Dear 358,
Thanks for bringing the
Pur Stroke training aid to my attention -- I hadn't seen it before.
Here's a picture:
The Pur Stroke is a stroke trainer similar to the In-putt with an attachment to the putter near the head that keeps the face square. The attachment fits flush against the surface of the "rail" or stroke "plane." The attachment is adjustable from a standard putter lie plus or minus 3 degrees (more upringht or more flat).
Here's a picture of the attachment:
The attachment is designed to fit 90% of the currently available putter heads. I like the way the attachment squares up on the face with a small overhanging flange. This insures that the putter face and putter handle are squarely aimed parallel with the surface of the stroke plane at all times in the stroke. This action produces the correct "nothing changing" feel in the hands and helps promote a "dead-hands" shoulder stroke.
This picture shows the little overhanging flange:
Here's a picture of the device being used in a stroke:
Unlike the In-Putt plane, which is tilted back off vertical, the Pur Stroke surface is vertical. In my view, that's a good thing, as it trains a vertical plane stroke action in the shoulder frame.
The fact that the top edge of the stroke plane is a level straight line is not a particularly good thing. The shape of the pendulum stroke in 3D rises on either side of the center / bottom of the arc. If the putter lie angle is too flat, the shaft might conflict with the top edge of the plane -- that is, the top in the center might be too high for some putter lies. Apparently, with the attachment being adjustable 3 degrees flatter than standard, the device does not cause much of a problem with flat lies. The putter lie in the first picture above looks pretty flat to me, but the low placement of the attachment plus the hosel design that rises vertically up from the heel a few inches before slanting back to the golfer clears the top edge easily. This might not be the case with a heel-shafted putter without the vertical section of the hosel, but with a straight-in shaft into the putterhead. A shaft that runs straight into a center-shafted putter head will probably claear the top edge.
Going from the center to the ends of the plane, if the stroke length gets too long, the attachment will rise too high and come off the surface. In the second picture above showing a golfer from a face-on perspective, you can see that the size of the back-stroke doesn't get outside his rear foot. If you have a nice smooth tempo, your strokes will be longer than this. In my "core putt," to assess green speed, the backstroke always goes further back than the rear foot, and the stroke sends the ball only about 9-10 feet on a medium-speed green. This means that the restricted backstroke size of this training aid will promote a faster stroke tempo and more of a "hit" stroke, and will be a little frustrating to a golfer with a very smooth, gentle tempo.
These two effects of having a straight top edge on the plane basically restrict the device to a range of strokes that may or may not be big enough for good training in a variety of conditions and strokes.
The online price is $79.95. The aid can clearly be used outside, with convenient pegs to anchor the plane to the surface. The website says it can also be used indoors on a carpet, but I would wonder how stable the plane is merely resting on the carpet (how heavy is it?) or whether there is some way to secure it in place.
In general, though, I would prefer this training aid to the arcing-stroke training aids or the tilted-plane training aids.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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