Dear Mike,
Of all the new putting aids being developed recently and on display this past month at the mammoth PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, FL, the
InPutt training aid struck me as the most ingenius idea for a training aid of the lot. Let me explain what's going on there.
The InPutt is a stroke plane trainer with an added twist. As a stroke plane trainer, it is just a tilted flat surface along which the golfer runs the heel of his putter, just like the idea of the PuttingArc or the TruePlane Trainer or the Chapman Putting Dragon. The twist is the ingenius part: the InPutt includes a simple attachment on the putter shaft down low that projects two tines of a fork-like shape back above the heel that meet the surface of the training plane in two points such that the attachment prevents the golfer from twisting the face of the putter as the heel slides back and forth over the surface.
This probably sounds too simple to be meaningful, but it is pretty substantial, really. The trouble with a stroke plane trainer is that sliding the heel along the surface does not address the very common flaw in the stroke of unknowingly getting lazy in the stroke in a manner that turns the face closed or that directs the path of the stroke closed thru impact. (The PuttingArc actually encourages this action, which I find unfortunate.) The "fork" attachment absolutely prevents the face from getting twisted closed (or open), and this means that the handle in the golfer's hands signals to the golfer what the hand-forearm relationship really feels like when the stroke delivers the putter face square thru impact and beyond. Especially if you have the very common flat-top putter grip, you learn something that is different from the feeling of sliding the putter heel along a surface, as this device teaches you how the hands stay "dead" in the stroke. This means, for example, that the relationship of the back of the hands, the wrists, and the forearms' two bones and even the elbows remains constant throughout the stroke and the whole contraption moves smoothly in a parallel manner to the line of the putt. In a suboptimal stroke movement, there are changing relationships to worry about, such as rotating forearms or changing wrist angles or opening arm pits and extensions of elbows.
To use the InPutt to get the full benefit of this, you have to run the fork gently along the surface to keep the points of contact with the surface in even pressure. If you don't pay attention to the equal pressure of both tines against the board, you are not fully benefitting from the training.
You also have to pay a little attention to squaring the fork up in relation to the putter face when first attaching it to the shaft. This is not difficult, though, as you just look over the front edge of the squarish attachment mechanism at the shaft down to the top line of the putter face and rotate the fork device until the two lines match up. Tighten the screws and you're off to the races.
The interesting thing of value here is the fork-shaped device. Anyone can make a flat surface or a curved surface to run the putter heel along, but the device for keeping the face square is ingenious and can be used on any surface made by anyone.
The story of this device's design is a great story for the game of golf and how it grows by innovation. Joe Tartagni and Paul Schmid started the InPutt company. Joe and Paul live in West Haven, Connecticut, and have been pals for over 30 years. Joe owned a couple of golf courses and also owned an amusement park. Paul is a retired machinist from Stuttgart, Germany. Both Joe and Paul golf frequently but not so much with each other. Paul knows Joe mostly because he regularly took his grandchildren to Joe's amusement park, where Joe let them in for free. One day Joe came to Paul in utter frustration after putting badly in a match with friends. he knew Paul was a machinist and still worked on projects in his garage shop. Joe pleaded with Paul to "come up with something" to fix his putting. Paul designed and made the fork attachment, affixed one to Joe's putter shaft, handed him a tilted plank, and said, "Now don't laugh until you take it home and try it for a while." They later established their company and put the whole design into the InPutt kit -- a stroke plane plus the fork.
This is the story of a friend helping a friend with his golf putting game -- nothing more. The commercial availability of the product today is just a by-product of two pals working on a putting problem.
When I met Paul and Joe at the PGA Merchadise Show, I was immediately struck by their training aid, as this addresses one of the most critical components of a sound and straight and repeating and simple stroke movement -- keeping the bloomin' hands deader than a doornail. It ends up being about feeling NOTHING at all in the hands because they are not changing orientation with respect to the target and the putt line at any point in the stroke. The InPutt fork, used gently, shows the golfer this feeling directly, and the result is a very smooth, accurate stroke.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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