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How to Putt - Acceleration Drill
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There are few things worse in golf than hitting a huge drive off the tee, wedging it to 8 feet and then completely missing the hole with your putt. To make it worse, your playing partner just shanked a drive into the trees, skulled his second into the bunker, chunks his bunker shot to 15 feet and then drains it for par. You both walk off with 4's, but it feels like you should have had him by atleast a couple; tis is golf. But, learning how to becoming a better putter to compliment your better rotary swing ball striking is very simple and I've found the absolute perfect training aid to get you on your way in less than 20 minutes of working with it.
- It's harder to identify problems and track progress in putting because it's such a small, detail-oriented part of the game
- The Putting Plane helps demonstrate the slight arc that the putter travels as it moves back & through
- Mirrored surfaces provide visual feedback to check your setup angles
- Take a short stroke & accelerate through for solid contact and to keep the putter face square
- The Putting Plane has holes for a tee to show you how far back to swing in the Acceleration Drill - you should be able to hit the ball 8-10 feet with this small stroke
Let's face facts.
Putting, not exactly the most fun, exciting, or exotic part of the game.
We all have to make putts.
We take the majority of our strokes on or around the green, but it's not as much fun to practice.
A lot of times it's simply because you don't get the results that you're looking for.
It's a lot easier to see when you hit a 300 yard drive that the work that you're putting into your golf swing is paying off.
But in putting, It's such a finite and minute-type, detail-oriented aspect of the game that it's very difficult to measure things in small amounts and small degrees.
It's hard to see when you're off, even with a video camera.
You can't measure one or two or three degrees of being open or closed, or the putter face moving off track.
It's a very hard aspect to teach of the game.
Simply because explaining the amount that the putter works on an arc and how it works through the ball and the grip and all these things, it's very difficult for the average golfer to see and understand.
In teaching putting, what I've always taught, I've tried to explain to golfers, they ask me, what's your philosophy on putting?
Well I always tell them that the putter works on a slight arc.
I don't like any hands or arms manipulation, similar to what we teach in the golf swing.
It carries over into putting.
So once we take our grip that we've explained in the grip video, just rock our shoulders back and through and the putter will work on a slight arc.
Now people ask, okay, so that's different from Pell's pure inline stroke.
I'm like, yes, I don't believe that putter works straight back and straight through, but it's very close.
They're like, okay, well you're teaching it works on an arc.
Is that similar to what Stan Utley teaches?
Well yes, I do believe that the putter head works on an arc back and through, but not to the same severity that what Stan Utley teaches, which is a very handsy, wristy, arms dominated stroke in order to get the club to work on such a narrow arc.
So basically I've fallen in the middle.
It works back on an arc, but it's very slight.
It doesn't work straight back and straight through.
It's not a natural stroke either.
So it's very difficult to explain such a finite thing.
Well how much of an arc does it work on?
You know, how do you set up to it?
How does everything work?
Well finally, after years and years of searching, I found something that explains everything perfectly.
It's the most simple training aid I've ever seen and as you guys know, I'm extremely slow to ever come out and say, you know what, this is a good training aid or this is a great training aid.
In fact, in the four years that the site has been up, I've only offered or mentioned two training aids that I believe are good.
And one is an impact bag which is as simple as it gets and extremely inexpensive.
And the other one is a swing speed radar that you use to measure your club head speed.
Both are extremely simple training aids.
For the most part, to be honest with you, I think most training aids that come out are not worth the money.
I don't believe that they're very good at all.
So, I'm extremely slow to say, you know what, this is worth buying.
And finally, I found something that helps me explain how much the putter head works on an ARC.
It explains how to set up and shows you how to set up.
And best of all, just like everything else we do, it's simple.
It's a product from iLion Golf called the putting plane.
Basically, it has two rails on it that are adjustable for your putter head.
And it's built on an 18 degree tilt.
