Geoff, time again for "Dave's Daily Question". Sorry for the continual barrage, but access to this kind of advice/experience (at a very affordable price ) is too good to pass up.

I assume that almost everyone who has tried seriously to implement a gravity driven putting stroke has often used (in practice strokes) a 'rocking practice motion' where you pick a backswing length and just rock the club back/forth. The purpose of this is simply to learn how to get your shoulder motion in sync with the natural motion of the club.

I have been using this when practicing putting (actual putting). By this I mean that I do a few 'rocks' to find the feel of the right rhythm, then when I step up and putt the ball (I am being very careful here not to use the term 'hit'), I start the putt with the intention of implementing that 'rocking motion' and after the putt I continue to rock the club back/forth at least one more full stroke's worth (after the follow-through after contact). While the rhythm of that rocking motion is clearly interrupted a bit by the ball contact (clubhead loses some momentum to the ball), I find that by genuinely intending to 'do a couple of rocks' rather than a single stroke, that I typically make a better putt. I feel confident that that is the case, although I have not recorded any data to prove it.

Do you have a comments or experience with this? I have even wondered if it might be useful on the course, although my instincts tell me that it is more of a 'temporary thing' most useful while I am still learning the right stroke/rhythm mechanics.

Thanks.

dave

Dear Dave,

That is a very original idea and I will try it out immediately!

It may be of interest to you to know that many good golfers believe that the golfer must stay in motion during the pre-shot routine, and this means "no stopping" in setting up and waggling and then starting the stroke. A friend of mine teaches "tap and go," mostly to keep the motion unbroken and flowing. A similar technique exists in putting -- a few golfers make a practice stroke directly above the ball before returning the putter face behind the ball and starting the stroke. Your idea seems to fit in this general area.

The real purpose of this website and forum is to elicit ideas like that about putting, so we collectively can respond. Even if it's just a potshot or a shot in the dark sort of idea, it very well may be effective AND important in teaching something about putting.

I was trying out something yesterday that at first seems very contrary to what I usually teach, but that's the only way to explore. This idea is to aim the putter face (in the usual careful way) and then lift the putter out in front of you level with your neck and align the line of your neck with the top edge of the putter head from heel to toe, and then bend the head-neck and putter head as a unit back to the ground (similar to the way many golfers hold an iron out in front of them and square up the front edge and then lower the club into their address setup).

The function of this move is to create a stable relationship between the top edge of the putter head and the axis of the neck (center-base of neck out top of head). The stability is in the matching of the lines and in the unchanging distance between the neck and the putter head. Then when the stroke is made, the shoulders rock beneath a stable pivot AND a stable neck axis.

So far, my experience is that this helps keep the putt dead straight without too much disruption of the aim of the putter face. Because of my concern about moving the putter after the putter face is aimed, I am presently reserving this for a practice green drill rather than a formal element of the performance routine, but who knows?

In reference to the value of your personal experience with a technique, as opposed to some sort of technical science data, it's important to observe two things about that:

First, the scientists that can perform experiments and gather measurements are called experimentalists, not theorists, and they are largely confined to an academic setting where nearly all experiments of this sort (comparing and measuring techniques) are driven by the available test equipment, test facilities, test subjects, and other time-resources constraints, and they are not really driven by theory or ideas (at least in any comprehensive sense as used by a teacher dealing with a complex subject as a whole and averse to slice-and-dice agglomeration of technique in inconsistent and conflicting pieces). The upshot of this is that there aren't many experimentalists concerned with putting in academia anyway, and even the few that are there are almost exclusively concerned with experiments that run in well-grooved ruts or that simply provide a use for the available equipment and resources.

Second, if you don't "test out your ideas," no one is ever likely to test them out. There is a branch of science called "qualitative" research, in which the usual objective safeguards of control groups, careful protocols, and the like experimental methods cannot be applied. Qualitative research relies upon the single expert to experiment personally and to gather, assess, and report the data in an honest and accurate way. That does not in the least mean that the qualitative research is not valid -- it's just different. This seems to be a great blindspot among sports science people in academia, where only "rigorous" science methodolgies lend themselves to standardization for replication and evaluation in the context of teaching a number of different students the same methods each year. It's really only the advanced golfer, in the final analysis, who can see what the real issues are and also know what effects different techniques have with these issues. That means that a true insight from a golfing master is worth decades of academic chatter. If you can go deep enough into the subject for these insights, you can help everyone and actually advance the ball in a meanigful way.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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