Dear Titaniummd,
What is required is not a training aid but the know-how of the skill. A training aid needs to reveal to you the know-how during the learning phase and not be used regularly as if it will "show you the break" because in that usage it is simply an addictive crutch that teaches little know-how and actively precludes learning. Once you have learned the skill to see the break on your own, as you should, using an "aid" should thereafter be used only sparingly as a check on how well or skillfully you utilize your know-how.
The know-how for reading break requires knowing how to perceive the slope (both orientation uphill-downhill and steepness), green speed, and ball arrival speed in an integrated prediction of the path a successful putt will follow into the hole. This predicted future path is then used to identify a target spot near the hole that serves as both a startline indicator from the ball to this target as well as an "end of the line" indicator of the appropriate touch that makes the rolling ball follow the predicted curving path into the hole (touch).
Does a given training aid TEACH you how to perceive these relationships of slope orientation, slope steepness, green speed, ball arrival speed, and target?
BREAK MASTER
In the case of the Exelys Break Master, the device reveals to you slope orientation and steepness of slope (in degrees, not percent slope, which is more intuitively useable). This in itself teaches you nothing about HOW you should perceive these aspects of the green and the putt. You place the device down on the green, hit the button, and look at the direction indicator and the slope severity in degrees. What you need is not a specific reading on a specific putt, but instead the know-how of WHY and HOW the device's readout is what it is. At the very least you need to know what the device's readout MEANS in terms of what you should do about the putt for startline and distance control.
The Break Master Manual makes an attempt at informing you what use to make of the readings, but does not explain WHY. The Manual simply says this is the experience: a 1-degree slope when the direction is downhill to the right perpendicularly to a line from ball to hole (a sidehill putt from the 3 or 9 o'clock position in relation to a fall-line as the 6-12 line on a clockface) requires about 10 degrees of uphill for the startline off this initial straight line from ball to hole (a 2-degree has a 15 degree startline, a 3-degree slope has a 20 degree startline). Okay, that's a startline, but what about WHY and what about exceptions, and what about touch? These Break Master suggestions are only rough guidelines for use on DIFFERENT green speeds and with DIFFERENT arrival speeds of the ball at the hole and ONLY for a sidehill putt. There is NO KNOW-HOW being taught or learned apart from this very rough ball-parking of the startline for this one putt (a sidehill putt).
The Break Master is best used by pro caddies as a speed-it-up device during a scouting out of a new course in a practice round prior to a tournament to help get the mapping of the greens done without a lot of errors or time-consuming trouble. The caddie can use the device to take a handful of readings on key locations around the green for fall-line orientation and slope steepness. The caddie can then draw these readings in the yardage book or caddie book for that course. So what? This means nothing unless the caddie or the pro thereafter KNOW HOW to use the map and markings to read a specific putt and select a startline and a touch for the specific putt. For the regular casual player, the Break Master is best used ONLY to check whether the player has any KNOW HOW and whether the player is using the KNOW HOW skillfully. The key word is "check", not "teach". The Break Master can be a very valuable device but only is used appropriately.
OTHE BREAK AIDS
For learning how to perceive slope, green speed, ball arrival speed, and target location, the most important skill is TOUCH, or the ability to deliver all balls to all holes with very much the same delivery speed in to the cup (or in a very narrow range of delivery speeds) consistently. This skill allows you to "predict the future" intuitively and instinctively at a level of accuracy and consistently that is far, far greater than that of almost all other golfers. The BEST training aid for this is "a golf ball". Simply watch the pattern of roll your putts have right at the end of the putt near the hole, within about three feet: how many revolutions per second does the ball usually have as it slows over the final three feet of the curving path? Once this delivery speed becomes consistent, you are in a great position to predict the future with your "reads" (as in "reading the tea leaves" or "reading the augurs or signs" to predict the future). A ball that helps with this is one that is colored on one side or has two colors on opposite sides (as the old Ping balls from the 1970s), or just a ball with some marks on it to reveal the end rolling pattern more clearly than possible with a simple white ball.
To perceive the fall-line orientation, you can use a Frisbee (a flat not concave/convex humped shape is better) and a golf ball: lay the Frisbee on the surface near the hole upside down (bowl-like) and place a golf ball inside this Frisbee -- the ball will roll downhill to the 6 position of the 6-12 line, and the fall-line is then from the ball straight uphill thru the center of the Frisbee. If you don't have a Frisbee, use a pie plate or just something flat with an identifiable center and perhaps a rim that blocks the ball from rolling off this flat surface at the bottom edge. A mason jar cap used upside down with a marble also works. A $1 bubble level from the local home construction hardware store works but may be too small and insensitive compared to a larger jar cap, pie plate, or Frisbee.
To perceive steepness, there is not really a useful training aid that helps much. And in any event, the KNOW HOW for making use of steepness is really intuitive and not analytical -- that is, you are much better at using steepness information when you simply take it into account intuitively as opposed to making some sort of calculation or memorizing some general table of mathematical relations and attempting to fit this analysis to a specific putt. If you really wanted what shows steepness, you would need an "inclineometer", which is a flat based set to the slope with a pendulum tower, whereby the slope makes the pendulum bob swing downhill a specific angle that indicates slope percentage or degree. The larger the flat area of the base and the taller the pendulum tower, the more accurate the reading. Uh, come to think of it, a golfer IS an inclineometer: the stance flatfooted on the slope is the base and the tower is from the neck down to between the ankles. The only thing missing is a pendulum hanging from the neck, set initially with the bob between the ankles and then allowed to swing downhill a certain angle. This serves to reveal both slope orientation and slope steepness. The arms and your putter can serve as the pendulum, but it takes a little skill to use this correctly without getting bad information. And it's legal to do this during play.
To identify the target spot near the hole, one COULD simply use the point on the ground where the startline intersects with a line thru the hole perpendicular to a direct line from ball to hole at the "hole high" distance. This is the current usage when a golfer reads the break as "half a ball outside right." Such a "spot" hole high serves to indicate the startline but does NOT serve to also indicate a touch reference as the "end of the line" for the roll. So a different intersection is required, and apparently I am the only person to teach this aspect of reading putts in the history of golf: the startline intersection with the fall-line serves to indicate touch as the "end of the line" in the sense that the ball is imagined to arrive after a straight roll at this target spot with the same arrival speed the real putt should have when the ball curves into the cup. The trick to seeing WHERE the startline aims is how to use the final three feet of the intuitively predicted curve of the roll into the hole to generate the startline that matches this final curve. The proceudre is simple geometry: see the final three feet of curvature into the hole, trace this curvature back out of the hole and extend it smoothly all the way back to the ball and note when the curving disappears and the path back to the ball becomes straight near or at the ball and then extend this straightness from the ball all the way to the fall-line, and the intersection is the target spot for both the startline and the end-of-line touch reference. Aids then might be a tee peg to mark this spot or a coaster to simulate a second "ghost hole" for a pretend straight putt at the target or an elevated string line with one end pegged in the green right at the target spot and the other end of the string line behind the ball to show both the starline under the string and the distance reference at the far stake in the green.
There is obviously a lot more KNOW HOW to learn, but that really requires a putting teacher and not a training aid.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Coach and Theorist
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