Dear James,
This is just poor thinking, in my view. Dave Pelz makes a similar mistake when he identifies the positioning of the hands in reference to the shoulders as determinative of the path the putter will take in the stroke.
In fact, if you setup symmetrically with the hands WHEREVER you choose to place them (close in to the thighs, hanging comfortably, stuck way out in front of you high off the ground) and hold the putter handle ANYWAY you want to that is basically symmetrical and use ANY LENGTH AND SHAFT ANGLE putter needed so that the putterhead starts behind the ball, but then MOVE THE SHOULDER FRAME IN A VERTICAL PLANE OF ROCKING DOWN AND BACK WITH THE LEFT AND THEN FORWARD AND UP WITH THE LEFT, the putterhead will move is a straight line and stay square without further ado.
Here is my "Popeye the Putter" robot made of popsicle sticks. The shoulderframe moves vertically. The "shaft" angle can be any angle you want, and so can the "hands" position -- these don't matter so long as symmetrically centered with the shoulder frame. Watch how the vertical movement of the shoulder frame KEEPS the putter square and on line at all times.
Popeye from the front:
Popeye setup square:
Popeye at the top of the backstroke:
Popeye at the top of the thrustroke:
At each point in the stroke, the VERTICAL action of the shoulder frame moves the putterhead in a parallel straight line -- square at all time to the target line and to the path of the putterhead. The only difference hand position or shaft angle makes is in the radiusing of the "smile" shape of the putterhead as it rises on either side of the bottom of the stroke -- the more the hands are positioned closer to the pivot of the shoulder frame action (base of the neck, where the clavicle joins the two shoulder sockets to the top of the sternum), the more the putterhead motion is radiused tightly to the pivot. But this is really the more the PUTTERHEAD is held close to the horizontal axis of the pivot.
If you hold the putter straight out so the sweetspot is held on the horizontal line out from the pivot point and then rock the shoulders in a vertical plane, the putterhead will simply spin on the same rotational axis as the shoulder frame's pivot point and the putterhead will not move side-to-side at all. The most gentle radiusing is to hang the hands naturally down with the putterhead resting on the ground and then forget the hands and putterhead and move the shoulder frame. If the putterhead is directly below the pivot on the ground, the radiusing is a circle with radius set by the distance from pivot to ground directly beneath. As the putterhead is slid further away from the feet out from directly below the pivot, but the putterhead remains on the ground, the radiusing of the putterhead's "smile" remains exactly the same. This does not at all depend upon hand position or shaft angle.
But if you LOWER the pivot by a crouching setup, you also move the putterhead closer to the horizontal axis of the pivot rotation, and this makes the putterhead "smile" tighten up in a more radiused curvature (a more pronounced smile with corners of mouth higher). This only comes about because the putterhead is closer to the pivot axis.
The mistake by Flick and Pelz and many others is a result of so-called "naive" physics. Humans have many engrained notions about how objects move and experience force in the world that simply are not accurate notions. Every high school physics teacher is keenly aware of this and works to teach the students the reality. Popeye doesn't need teaching, and really you don't either. All you have to do is setup with the toe of the putter close to a baseboard and then move the shoulders vertically and simply watch what actually happens. The toe stays the same distance from the wall and the toe stays square the whole time -- if it doesn't, you are using your hands or are not moving the shoulders vertically.
The idea that because the putter shaft is on an angle to vertical means that the BEST WAY TO MOVE THE PUTTER is arcing or gating around the body is really a distinct idea that deserves separate treatment. Suppose that all I say above is true, but someone still maintains that the best way to move the putter is along a gating path that arcs around the feet. The idea here is that this motion is "better," not just easier to perform. If the idea is that this gating motion is merely and only "easier" to perform, that would be missing the point of making a straight putt. A "gating" stroke or even a tilted-plane stroke is not at all "better" than a vertical-plane shoulder action, in terms of how / where the putterface and putterhead get moved by the action. So the argument for a "gating" stroke comes down to a trade-off: trading in some of the benefit of good putterhead and putterface form of motion for "easier" movement of the body.
The word "easier" is a comparative, and you really can't comment on which of two patterns of motion is better or easier unless you can perform both patterns well. Almost everyone who makes the comment that you say Flick makes is simply not ABLE to make a vertical-plane stroke motion -- not because it is physically challenging, but because they have not been taught HOW to move the shoulders and all that implies for how the hands and arms feel and how the bottom of the ribcage meets the pelvis.
Putting straight with shoulder motion is not a natural motion. Neither is it a difficult motion. It is merely an unusual motion that is easy to perform if you are shown how to do it. But it is also the motion pattern that BEST moves the putterhead to optimize the ability to putt straight with accuracy and consistency and simplicity.
In contrast, swinging the top of the body over the lower body in a "gating" motion is "easy" and "natural" to perform, but that in itself does not recommend it unless it is so much "easier" to perform than a vertical-plane shoulder motion that it justifies the loss of accuracy and consistency in how the putter face and putterhead move. My answer is that after working for years with BOTH the gating and the straight motions, the straight motion is just as easy to perform and is definitely superior for accuracy and consistency.
So, yes, there is some "logic" to Flick's comment, but it is not really the "best logic" we can come up with. In my view, the "logic" of that position is flawed.
More important than "logic", however, is "experience." If we ask what is the physical motion that experience demonstrates is the "better" or even the "best" motion pattern, we have to ask "whose experience, with what training"?
My study of the history of putting technique indicates to me that the best results in putting come from what happens from 3 inches behind the ball to 4-6 inches in front of the ball, and thru this area there is a great commonality among diverse "greats" in putting history -- Bobby Locke, Billy Casper, Horton Smith, Ben Crenshaw and others. What gets done in this zone is that the putter face is re-squared as it comes back to the address position and thereafter is moved squarely straight down the line thru the ball, usually heading a little up thru the back of the ball. The techniques that make this happen ALL time the return of the putter shaft to vertical at the same bottom of the stroke and then cast the putter face up and out and down the line by leaving the pivot over the bottom while lifting the putterhead vertically thru and past the ball. After 6 or so inches, the putterhead MAY or MAY NOT gate back inside and end up with the putter face looking closed and aimed to the inside, but by then it doesn't matter.
Jay Haas has never said that his adoption of Stan Utley's "gating" stroke made straighter putts possible. He says first that he could never perform the straight stroke well enough for it to be consistent. That's a problem with how he has been taught to perform the straight stroke, not a problem in anyone's ability to perform a straight stroke. There is nothing inherently difficult about the straight stroke, once you know that the putterhead will mirror the plane of motion of the shoulders. Even today, Jay Haas could be a better putter than he is at present if he learned this one thing and "made it his own." The same thing really goes for Stan Utley as well.
What I teach is the simplest way to do this critical movement of the putter face thru impact -- move the shoulder frame by sending the lead shoulder vertically down and back and then return to the bottom of the stroke and move the lead shoulder forward and up, while leaving the pivot in place. So I think BOTH "logic" and "experience" are on my side.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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