Tips From "The Putting Prescription"

Dr. Craig Farnsworth - "The Putt Doctor" - wrote this book and there are quite a few things in it that make it worth reading for golfers looking to improve their putting.  Here are some highlights of things that can be valuable to help you become a better putter:

Squaring Your Head and Eyes.  The book makes a good point that, for golfers to really see the target when they set up at address, they need to have their head aligned to the target - not tilted clockwise or counterclockwise from the target line.   Good putters also - when they tilt their head to look down the line - do so such that their eyes are on the same line as the target line.  

Big Muscles Control the Putting Stroke.  The book discusses the type of putting stroke that Dr. Farnsworth recommends.  This is a stroke controlled by a turn of the shoulders - not a rocking of the shoulders - and not by your hands.  If you are looking for a thorough discussion of an approach for how your body should control your putting stroke, the description in this book is a good one to read.

Pulling and Pushing Putts.  The book presents a chapter on each of these two topics with discussion on how to avoid pulling and pushing putts.  One of the major causes of pulling putts is attempting to use a straight back - straight through stroke.  Probably the most common cause of pushed putts is peeking too soon after the stroke (none of us would do that right?).  He presents a number of drills in the book to help players reduce pulled and pushed putts.

Charting Your Putts!  If you want to get more putts in the hole, this is one thing that can truly help you.  Do you know if you have any tendencies when you miss putts - more to the high side, or the low side?  Paying a little attention to where you miss might suggest what you need to do to either improve your aim, your stroke, or your green reads.

Visualize Your Putts.   I wonder how many of us actually visualize the path of the ball into the hole before we stroke a putt.  Dr. Farnsworth believes this is one of the things that most golfers do not do that they should do before each putt.  

Tips for the Yips!  The book contains an entire chapter on what Dr. Farnsworth believes are the major causes of the yips, and strategies to eliminate them.  He believes the major cause of the yips is not being able to trust aiming the putter at the target, and not being able to trust green reads.  He believes the Claw Grip is an excellent way to help eliminate the yips for many golfers.  If the yips have been a problem for you, reading this chapter is worth the price of the book.

Practice Drills.  The final chapter of the book presents some suggested practice drills to help golfers improve their putting strokes. The most valuable one is to set up an "Aim Aid" for a straight 10 foot putt, so that you can test if you have a stroke that will allow you to hit this putt on line consistently.

This book is a good read - well worth adding to your putting book library.

True Aim and Swingbyte - VERY Promising!

TRUE AIM.  Last month I mentioned that I would be testing a new product called True Aim.  It is a set of stickers that can go on driver heads to help golfers increase their driving accuracy and reduce their driver shot dispersion.  The link to the True Aim web site is provided below:

     True Aim

A few weeks ago I did some testing on myself with the True Aim driver stickers, to see if the product claims are real.  What I did was hit a number of shots - typically 3 to 4 - with each of the True Aim stickers on my driver, and record the results for Power Transfer Ratio (ball speed divided by swing speed), shot dispersion, and carry distance using my Flightscope Launch Monitor.  

The results collected are promising.  There were two stickers that seemed to help me get greater center contact on the driver face - and so higher Power Transfer Ratio and driving distance.  Not a huge amount of distance increase - about 5 yards - but measureable.  And these two stickers also resulted in lower driver shot dispersion - about 17 yards (compared to 30 yards with some of the other stickers). Maybe most important, putting the stickers on the head gave me a better "sense" of how to aim the driver at address.

In the next week, I am doing more tests of True Aim stickers with a few of my clients.  If anyone is interested in being a True Aim tester this offer is available - the first 5 folks who contact me and ask to do this can test these with me using my Flightscope for $25 - essentially the cost of the True Aim packet.  

SWINGBYTE.  At the PGA Show in Orlando this past January a new product called "Swingbyte" was demonstrated.  Swingbyte is a 24-gram sensor that can attach to any of your golf clubs.  When you make a golf swing and make contact with the golf ball, data from your swing is collected and can be transmitted to your smart phone (via a bluetooth connection) and also to other devices like an iPad.  The data collected includes your swing plane, club path, clubhead speed, club lie angle, and other useful data.  

This device has amazing potential value for golfers, clubfitters, and golf instructors.  For golfers you would have the ability to actually see how you are swinging the golf club and if changes you are making in your golf swing are actually taking hold.  For clubfitters and instructors it can be another "tool in the toolbox" to help golfers improve their golf swings and to make precision clubfitting even more effective.  It also has the potential to be a valuable inexpensive ($149 I believe) tool to help evaluate putting strokes.

Swingbyte is available right now at AT&T stores.  There are a group of about 50 or 60 of the Assn. of Golf Clubfitting Professionals (AGCP) custom clubfitters who will soon purchase Swingbyte and evaluate it for potential use in our custom fitting efforts.  Here is the link to the Swingbyte web site:

     Swingbyte

Next month I expect to have some actual test data with Swingbyte and will share it in this newsletter.  This is a potentially very exciting product to help golfers improve!

"There Is More To Putting Than Meets The Eye"

For my "third 21st birthday," my bride bought me this book.  It was written by Lanny L. Johnson, M.D., and Howard Twitty, a PGA Tour Pro.  550 pages of information from a 5-year study on what the best putters in the world do when they putt.  No, do not think I will finish reading it by next month's newsletter - but I do hope to have some useful information to share with you by then!

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One of my AGCP fitting friends shared this video last week - of Maurice Allen setting a Guinness World Record for the highest ball speed ever attained - and with a 3 wood!  He is someone who may start showing up in future ReMax Long Driver Competitions?  Thought you might like to see it:

  Maurice Allen World Ball Speed Record!

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As always thank you for reading my newsletter - hope you have found some information that can help you play better golf!

The Fit Is IT!

Tony Wright (The Golfer's Clubfitter)

GAME IMPROVEMENT GOLF

Oak Ridge, TN

The PREMIER Short Game Fitting Center in East Tennessee! 

tony@gameimprovementgolf.com

www.gameimprovementgolf.com