf ball will be hit.  There could be a decent argument that it's more difficult to routinely keep the putter face square to the ball if the foot position is not square to the ball.  However, it isn't impossible, and with a number of players the rewards gained of seeing the target line all of the time beats the benefits of putting from a square alignment.

This is the case only if you can establish a consistent "push" putting stroke out of an open foot position.  Nicklaus demonstrated that it not only can be carried out, but incredibly successfully.  His putting stroke was actually quite a bit different than most professional golfers today.  It included a lot more wrist action, and he believed in utilizing the right elbow for stability.  With a subject for an additional post, we're going to focus on why the wrist action will work better for most amateur golfers as opposed to the sweeping putting stroke that tour golfer's apply.  Perhaps it will help some to eliminate the body alignment prescription being taught by a lot of golf teachers.