Gate Drill: thoughts?

[thehowlingman2001]

Here is an admittedly shaky "Gate Drill" video filmed with my iPhone this afternoon at a local course practice putting surface.

 

Any comments? I basically just put two tees in the green, left a inch on the outside of the putter and went to work. I did hit the tees a handful of times and when I watched the video I noticed my putter path isn't exactly straight.

 

Again any input is appreciated.

 

Video really starts at 1:15

 

[Reasonability]

Nice work THM.

Don't know about you but I know I can work on the full swing and see incremental improvement. But give me a couple hours/week on the practice green and I see measurable results.

What I did when watching this was stop video a number of times right at impact and also paused again at the finish of your stroke. I used the flagstick as sort of a gage as to where your putter head finishes (either center of the face on the stick - or heel of the putter, etc. The other things I always look for is how the forearms line up with the shaft, which in this case and given the angle made that one pretty tough - LOL.

Your pretty close to being straight back straight through - (SBST). Sometimes it seem like your path is a little more in to out and other times its more of the opposite. We are talking small measures of difference here.

I will go ahead and venture my best guess at a couple of things. (forgive me if I'm WAY off).

Your club handle doesn't quite make it straight through the lifelines of the palms. As such, if we DID see the stroke at least from the elbows down - there would be a slight angle as seen down the line from the forearms and the shaft. Were the club handle in the lifelines of the palms and out of the fingers this arm/shaft alignment would occur. This would raise the shaft up a touch (and you with it) the shaft would point higher (probably above the belt line) from doing this.

My second guess is that your stroke may not quite feel like both arms, the hands, the butt end of the handle down through the head feel quite like a single one-piece unit that swings of the club under a specific fulcrum point?

Last - I didn't notice the ball hopping and skidding so it looks like you have at least a little forward press? (which I would see as a good thing if so).

So I am going to throw you a picture I once made about this whole "fulcrum" thing. For me personally I set up with the eye line parallel to the target line - If I dropped a ball from the bridge of my nose it would land just barely inside and behind the ball on the ground. As mentioned my putting grip is for sure through the palms of both hands which aligns the forearms and the shaft as seen from behind and down the line. I do swing the handle, clubhead, arms -- the whole smash as a single unit, And if the stroke were thought of as a pendulum the upper point which this "pendulum" would be anchored to is just left of my sternum. The sketch below shows a drawing on the left where the fulcrum would be in the hands -- which could mean the handle isn't always traveling at the same time or on the same arc as the clubhead (which can lead to all sorts of issues with line and speed). This fulcrum "could" be consciously or not - in the elbows or actually move from backswing to through swing.

The drawing on the right shows this more fixed point which causes the handle and head to move at the same time on the same arc at all times. As I said, for me that point would be just left of my sternum. An imaginary string attached to the left breast area (for me) could extend down to the clubhead. I do have a little built-in hands-ahead forward press throughout my motion - but the point is during the stroke, the hands and elbows would travel together without racing ahead of or falling behind their starring relationship to that string line. Everything would be traveling as a "unit" under this imaginary fulcrum point.

So if half of my guessing and/or any of my non-sense here finds its way into something useful for you -- that at least some good came of it - LOL. But I shared it thinking that the path of the putter would most like become a little more consistent for you.

And btw - I like the gate drill. One of my favorites. Your stroke is actually pretty good also -- hope I didn't make it seem otherwise.

Here are is sketch

[jdim69]

i have used the gate drill for my putter as well but it was explained to me to be a drill to just work on center of putter face contact.... not path issues......