So basically, that allows the putter head to slide as it works back to the inside up, which moves it on a slight arc.
And then as it comes through, it comes back square.
And then as it works back up on the arc, it moves through on an arc.
So it's a very slight arc as the putter head works up and down.
It's perfect.
This is exactly what I teach that allows you to work back and through on this simple arc.
Best of all, This simple training aid has simple little holes drilled into it that allow you to do some different drills that are explained on the DVD that comes with it.
But I'm going to talk about one today in particular that has helped me personally, not only in teaching, but also my own putting stroke.
I've always been told by many, many people that I have a great putting stroke.
You know, why would you want to change your stroke?
And I don't want to change my stroke, but I do want to understand why I don't make more putts than I feel like I should.
Well this training aid actually helped show me exactly why.
The first time I used it, I was sold.
I didn't realize, even though I look at my stroke on camera, that my shoulders were open at address.
So by simply setting this up, there's a shoulder alignment line that you can see down here.
This is a mirrored plate at the bottom.
And I could see that my shoulders were very open at address.
And this is something where we're talking maybe a few degrees, but it wasn't enough that I could see it on video camera, but immediately with a mirror, I could see exactly why.
Second thing, I could see that my, the putter, my eyes were much behind the ball.
And so this caused me also to open my shoulders and tend to pull putts.
So getting my eyes aligned properly, which using this tool was great for, that helped me as well.
And then the second thing is learning how to take the club back to one of the, the T holes that we're going to look at in a second and then accelerate through.
My stroke was always complimented on its pace.
I've always, people told me I had a very smooth stroke, But I always tended to pull putts because the tendency when you take the putter back, really smooth and slow, is that as you take it back, you tend to shut it as you start to release it coming through.
And if you're, if your timing and tempo isn't really good every single time, you're going to run into a lot of trouble.
So taking it back on a shorter stroke and accelerating through helps take a lot of those misses, the pulled putts, taking it back hooded, all those things and helps you get it working back and through on that proper arc.
So we're going to look at the, this first drill, the acceleration drill that we're doing for the website.
And then as we use this training aid, you can buy them through the site.
And of course, as an illustrious member of the site, you get a discount just as always.
So I believe this training aid, you get 15% off, which again, basically covers your cost of membership for a month.
Just for being a member, you get that much money off the training aid.
So we're going to talk about setup for this acceleration drill and explain how that works next.
All right.
In this first drill, the acceleration drill, you can see that I've got a tee in the ground here and the ball set up in the middle in the slot.
What this tee does now, this is of course indoors, So you're going to find that you would actually stick a regular tee in one of these holes here on your green, which would just put a little hole in the green.
So that would help you stop the putter going back too far.
But using a rubber tee, I can do the same thing indoors.
What I want to do is that I'm going to use this without the ball first, is as I'm making, as I setup, and we'll talk about setup and things more in future videos, but as I take the club back, I want to take it back to where it just about hits that tee, and then I want to really accelerate through, so it's almost going through about a third faster or twice as fast going through as I take it back.
I don't want to take it back really slow and rock it really slow, because what that's going to tend to do is as I take it back, I'll tend to shut the putter face and really shut it coming through.
So if you take it back on a good tempo, back and through and just let the heel of the putter slide up and down this arc, you'll find that your stroke gets much, much quieter and you'll be able to accelerate through the ball.
So now I'm going to put the ball here in place and you'll find that as soon as you hit your first putt, you'll strike it very, very solidly.
This first putt was hit dead on line, the putter worked up and down the plane, and again we'll talk more about that stuff later, But for right now, all you're going to do is work on getting it to go back right to that tee and for the second tee, back on a typical green, you should be able to hit it about 8 or 10 feet on a normal putt.
So if you're just hitting it 3 feet, you know that you're not accelerating enough going through the ball.
So, Work on this tee drill and it'll teach you how to accelerate.
And we'll look at some video more of this stroke in action.
Kevin
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Kevin
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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