Dear Neville,
I take your point about the visual appearance of the Rail (simple, linear) versus the Pelz aid (odd shape, moving parts, requires resetting), and I agree that the Rail is superior in this respect.
Your comment suggests that using the Rail sort of implants a good linear visual line in the mind as a visual memory, and there may be a little something to that but I wouldn't make too much of it. There are mental images that are probably better and it is useful for the golfer to deliberately conjure such images up, since this brings to mind the implicit aspects of a good stroke. For example, the mental image of locking vision onto a specific spot on the lip of the cup and then tracing a line or path back to the ball with a "laser eye" burning the path into the green would combine some fixed-gaze head turn and neck prefiguring of the stroke with specific aiming cues, and in the case of a breaking path would probably also bring to mind the specific energy pattern needed for the putt.
The thing I like about the Rail is that it is a self-contained test of your putting stroke that begins at one end and gives you a result by the other end, and there is really no need to use it on the green at all. And the test is fun, as when trying to match the current record of consecutive rolls off the narrow end. Padraig Harrington had the record at 22 for a while, but Harold Swash told me in Orlando that a lady pro from the Ladies European Tour recently rolled 38 off the end. So the Rail is great for use indoors or out.
I think, however, that the same problem affects this aid as it does many others: the golfer gets feedback alright, but just does not get a focus on precisely the right feedback for optimal learning. In this case, the Rail should be used to train the feeling of a technically sound stroke, and that's normal, but at a deeper level it should be training the golfer how to STABILIZE the stroke movement and make it repeating in a consistent and accurate and technically sound way. The
Yes! Golf website describes the function of the Rail as follows:
"The Rail," Harold’s most recently developed training aid, helps sharpen up accuracy. With a straight back and straight through putter blade path and with the blade square to the target, the ball will travel down the length of The Rail and into the hole (lined up directly off the end about 3" to 10" away). If the ball is slightly miss-struck the ball will fall off the edge of The Rail and veer off to the left or right. The Rail will help to develop a "square through the hitting area" stroke path. The Rail was being used by several top touring professionals even before it went into production. It is a very simple yet effective training device, which will give great feedback on squareness through the hitting area. The Rail will further sharpen the golfer’s skill and ensure good solid putting.
Stabilizing the stroke movement is not a one-off sort of exercise, but is all about concentrating on the way it feels in the body when the stroke is done correctly over and over. The golfer wants to learn how the stroke ought to feel and will feel when done correctly, so this feeling is conscious when he gets ready to putt during play or competition. The notion of making a movement "automatic" and "non-conscious" seems to me a little off the mark: the stroke should be engrained in the sense that the golfer distinctly recognizes and can generate how the stroke should and will feel when performed correctly. It's not really "automatic" unless the golfer can sit in a chair watching television and feel a good stroke happening, consciously.
In my view, the Rail is best used indoors, in a quiet setting, where the golfer is not concerned about a hole or anything other than his internal feelings of the body in motion. I think this will train a slow, smooth tempo and very dead hands moving under a fixed and still pivot. Once the golfer gets this going, he can see how "stable" his stroke really is by trying to run as many off the Rail in a row as possible. At some point, you sort of get away from the stability of the stroke on a "day-to-day" basis and get into something of a "marathon" mentality on a "minute-by-minute" basis of sustaining the repetitions. That's entertaining, but the real payoff is in the day-to-day stabilization of the stroke action.
A similar putting aid is
The Stick. The Stick adds something that the Rail doesn't have, and that is the mirror at the end of the stick. The mirror has a vertical line centered on it, and looking from the address position to the mirror at the end of the stick, the golfer sees the line transecting the image of the golf ball, and the rest of the line aligning along the length of the stick, only when the "skull line" is squared properly with the stick. And when the "skull line" is set properly, a square body setup from head to toe follows.
The stick doesn't exactly train getting the gaze aimed straight out of the face, but only because it's not really long enough to reveal how the down-the-nose gaze sends the line of sight curling to the inside. But if the golfer practices setting the gaze, as well as the "skull line," then the Stick is a multi-purpose training aid for targeting skills as well as stroke skills. (And of course the Stick can also be used without the mirror as a simple rail.)
I personally like both the Rail and the Stick because of their self-contained nature and the fun of using them indoors. The bottom line for the Rail is to get the stroke movement stabilized. For the Stick, the bottom line is to stabilize the stroke and train targeting positions and movements of the head and eyes.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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