Dear Tom,
The Truthboard does not seem to me to be very valuable for learning to sink short putts, which is what is supposed to be designed for. The way it is supposed to work is to have to golfer hit the ball up a slight incline into a reduced-size hole. There is a mirror that is supposed to set the position of the eyes, and there are "rails" along each side which are supposed to help assess whether the putterface is staying square. The price is $139.00.
The hitting up an incline is Pelz's way to make the golfer accelerate the putter on level putts. I don't believe this is a good idea, and Pelz's ideas about tempo strike me as very uninformed and misguided. The PGA Tour Manual of Golf, among many talented golfers thru the ages, counsels against the sort of acceleration Pelz is here promoting. Instead, the putterhead should do the work by natural, gravity-sponsored acceleration. The recruitment of limb muscles to create Pelz's sort of acceleration inject quite a substantial potential for altering the putterface or path by misadventure.
The mirror is a cheap and unreliable way to get the eyes positioned directly above the ball. The problem is that the position of the eyes is not what is needed. What is needed is a gaze straight out of the face regardless of whether the eyes are above or inside the ball. Pelz seems to have never understood this basic point. It is entirely possible to "position" the eyes above the ball and yet peer down the nose out of the face. This head-eye combination generates very poor targeting perception of the line and the target location. The mirror effectively masks this problem from the golfer by suggesting that position alone is a cure of targeting problems.
The worst features of the truthboard are the rails and the narrowness of the track. The rails don't so much serve to allow the golfer to assess face squareness thru the stroke (any edge of any mat would do that), as they make the stroke too easy to execute. It is easy to make a straight stroke when the path is marked and guarded by rails and the whole width of the board is only a little wider than a putterhead from heel to toe. This sort of visual and physical support guarding against stroke mistakes prevents the golfer from learning the real problem of making a stroke on a green without this safety net. For that, the golfer needs to pay close attention to body positions and the feeling of movement required. Gadgets like the truthboard are not useful for that purpose and really discourage the golfer from paying attention to what really matters under realistic performance conditions.
If what you are really looking for is a flat putting surface for use inside to practice various skills, then I would suggest the sort of outdoor carpet sold by Home Depot. It comes in widths of 6 feet, and each liner foot is $2. So you can obtain a 6 x 20 foot strip for a mere $40, nearly 1/4th the price of the little Truthboard. I have used this sort of mat and did not experience a problem with wrinkles. I would roll it up into a 6-foot tall column and stand it in the closet. This sort of surface allows a number of putting exercises without the visual and physical cues of linearity common to almost alll indoor putting mats or putting aids. The length is enough to practice some nice distance drills, and the mat putts very true without the sort of fabric "grain" found in a lot of carpets.
If the issue is your floor being unlevel, then you might consider building a simple timber frame for the material with a plywood floor. Then the corners and points on the sides of the frame can be leveled with a carpenter's level and some shims (perhaps matchbooks?). This would make a more-or-less permanent putting floor with lots of interior space without unwanted cues to line and distance. The putting areas in golf shops are usually about this big. You can also buy cheap target "holes" that sit flush on the surface and accept and hold putted balls hit with the right speed. Target Stores carry one like this for about $9. You could also get one of Fuzzy Zoeller's putting pods for indoors. These make the sound of a ball rattling into the cup liner when struck. Or you could go whole-hog and cut real holes in the plywood floor and put a cup liner down in there, and make three or four real holes. This sort of project is pretty simple, and the wood and other materials involved (including two 6x10 rolls of carpet to make a 10x12 putting floor), would likely cost about the same as one Truthboard. If desired, it is possible to make the floor frame in two sections that can be disassembled for storage.
Or, you could just learn to like the fact that your floor has breaks in it.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone
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