[PHOTO: Andy Lyons]
It’s one of the most popular putting drills in the history of golf. You’ve probably done it yourself. And if you haven’t, you’ve probably seen a pro do it.
The drill is pretty simple:
- Place tees outside the heel and toe of the putter.
- Put the ball in the middle of those tees.
- Swing your putterhead through.
It’s known as the ‘gate drill’, and makes it impossible to miss the sweet spot (because your putterhead would crash into the tees if you did). It’s the drill Tiger Woods does every time he’s on the green.
The thing is, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this drill. Do it the wrong way, and it can make your putting stroke a lot worse without you even noticing.
The bad way
In a recent chat with renowned golf biomechanist Dr Sasho Mackenzie, he broke down some key findings from his putting study.
The two important ones:
- Mackenzie found that hitting the ball slightly off the heel or toe doesn’t make a huge difference when it comes to making or missing putts.
- The direction your putterface is pointing at impact – your face angle – is incredibly important, however. It only takes a tiny variation in your face angle to miss the putt.
The issue with gate drill, if done by itself, is that it helps you get better at the less important skill (hitting the sweet spot), and can inadvertently make you worse at squaring the putterface. It may be why Tiger Woods himself tends to pull putts with a closed clubface, as his son Charlie explains here.
The reason why can be explained by physics: it’s easier to fit a rectangular object through a tight gap when you angle it slightly – the same way you tilt and turn a sofa in order to get it through a door and around a hallway corner.
As Mackenzie explains:
“Putting through gates, it seems like a reasonable one, but in fact, trying to have your putter move through a gate probably encourages you to have your face open or really closed. You’d be able to squeeze it through there easier.”
The good way
Don’t worry, it’s an easy fix.
It’s not that the gate drill is bad, it’s just that it could be better. It’s incomplete. Here’s how most pros do the gate drill these days:
Christiaan Bezuidenhout’s putting stroke is so pure.
Says he does this drill for a few minutes every day:
Find a flat six-footer, then roll the line on the ball down the line on the ground. Tees around the putter head and start line. https://t.co/30gipzeeFr pic.twitter.com/VkERts6DQA
— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) June 27, 2024
- The best way to do the gate drill is to add a second set of gates. One for the putterhead, and another to roll the ball through.
- Other pros also add a line on the ground, then try to roll their ball down the line while putting through the gates.
- Perhaps the easiest way to make the gate drill better is to simply use a line on your golf ball, and try to roll it end-over-end as you swing your putterhead through the gates.
Ultimately, to make sure you can’t cheat this drill, you need something that’s going to show you if you have an open or closed putterface.
Do that, and you’ll get the best of both worlds.
