on the green
The $49 training aid this top junior swears by
Patrick Smith
A lot goes into becoming one of the best junior golfers in the country. Look at the players at El Caballero Country Club competing this week in Tarzana, Calif., for the U.S. Girls' Junior title and it’s obvious the hours of practice they have already put into their games. But there’s a difference between practice and quality practice. Sometimes, the addition of a training aid can give you the focused practice you need to improve your game.
Samantha Brown, who qualified for and played in the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster C.C., earlier this year says her favorite training aid is the Pelz Putting Tutor.
Brown sets it up on four- to five-foot, straight putts. Put your ball on the red circle and then putt, trying to keep your ball from hitting the marbles at the end of the track. She uses regularly, hitting about 50 putts a day with it.
“I know I’m done when I’m confident, I’m hitting every putt between the marbles and my stroke feels good,” Brown said.
This training aid will tell your right away if you have a tendency to push or pull your putts—or potentially both. The only way to get the ball to roll through the marbles is to hit the ball with a square face, producing an end-over-end roll that will get the ball through the marbles without hitting them.
“I started using it a year and a half ago,” Brown said. “It gets you rolling it online. It’s tough, but it’s good.”
