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One of the easiest spatial awareness stations for putting is using a straight vertical board. If you're doing it at home then a wall works nicely. But on the green, you'll need to manufacture a vertical reference. I like to use a meter stick with 3 tees. This station is especially useful on short putts and if you have a takeaway move that gets the club too outside or opens the face really quickly. A little bit of practice will help you dial in your putting stroke path.
Tags: Putt, Drill
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This reel is working on your path or face with a meter stick.
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So here I've got a meter stick or yard stick and I can use either side of it.
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But basically what I have is three T's.
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One in the middle and two on the sides you can put them on either end.
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And the whole goal here is to create a vertical line.
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When I'm practicing at home and working on this concept, I will typically
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just go to the corner of a wall and practice there.
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So if the club travels in a straight plane, then what will happen is the club
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will come slightly up and slightly in.
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You can see here there's more space between the toe of the club and the yard stick
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or meter stick.
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If I brought it back, dead straight, it would go a little bit more like this where it
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would be up straight above the edge of the meter stick there.
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So my goal is to have the putter just arc in slightly and then just arc in slightly
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on the way through.
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I can also use this to look at putter face rotation.
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So if I tend to spin the putter face open or I tend to keep it square almost closed,
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this will give me a little visual reference.
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So I want to bring the putter slightly inside and the putter face will be open just slightly.
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I would say that more golfers air on having too much face rotation rather than too
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little, but then they compensate by having more of an outward path.
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So if I struggle with the path, then what I'll do is I will place an object that's inside
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so let's put it about where the heel of your putter is and about a foot maybe 14 inches
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or so behind the ball.
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So it's going to give me something to swing back towards but the putter is going to swing
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just above it.
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So now as I release through, I don't think I aim this perfectly but I got it set up good
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for the camera.
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So I'm using the the the balls with the line on it so I can see how well I'm rolling
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it end over in.
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Oftentimes if I bring it back more straight, you'll see I get a little bit of wobble
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to the line because I had more of a cut stroke on the way through.
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If we slowed that down, you would see that it came slightly across this way.
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So now if I bring it more back towards the ball, you'll see that the ball rolls a little
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bit better and over then.
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So this is a great little visualization for dialing in the path either on the way back
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or on the way through.
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This can be really good just diagnostic if you have somebody shoot from down the line.
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You can see get a really good rough sense of your path.
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You can also look at the face control.
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If you do that, have a buddy hold it straight over the putter right here and then you
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can look for how much is that face rotating on both directions.
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The most common pattern would be a little bit straight back and open and then a little
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bit through and closing kind of quickly.
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So that can cause all kinds of start line problems which then makes it hard for you to
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commit to reading and green and irrespective of speed.
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It's hard to make a lot of putts.
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If you can't start the ball online, roll it end over end.
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It makes it really hard to then move on to those other skills of green reading and speed
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control which ultimately should be a little bit more important.
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So use a station like this, get the ball rolling end over the end from good path and face
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awareness and then you can work on the two harder skills.
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The more important ones for being in a lead level putter.