Hi Geoff

I have just read your inputs regarding Bastiaan van Slobbe query. I would like to offer some comments, but don't know how to do this other than by my usual way of emailing you.

I have wrestled for a long time with the concepts of vertical plane, tilted plane, and gating plane. I should imagine that for someone whose home language is not English, the nuances of the terminology in the different descriptions would be doubly difficult.

I have studied everything that you have had to say on the subject, read Dave Pelz's putting bible, and also use a True Plane Trainer for experimenting. As I see it, the situation is as follows:

Vertical Plane
It has the advantage that the putterface remains at 90 degrees to the putt line (aimline), and stroke path, but as you say the movement of rocking your shoulders in a truly vertical plane is more difficult to achieve. This is because the natural tendency is to allow the right shoulder to rotate to the rear on the backswing, and the left shoulder to rotate to the rear on the forward swing.

Titled Plane
The True Plane Trainer has 2 settings, flat (18 degrees angle) and upright (12 degrees angle, not vertical). As the plexiglass is titled towards you, the putterhead comes closer to the line formed by your feet as the putter rises on the plexiglass. This means that the putterhead moves marginally towards the rear on the backswing and again on the forward swing. There are grid lines on the mat that show you the correct angle of the putterface as the stroke progresses. The idea is that the putterface always remains at 90 degrees to the stroke path, but obviously not at 90 degrees to the putt line (aimline). I should imagine that the trade off is comfort (natural movement) versus always having the putterface on line with the putt line.

Gating Plane
This is, I believe, an inferior technique as the shoulders have rotated to the rear significantly, similar to a full swing. The putterface is no longer at 90 degrees to the stroke path and the ball position is now critical to getting the putt started on line.

Summary:
I have tried to use your idea of moving my left shoulder straight down to start the back swing, but find it difficult as it causes me to move my lower body especially the left knee. I have found that, if I keep the triangle in tact, and focus on avoiding my right shoulder from moving backwards I can achieve a similar, not exact, result. Using this technique I can certainly match the grid lines on the True Plane Trainer.

So it would seem to me that the only difference between the vertical and tiltled stroke planes in execution is the degree that the shoulders rotate towards the rear. Vertical = None, Tilted = Marginal

If Bastiaan wants an illustration of what lateral movement of the shoulders relates to, you have good examples in your article "The Rib Cage Crunch" [http://puttingzone.com/MyTips/ribcage.html].

Kind regards

Neville
Oz

Dear Nerville,

I pretty much agree with all you say, except this re the tilted stroke: "but obviously not at 90 degrees to the putt line (aimline)." Actually, the face of the putter does stay "square" to the putt line just as much as the vertical stroke stays square to the putt line. The vertical stroke does not stay "level" in the vertical dimension, but rises on either side of the bottom of the stroke, and this rising is at all points vertically above the putt line, so it makes a crescent shape above the putt line. The tilted stroke has the exact same crescent shape, but the crescent is titled at the same angle as the stroke plane. If you looked solely at the relation of the putter face to the stroke plane itself in both cases of titled and vertical planes, you would see that the face stays squre to the plane of motion in both cases. Since the stroke plane in both cases intersects the ground in a line that is parallel to or the same as the putt line, the face's staying square to ther plane also means the face stays square to the putt line. So in both cases, the face stays square to the putt line and the stroke plane.

With the vertical plane, the crescent-shaped rising of the putter will tend to hit the ball up a little at the start, unless the ball is impacted with zero loft. In a tilted stroke plane, any loft on the face at impact will tend to send the ball a little left of the putt line, as the lowest / farthest part of the face will be closer to the ball than the higher / nearer part of the face unless some sort of manipulation changes this. (This is the same way face loft acts in the vertical stroke, except oriented straight up from the surface.) This creates two separate issues for rolling the ball straight with a tilted plane stroke: 1) loft at impact sending the ball left, and 2) ball position re the crescent shape. This tends to encourage a hands-ahead delofting pattern in the dynamic action of the stroke, and also places a premium on ball position in the stance, just AS IF the stroke path were "gating" along a crescent trajectory that was laying flat on the surface (which presents problem 2) but not problem 1) above). The ultimate difference between a tilted stroke plane and a flat gating path is the degree of tilt in the shoulderframe rotation. But a little tilt is better than a flat gating path.

I recognize that people have a little difficulty recognizing how the striaght stroke is made, and then getting used to it. This is a big reason why amateurs don't get all that good at putting and why many pros are stuck on "streaky." However, because of the superior physics and the bad consequences of inconsistency with the gating stroke, I believe that all great putters somehow or other arrive at a stroke pattern that respects the required physics for a straight-away rolling of the ball on a consistent basis. This really translate to at least using a straight stroke from the middle of the stance or bottom of the stroke to about 6-8 inches past impact. So, a partially optimal stroke pattern might include a gating or tilted backstroke, as that of Crenshaw or Bobby Locke, but this pattern transitions to a straight-stroke pattern for the forward segment of the stroke pattern thru at least 6-8 inches, and then appears to resume an arcing trajectory that comes back inside in the follow-thru.

When a golfer recognizes this half-and-half sort of pattern, he also usually spots the real cause for his "pushes" in the non-straight backstroke. The response will either be to straighten out the backstroke and learn to like it, or work on a "gating" or "hooding" action to insure the putter's closing to square from the inside. The straight backstroke is my preference, on the grounds of consistency and repeatability and ease of timing and removal of ball position as an issue.

Because of this, learning the feel of a straight stroke path back and thru is sufficiently important to consistent accuracy in putting that I don't really care that the "arcing" stroke with the face gating off the putt line "feels" more natural. Instead, I embrace the artificial feel of the straight stroke as something special that helps me repeat it.

The discomfort is in the waist (abdomen and lower back). The discomfort comes from the rib cage impinging downward at the pelvis. The gating stroke alleviates this discomfort because the rib cage rotates pretty much laterally above the pelvis and does not go downward much at all. But in the straight stroke, the rib cage pinches down at the pelvis in the backstroke and then in the thru stroke. That's why your left hip wants to get out of the way. On the thru-stroke, your right hip will also want to get out of the way of the rib cage.

If you watch Crenshaw's stroke, he uses a gating backstroke but a straight thru-stroke, and because of this, his right shoulder goes down, his right rib cage heads at his pelvis, and his right hip clears forward to make room, resulting in his right knee moving laterally forward at the target in his thru-stroke. I've also learned that the forward bending of the torso at address reduces the conflict between rib cage and pelvis, as the bend marginally widens the gap between the bottom of the rib cage and the pelvis to start with and slightly changes the angle and direction that the rib cage moves downward so it is less directly at the pelvis. The upshot of all this is that, while not strictly necessary, a little hip and knee action (of the right sort -- on line) is not necessarily detrimental to a straight stroke pattern, and can serve to support the straightness of the roll and make the whole action a little more "natural" feeling.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
The PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
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