Friday, April 16, 2010

Putting D-Plane

For awhile I've said 'D-Plane is alive and well in putting' and here's a video I made showing that.



It's one of the things that putting guru's like David Orr and Geoff Mangum harp on...there's too much focus on the stroke and not enough focus on where the putterface is at impact.

Don't get me wrong, stroke has its importance, particularly if you are missing the sweetspot a lot. But if the ball is struck pretty well, that face needs to be at the correct target with the right amount of speed for putting success.






3JACK

7 comments:

Erik J. Barzeski said...

Balls putted with an in-to-out stroke will actually curve to the right (for a righty). Which makes sense if you think about it. I used to practice putting on a piece of green carpet and you could make the ball hook or slice - you just had to cut across the ball in the direction you wanted the ball to curve.

I appreciate the post but it seems to me to be a non issue. Are there really people out there that think path controls the ball on a PUTT? Really? If there are some, fortunately I've not met them.

Path and face angle are both important, but obviously if you could only have one you'd take a good face angle. You can make a three-footer with just about any path so long as you strike the ball with a good face angle.

Rich H. said...

Eric,

Yes, there are.

Bradley Hughes, the professional golfer, has debated me this on the ABS forum. He then claimed that if I aligned my entire body to the right and swung the putterhead along the lines of my body, the ball would go out to the right.

I showed him this video. He then claimed I needed to align my entire body out to the right and it would do it. I told him that the ball doesn't know where your body is aimed and only reacts to what the putter face and putter path are doing when it hits the ball.

A lot of this came with the idea that you should play a hook around the trees by aiming the clubface at where you want the ball to end up and the body to where you want the ball to start.

It didn't surprise me too much, PGA Tour players often get this stuff wrong. But it did surprise me that when I showed Bradley the video along with The Golf Evolution video, he still denied it.

I do think the Putting D-Plane video is good for golfers to stop focusing on their stroke so much and more on the putterface.

Erik J. Barzeski said...

^
|
STUNNED

I give up. The video Dave and I made may not be scientific "proof" but it's awfully close. If someone is capable of just "denying" what is shown in that video (or yours), then I'm incapable of understanding such a person... They're outside of the realms of understanding.

Unknown said...

So how do you practice the face? Practice the initial aim or practice the face at impact? or both? Thanks

Rich H. said...

Curtis, all that really matters when it comes to the face is a square face to your intended target at impact. Loren Roberts aims 2.0* CLOSED at address. But at impact, his face is 0.0* to the target. The path really more or less effects the ball hit off the sweetspot or not. And the other part is green reading and speed.

I think it's safe to say that one should try and get their aim as close to 0.0* to the target at address and then keep it there at impact. Not everybody is as skilled as Loren Roberts. I'll probably buy the Pelz Lazraimer soon for help with that. Althogh I would like to get an Edel putter to help that permanently.




3JACK

BerkeleyRican said...

i posted this somewhere else, but i thought i'd post it here also:

i think people disbelieve the ball flight laws because they miss that while they may line up the clubface direction square to the target and adjust the clubface path to work the ball, they forget that the clubface may not be really square at all when the ball is actually hit. so if i want to hit a draw, i naturally swing inside out to work the ball, but unconsciously my brain tells my hands to leave the clubface direction a little open so that the ball starts right of the target and inside the clubface path to work the ball from right to left. same thing applys with a fade.

i think people find the ball flight laws confusing because they think that the clubhead path is the only contributing factor to working the ball.

but the truth is that you need two factors to move the ball, clubface direction and path. thanks for the vids on this.

BerkeleyRican said...
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