FLINCHPressure putting, measured

Everyone flinches. Most people never see it.

The short putt you keep missing.

Prop your phone up, hole out from two to six feet, and find out what your stroke does when the putt actually matters.

Ten minutes. Nothing is uploaded, the video is read on your phone and then discarded.

How it works

  1. Set the phone up

    Face on, about two metres away, level with your hands. The app checks you are in shot before you hit anything.

  2. Hole out from two to six feet

    One recording, five or six putts. Putt as you normally would, not as you think you should.

  3. Tap where each one finished

    One tap per putt on a target. That gives a miss map, and it is the only way the app can tell an aiming fault from a stroke fault.

  4. Practise the one thing that is costing you

    Two or three drills, all of them inside six feet. Come back, film it again, and the app checks whether the drill actually worked.

Why short putts

Tour players hole 96 percent from three feet, 88 from four, 77 from five. A fifteen handicap holes about half. That gap is the largest anywhere in putting, and it is on the putts you already believe you should hole.

Inside six feet there is almost no break to misread and no pace to misjudge. If you miss, it is your aim or it is your stroke, and this tells you which.

What it cannot do

It cannot measure face angle or path in degrees, and no phone camera can. It measures what causes an open face instead: lifting your head, quitting on the stroke, a wrist flick, a sway, a routine that stretches when it matters. Then it asks where the ball finished and puts the two together.

Set the phone up

How far are you putting from?

    No tripod is needed. Lean the phone against a bag, a bin or a spare putter. It only has to be steady.

    Six putts, one recording

    Stand so your whole body fits inside the dashed box.

    Reading the clip

    Starting up

    This runs on your phone, so give it a moment. Keep the screen on.

    Where did they finish?

    Tap the spot for each putt. Tap the hole itself if it dropped. This is the only way the app can separate an aiming fault from a stroke fault.

    History