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Hi from San Carlos,
The essence of any clubfitter’s knowledge comes from his clients. We never offer a product or service that we haven’t tested personally – or subjected to our “Donate Your Swing to Science” program.
This Saturday – as our Putting Club activity of the week – we are offering a test that might be the simplest way to improve your putting.
There’s a big word you need to know: “Proprioception” loosely translated: “feeling yourself”. “Proprioception” describes the human ability to close your eyes and touch your nose. “Proprioception” is about “knowing where your body is in space”.
That’s an important concept in golf. When you see the pros taking that partial backswing and glancing at their hand position, that’s proprioception training in process.
The position of a player’s body and hands at impact determines the face angle that the club meets the ball. At the elite level, less than 1* deviation in face angle at impact is standard.
Come to Putting Club this Saturday from 3-6. We will test your putting stroke for consistency with our Science and Motion (SAM) Putt Lab. A consistent stroke is important because if the putter face is more than 1* open or closed at impact, you will miss a straight putt from ten feet.
There might be a simple way to improve consistency of face angle at impact. “Dr. Lenny” has the prescription.
Dr. Lenny Johnson
One name you will hear a lot in the future is “Dr. Lenny” Johnson. He studied putting on tour for five years and then wrote the (missing) text book on the SAM Putt Lab. Then he invented a new grip that aids proprioception. Saturday, you’ll see the grip.
It is a simple, round, pure rubber grip with four 2 millimeter grooves at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. You “register” your hand position with the grip. You will see a groove in your thumb. The underlying idea is that this simple method improves a player’s ability to return the face of his club to square at impact.
Can a 2 millimeter groove in a grip improve your control over your putter? It sounds just simple enough to work.
We’re testing Dr. Lenny’s theory this Saturday at Putting Club. We have a couple of identical putter styles set up with plain round grips and the Dr. Lenny “Prescription Golf” grip.
We’ll use our Science and Motion (SAM) Putt Lab to record and compare your putts first with the standard grip and then with the “Prescription” grip.
In the process, you’ll get some valuable information about your aiming and your stroke. Every player who donates his swing to science receives a complete SAM Putt Lab report by email. There is no charge for Putting Club this week.
We’ll conduct the tests on a “first come, first served” basis from 3 until 5. At 5 we’re going to debut a new skills test we’ve developed to diagnose putting strengths and weaknesses.
BTW: If the grip works to improve the consistency of your putter, why wouldn’t it work the same for all of your clubs?
Putting Club Group Presentation Saturday at 5 PM.
At 5, we’ll turn to a debut of our new putting test. We’ll choose a couple of volunteers to take the test. Here’s how it works:
Green reading and aiming. From eight predetermined (measured) positions, player reads break on a putt. Read is recorded. Player then hits the putt. Miss or make is recorded. Performance graded.
Aiming and stroke bias. Player takes laser aiming test. Aiming bias is recorded. Player stroke is tested on SAM Putt Lab. Performance graded.
Distance control. Player makes three putts from 5, 10, 15 and 20 feet. Distance long or short is recorded. Performance graded.
50 Foot Putt. Three long putts attempted. Performance graded.
Our goal is to provide a method for players to “grade themselves” for putting skill. A successful test will also identify areas most in need of improvement.
Returning to the Golf Lab indoor putting surface is a good test for putting improvement.
Best Regards,
Leith, David, Clint, Dian and Joel
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