Dear Brian,
Thanks for the question!
The Zen Oracle (ZO) by DirectCreations (URL:
http://www.directcreations.com/faq.asp) is an interesting training aid, but it has a couple of problems. First, the good, then the bad.
Good:
The Zen Oracle trains a particular motion, and this motion has several integrated aspects. The one most prominently featured is the "release" action. This tends to train a down-the-line followthrough. It especially helps to make the preplanning / envisioning of the correct stroke motion more readily available as a kinetic sense of motion, so this makes the movement thru the ball more accurate and repeating. That's pretty good, and the ZO seems to do a better job than some other tips, drills, and aids I'm familiar with for this one aspect of the stroke motion.
However, the Bad:
The ZO necessarily restricts the length of the backstroke that it can be used with: go too far back and the ball rolls out from underneath. This feature of the ZO has a terrible effect on tempo when used outside of about ten feet. In particular, it forces a short backstroke, which produces a quicker thru-stroke, emphasizing "hit". And in my book there is nothing worse to mess up than tempo! Absolutely nothing. And nothing worse to inculcate into a stroke than "hit." "Hit" is the enemy to distance control precision and consistency, and thereby to accuracy and effectiveness of putting. The advice to "accelerate thru the ball" is shunned by top putters (e.g., Loren Roberts, Michael Corcoran in the PGA Tour Manual of Golf) and instead the golfer wants his hands to "keep pace with" the natural pendulum rhythm of the putterhead. In this stroke, the butt of the handle stays pointed at the pivot of the stroke (neck area) thruout the stroke, and the handle does not waggle about inside the grip. The ZO trains a motion that degrades this sort of stroke, especially when it is used outside of about ten feet.
(By the way, a pendulum motion has its own pattern of acceleration, so that the pendulum is moving fastest always precisely at the bottom of the stroke. When you "let the putterhead do the work" in your stroke, the putter accelerates by gravity, not by voluntary muscle contraction creating a "hit" force moving the putter. Practically NO golfers, Tour pros and otherwise, have the slightest notion of how this sort of stroke feels or works.)
There is another aspect that I would like to comment on, even though I don't believe it matters to practically any golfers other than myself and perhaps one or two others. There is a neurophysiological "orientation" implied by the ZO that is underappreciated. It is as if you are given a lacrosse racket and told to scoop / scoot a ball across the green into a hole. This action requires that you "trap" the ball in the scoop while it is back behind you (sort of like back at the top of a ZO backstroke) and then pull and sweep the ball forward to a forward release into the path to the hole. I have frequently experimented with this sort of movement in putting over the past seven or eight years, and I've found that if you setup to a ball "as if" you were planning on making this sort of move, you are oriented open with the face a little back behind the right foot. Then, if you "freeze" the putterface orientation that results, and re-adopt a square setup to this face orientation, your face will be aimed considerably more uphill than otherwise is usual. If you can go with this face orientation and concentrate solely on distance control, you will learn the value of this technique to get you aiming high enough on breaking putts. So there is a good chance the ZO can be used to help with orienting to breaking putts, to encourage a better read of the full true break.
Hey, how about signing up for my PuttingZone mail list if you haven't already done so, and thanks again!
Geoff Mangum
The PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
The Future of Putting Now