Dear Brian,
To cut to the chase, you ought to contact Dr Tony Piparo at
http://www.1-puttgolf.com/, email DrTee4@aol.com. Tony is designing a long putter for use with the sidesaddle technique. It's really more of a belly putter length, but the idea is to face the target at address and clamp the top of the putter to the side of your right upper arm with the left hand, and move the putter beneath the right shoulder socket with the right hand hanging in a relaxed fashion down the shaft. The action is just a simple pendulum action. The putter head design in terms of size, shape, weight, loft and lie is designed to promote this simple action. The recommended foot positioning or stance is right foot forward to beside the ball and left foot back a bit. This tends to lean the right shoulder socket out forward a little to clear room for the action of the putter so it will not come in conflict with the side, and also promotes the freely hanging pendular action.
As far as the other issues you mention, most of those probably relate to distance control. I note specifically that trying to send the ball 17 inches past the hole, as advised by Dave Pelz, is not something I believe promotes good touch or success in sinking putts. It may interest you to know that Pelz's actual research does not support the so-called "17-inch rule" either. In the only report of his original data and conclusions, Pelz states flatly that there is NOT any one optimal go-by distance for putts, and that the go-by distance on the mid-1970s greens varied with grass type and playing conditions from a little as 5-10 inches on tournament-condition bent greens to as high as 30-40 inches on poor-condition Bermuda greens. (Larry Dennis, Die your putts at the hole and you're dead, Golf Digest (July 1977), pages 52-55.) There is no such creature as a Bent-muda green and the so-called "17-inch rule" is illusory, and in fact surfaces have improved fairly dramatically since the early 1970s so that today the pros typically leave good putts only about 10 inches past the hole and amateurs shouldn't be too different unless the conditions are notably poor (e.g., very slow green, diseased surface, wet green, etc.)
But if you are about to embark on a serious trial of sidesaddle putting, this touch issue will have to be shelved until you get used to your technique, and then see what if any touch issues remain.
As far as hypnosis, there are three interesting products out there right now:
Dr Robert Winters' Putting Genius CD from Subconscious Training Corporation,
http://www.directyourmind.com/golfmindqanda2.html;
Dr Paul Overman' and Tim Loeb's Enter the Power Zone (EPZ) CD,
http://www.enter-power-zone.com/golf/index.html; and
Maggie Connor's Train Your Brain for the Game CD from Ultimate Journey,
http://www.ujpro.com.
The Putting Genius CD is specifically tailored to putting and has 10 separate hypnotic programs addressing different putting challenges. The EPZ product is a three-CD set of fundamental golf psychology hypnosis plus 60 minutes of specifically designed psychoacoustic music to promote performance brain states for golf, composed by Tom Kenyon. The Ultimate Journey product is a series of 4 CDs on different parts of golf, starting with the driving game, and including the putting game. (Check to make sure the putting CD is available.) Maggie is a true master hypnotists but she is first and foremost a sport peak performance coach, specializing in Olympic mogul skiing.
There are also audio tapes such as the one by Bob Rotella, but they are not as comprehensive.
As far as straight-up golf psychology for putting, I would recommend Dr Patrick Cohn and Dr Robert Winters' book, The Mental Art of Putting, recently issued in paperback format, and perhaps Joseph Parent's Zen Golf. Both are available via Amazon.com.
--
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone.com
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