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Training Your Pendulum Feel

This is an excellent putting drill for eliminating excess wrist or forearm movements. Plus, it can be performed just about anywhere; I will often try to get a few reps in with a yoga block (or dumbbell) when I am building exercise programs for students. Overall, using the (3) variations discussed here, players can train a "pendulum-style" stroke that can lead to better distance control and hopefully, more made putts.

Tags: Putt, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is training your pendulum feel.

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So I've got a yoga block, but I like something that has a little bit more weight, so like

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a five pound dumbbell works really well.

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But in worst case scenario, you can do something light.

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I like it to be about four inches wide, but it doesn't really matter if done this with

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golf balls, medicine balls, anything really.

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So basically what you're going to do is you're going to get your palms facing each

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other and keep your arms at your sides, and then I'm going to bend from my hips.

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And now I'm going to try and feel that there's no wrist movement going either direction,

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no forearm shoulder movement.

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So the putter, or sorry, the yoga block stays flat along the plane, just kind of like that.

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This is a great little thing to do just periodically either when you're brushing your

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teeth in the morning or at night, or in-between sets.

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I use it when I'm designing exercise programs.

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So you could use something like your golf ball, but basically something where you can

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get your palms pretty flat and you're not really gripping with your fingers and with

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your hands.

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Then you can take that to basically this prayer position.

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You just need to have enough control of the putter face that it's not going to flop around.

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So I'm purposely not going to take my normal grip.

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I'm just going to find a way for my palms to basically be in that position.

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So facing each other, but having enough control of the putter head, and then I'm going

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to try and stroke a pipe just with that pendulum feel that I was getting from that yoga

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block.

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So I'm basically holding it there if I have enough pressure and I keep it pretty

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square in between my index fingers like that.

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I can actually hit puts without taking your normal grip.

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So this is the challenging version where I have to apply a little bit of pressure.

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The easier version, so the challenging version, there's no contact.

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The easier version is they kind of wrap a little bit, but they still match each other.

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Then after I've done that, I can try and recreate the feel, either with the yoga block

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or with the grip, with my hands split.

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So that's the other reason I like something like a yoga block because here my palms

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are parallel.

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Now I'm going to try and get that same feeling of the pendulum where my body rotating

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having no wrist action, but my hands are on in an asymmetric fashion.

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Because that's more or less what's happening when I'm stroke a pipe with a normal grip.

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My hands are on in an asymmetric fashion, and I still have to control and prevent that right

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hand from pushing or that left hand from pulling too much or any of the wrist actions

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that would cause me to lose face control.

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So if you're struggling with feeling a little rusty, this is a great way for you to feel

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what it's like to do a little bit more body-centric pendulum-type putting stroke.