The perspective of your eyes watching the putterface in the stroke may not be in plane with the putter head, but instead slightly inside the plane of motion of the putter head. This eyes-inside perspective can make the putter face look out of square at the extremes of the stroke motion. But even if the eyes are in the same vertical plane as the motion of the putter head, your really need a good reference of squareness close to the putter face at the extremes of the stroke, in order to see a relaible perception of whether the face is square or open at the top of the backstroke or square or closed at the top of the thru-stroke.
(Incidentally, having the thumbs on top of the putter handle is not, by itself, sufficient to judge whether the putter face is opening or closing slightly. It's pretty difficult to "look" down at the handle at the extremes in the stroke and judge just how much "on top" the thumbs really are. What is more indicative is whether the plane of the palms has rotated open or closed.)
Here are some tricks to check your stroke motion to make sure it is not covertly opening and closing the putter face:
Doorjamb strokes: setup inside the frame of a door, with the putter head resting approximately in the middle of the door aimed at the vertical frame to one side. Make a stroke, and when the back of the putter in the backstroke arrives at the opposite vertical frame, check that the back of the putter is flush with the plane of the frame, or whether the toe is closer to the frame than the heel (putter face open at top of backstroke). The sweetspot of the putter also will not move out of the midline of the doorframe any closer to your side of the midline, but will remain over the midline all the way back and thru. This gets a physical reference right next to the putter head at the extreme of the backstroke. The same check goes for the top of the thru-stroke with the putter face plane flush to the frame of the doorjamb, and with toe closer to jamb than heel indicating a putter face closed.
Floor corner: Find a plank or tile on the floor. The line of the tile edge or plank edge indicates the line of the stroke, but position the putter at address so that a corner of the tile or the end of the plank is back behind the putter (or in front of the putter) along the line of the stroke. Then make a stroke and at the top of the backstroke, use the corner to judge the squareness of the putter face, and at the top of the thru-stroke use a similar corner.
Big box: Set a long box on the floor and setup with the toe of the putter close to but not touching the vertical surface of the box, with the aim of the putter face parallel to the side of the box and the putter face perpendicular to the vertical plane of the side of the box. During the stroke, if the putter face is remaining square to the stroke path and to the line of the putt, the toe of the putter will remain exactly the same distance away from the vertical side of the box, and the putter face will remain perpendicular to the plane of the side. If the toe of the putter tends to creep farther away from the box at the extremities of the stroke, then your stroke path is gating, either as a result of your shoulder frame not remaining square during the movement or as a result of shoulder-hand disconnect with the hands moving farther and a little faster than they would move solely as a result of shoulder rocking with dead hands. It's usually both causes combined.
The same thing can be done by putting alongside a baseboard at the bottom of a wall.
In any of the above cases, if you simply "put" the putter face thru the stroke path with a coordination of the shoulders and hands (intact triangle) with the putter face ending up square and online at the extremeties, then the motion form is correct. If it feels unusual, then you have not really learned the feel of a straight stroke. You should observe that doing this motion "form" is ridiculously easy when all you want is to "put" the putter in the correct positions at the top of the backstroke or the top of the thru-stroke while keeping the face square to the line of the stroke. Doing this with a coordinated motion of the upper torso with shoulders, arms, and hands all moving as a unit, and with "dead hands" not rotating at the ends of rotating forearms supinating or pronating is a little trickier to get used to, but it is manifestly not hard to do. You have to "pretend to like" the unusual feel until you really like it and prefer it and expect it when you putt.
A really straight stroke is the ideal, but what really really matters is the straightness and squareness of the stroke starting into impact from about 3 inches behind the ball to about 6 inches past the ball. Any gating before or after this impact zone doesn't much matter, but it helps get thru this zone on a consistent basis if you pretend that the squareness of the putter face at the extremes of the stroke matters as much as it does in the impact zone. The brain likes to know where the body ends up at the ends of a motion, so the top-of-backstroke position (its look and feel) as well as the end-of-thru-stroke position (its look and feel) need to be learned and internalized. Making small strokes, and then growing them to larger movements in slow motion (with a reflective pause at the top of the backstroke and at the top of the thru-stroke) is also a nice way to get the correct feelings out of the shadows so you can learn about them
Let me know if these tricks help you 'see" exactly what is happening in your stroke.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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