Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you become a smarter, better golfer.
Pro golfers are obsessed with perfecting two things when it comes to putting: start line and stroke path. There are other elements that are important (speed being chief among them), but start line and stroke path are two things they constantly work on.
Start line and stroke path are complementary skills, and they have a huge impact on your ability to make putts. If your stroke path gets off, it makes it difficult to start putts on your intended line. And if you aren’t hitting your line, it becomes almost impossible to consistently make putts.
When a Tour pro gets to the practice green, they almost always start their routine working on these two things. Often times, it involves a putting mirror and some sort of gate system, but it varies from player to player. What doesn’t vary is the emphasis they put on these two skills.
Tommy Fleetwood is one such pro who uses a gate drill to perfect his stroke path — but he uses a slightly modified version of the popular setup.
Fleetwood’s modified gate drill
Most gate drills are set up with two barriers — typically tees — pegged in the ground on either side of your putterhead. From there, the goal is to swing the putterhead through the “gates” when making your stroke.
When Fleetwood sets up this drill, however, he doesn’t set the tees up in line with one another. Instead, he pegs one tee on the outside of his putterhead near the ball, and the other inside the putterhead a few inches behind the ball. He does this to make sure his stroke path is on a good line throughout his entire stroke.
GOLFTEC Swing Evaluation
With the traditional gate drill, the putterhead can swing a bit off line on the way back and through, so long as it is corrected before impact, it will pass through the gates no problem. With Fleetwood’s modified gate drill, he has to swing his putterhead on the intended line throughout the entire stroke to keep from knocking into the tees.
In this case, it appears as if Fleetwood is trying to make sure he doesn’t swing too far in-to-out during the putting stroke, but the tees can be moved to fix the opposite problem as well. All that needs to be done is mirror the position of the two tees.
If you find yourself struggling to maintain a consistent path with your putterhead throughout the stroke, give this modified gate drill a shot. If done correctly, it should help you develop a consistent stroke that will hole more putts.
