Dear Tim,
Nice to see PEI's Lori Kane playing well these days!
The elbow in-turn is a setup choice only, and not really a stroke movement choice. Your question asks about starting the stroke with a movement of the elbow, and this is not what I teach. I teach starting the stroke with a dropping of the lead shoulder socket that pushes or shoves or "combs" the bottom edge of the putter face pretty straight back (or at worst slightly inside but never outside across the putt line) and slightly up off the ground.
When the shoulder frame motion powers the stroke, there is no independent movement of the elbows that changes the relationship of the elbows to other body parts (i.e., the shoulders and wrists). Whatever the relationship of these joint pairs established at address, the same relationship persists throughout the stroke movement. Neither the elbows or hands move any further than the shoulder motion sends them.
My previous two tips about the shoulder and the elbow may not be clear enough on this. See
The Shoulder Move Plus a Stockton Tip for Straight Strokes and
Pushing or Pulling Putts? It's the Lead Elbow, Stupid!
I have two new ideas to help promote the movement I am describing here. First, whatever orientation the lead elbow has at address, don't let it change when you move the shoulder frame. (It's nice not to change the rear elbow also, but not as critical as keeping tyhe form of the lead elbow.) The elbow will "roll" unless you learn to keep it from changing -- which is mostly the idea of moving everything solely from the shoulders. Second, focus on the two forearms bones at the wrist -- the upper bone when the hands are on the putter handle meets the base of the thumb and the lower bone meets the butt of the hand -- and keep the lower bone moving along your toe line during the stroke without the upper bone rolling back or forth over top of it. I think of "sticking" the lower bone straight back and slightly upward in the backstroke a little moreso than the upper bone at the wrist and then of preserving the relationship / orientation of the two bones as the shoulder rock goes forward and upward thru and past impact.
Almost all golfers mistakenly think this sort of stroke biomechanics is some sort of "manipulation" but it's not at all. If you read carefully what I describe above, you will see that I simply recommend PREVENTING CHANGES in the arms and hands -- not changing them with manipulation. The more the shoulder frame ONLY powers the stroke, the less tendency there is for change in the hands and arms, so using the shoulders and also preventing changes in the hands and arms go "hand in glove" together.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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