I would argue that men tour players are better putters because they are the .01% of millions of male junior golfers who' attempted to become good/great at golf past age 13.
Women tour players are the .01% of a MUCH smaller number of girls who had the same goal post age 12.
Look at any club's (or First tee)junior's program=equal boys/girls until about age 12 when culture kicks in.
Many girls gravitate to other things and their participation drops dramatically in sports in my experience.
Ever seen a girl's pickup basketball game?
face it,more boys aspire to be great at sports than girls.
Of course that's changing every year and more and more girls are choosing sports/golf, but it's simple numbers game.
To putt well you have to be the elite of the elite, and the more people trying/working at a sport, the better you have to be to excel/survive.
Of course there are good LPGA putters, there are just more on the PGA Tour because competition is more fierce.
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Jeff,
I totally disagree, their are plenty of great putters that don't play at an elite level. You don't have to have tremendous hand eye coordination to putt well. You have to be able to read the green well and hit it close to the line and speed that you are intending.
There was a extensive study done that indicated that men at the middle handicap range putt better than woman. They make more 4-10 footers, about 4% more , and men three putted less about 4% less.
At the pro level its not close, especially as you get deeper into both tours, and I think that can be attributed to your theory about more male golfers and the cream rising to the top, but why are the best males better than the best females? Someone compated statistics from men's 2007 open at oakmont to women's 2010 open at oakmont and the top male putted more than a stroke better than the top female. Only a handful ( I don't recall the actual number) of men that made the cut putted worse than 4 round average for the women. The women's winning score was 8 shots lower than the men's , so the putting statistics were not skewed due to ball striking.
I think the top men are better putters because they put more time into putting and short game at an earlier age, as well as having to shoot lower scores to win events, hence make more putts.
That being said, I think their is something innate in the way men learn and not in women ( in general ) that allows men to read greens better. Boys generally learn visually and spatially ( reading greens is both ) and girls generally learn best verbally ( not important in reading greens or putting ).
Another factor I think is important is that boys tend not be as emotional about negative results effecting their next putt, while girls seem to hold on emotionally to the negative putts. So boys are generally more confident even after misses.