Dear Larsw,
I met and worked with Rob during the St Jude Classic in Memphis, and he will be sending me one of his training aids shortly.
In the meantime, I'm not clear on whether the bottom laser aims along the same line the shaft points towards the ground or whether the bottom laser simply aims "straight down" assuming the sole of the putter starts out flat. If the bottom laser aims "straight down", then it indicates a "projection" onto the ground of the X-Y location of the putter head. A titled-plane stroke that moves the putter along a "smile" path on a tilted plane would "look" on the ground to describe a slightly arcing or curved shape, even though the putter is actually moving straight back and straight thru. This aim of the bottom laser used with a vertical-plane stroke would simply run straight along the line of the putt. This aim of the laser used with a stroke in which the hands and arms are pronating and supinating (rolling) back and thru would show a more pronounced arcing or curving shape on the ground but would not actually register the 'turning" that the laser experiences -- a twisted or spinning laser dot still looks just like a dot.
If, on the other hand, the laser on the bottom aims along the shaft line, this would show a straight line when the stroke is a vertical-plane stroke or a tilted-plane stroke (both without arm and hand turning), and would show an arcing or curved path with an armsy stroke in which the arms and hands roll back and thru or the upper torso as a whole "swings" around going back or thru. This aim doesn't discriminate between a vertical-plane stroke and a tilted-plane stroke, but does indicate when the upper torso is "swinging" around as a whole or when the arms and hands are turning out of plane in the stroke.
There is a pretty good story about this laser and its usefulness in the
Commercial Appeal of Memphis. The story has a
video of the laser putter in action. From the video of the laser trainer on the Commercial Appeal story, it appears that the two lasers are located at the bottom of the shaft where the hosel attaches to the shaft about 5 inches above the heel of the putter. One laser aims straight along the line of the shaft a the ground. The other laser aims to a spot somewhere out along the line of aim of the center of the putter face. There is not a laser actually located on the center of the putter face aiming perpendicularly out of the face, but instead the laser is offset back from the center of the face and higher than the center of the face. This requires that this laser NOT aim in the same direction as the center of the putter face, and NOT aim along a parallel direction, but instead to aim at interceting the putter face line of aim at some specific distance out from the putter face. I'm guessing from the video that this intersection is not too far out from the face. The
"How it works" section of Rob's website suggests that this face-aim laser is aimed to intersect the line of face aim out about 8-10 feet from the face. I really can't tell.
The inventor and patent holder is Mark Finney, a medical equipment technical sales person from Syracuse. He obtained a
patent for this laser putter in 1998. The
image of the design in the patent indicates that the face-aim laser beam is aimed out of the hosel parallel to the ground (defined by the way the sole sits flat) but can be rotated from heel to toe by twisting the cylinder that holds the mirror that redirects the laser beam coming down the inside of the shaft out the hosel sideways. This "sets" the laser beam to intersect the full line of the aim of the center of the putter face out at a specific distance, so it appears to be variable.
While I personally would design the beams a little differently, this design is not at all bad. Functionally, it's a good trainer. It could be a little better, but what it gives you is accurate for the purposes and within the context of intended use.
Ideally, both beams should track along the line of the putt throughout the stroke. If you set up a putt aiming the putter face down a chalk line to a target 10 feet off, the fact that the laser beam exits the hosel 5 inches higher than the top of the putter head means that you would have to forward-press the putter slightly to aim the forward beam down at the front lip of a hole 10 feet away. But if you aim at a wall, no problem, so long as the heel-toe aim of the cylinder is set correctly for that distance.
The bottom beam does not strictly indicate the position of the center of the putter face vertically above the ground. That would require a beam aimed "straight down" in relation to the plane of the sole of the putter head, but this laser putter aims "straight down" the axis of the shaft. That's okay, because this makes the beam run in a straight line in either a vertical-plane stroke or a tilted-plane stroke in which there is no turning of the arms or hands. But the beam actually aims a little inside where the sweetspot is sweeping in a plane. A beam that really the sweetspot of the putter face aimed the same as the axis of the shaft would trace a line parallel and a little farther out from the golfer than the line the putter laser actually traces.
So there is a little room for differing in interpreting the feedback of the laser beam paths, but it's not all that significant. If you simply try to keep BOTH beams tracking the line of the putt, you're pretty close to doing what is helpful for putting straight.
The laser putter will help in several distincts ways: 1) aiming the face accurately; 2) keeping the stroke in plane (whichever plane is chosen); 3) avoiding manipulating the face with unnoticed hands or arms turning; and 4) engraining the "feel" of a repeating stroke pattern (regardless of your pattern). Overall, there is the implicit idea of not allowing either beam to CROSS the line of the putt, but instead to hew as closely as possible to the line without crossing it. This is a very good and valuable thing to train.
In my view, this is a very neat laser putter. Used intelligently, it can help a golfer learn about the way the body moves the putter.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
http://puttingzone.com
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