Tru-Vu: Change the Way You Look at Putting Forever: A Book About Golf, Life and How to Become a Good-to-Great Putter

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Introduction

This book is based on the concept that the golfer, when putting, should stand facing the hole, rather than turning his body 90 degrees to the right or left in what we think of as Traditional Putting. I hope it’s OK if I use the abbreviation TP from now on throughout the book -- saves typing it 145 times. Everything I hope to pass along to you is based on research into both the instinctive visual and physical capabilities of the human body, and explains why TP actually TAKES AWAY our instinctive ability to both feel the proper distance of a putt, as well as having total confidence we have the putter aimed correctly. Two of the common names for this style are face-on or sidesaddle putting, but I feel those terms really don’t do it justice. After a lot of thought, I came up with the term Tru-Vu, which emphasizes the visual and kinesthetic advantages of the method.

I will also be introducing you to several new terms you may have never heard of, at least in relation to putting, or golf, for that matter. Terms like Quiet Eye, bug walking, self-discovery learning, gaze control, proprioceptors, and visual saccades are just a few of the terms critical to a full understanding of the principles behind my Tru-Vu putting system. While you don’t have to know all the details about these terms, I believe it’s very important to know at least some of the underlying reasons before making such a significant change to your putting style. You will learn more about how the body and brain react during the time leading up to the act of putting as well as the putting stroke itself, which can’t be a bad thing, as long as you forget all about them while actually putting, please!

Even after reading this book I’m sure there will be some who don’t agree for whatever reason and that’s OK, really. If you are happy with your current putting or expect the next new putter to solve your problems forever, then by all means keep doing the same thing and expect those different results. If you think this style of putting violates some tradition of golf then don’t try it - but please don’t use that as an excuse to condemn those of us who simply chose a different way of putting.

Banned anchored putters? There is hope!

And if you have been a golfer who uses some form of anchored putter, or a different type of putting grip, then you are the biggest winners of all! I guarantee you will be able to transition to Tru-Vu putting in no time at all, and I think you’ll discover you will putt better than you ever did before, and even better, become a good-to-great putter for the rest of your life!

And let me be very frank from the start - I’m certainly not saying you can’t putt good-to-great with any of the dozens of traditional putting styles or any of the hundreds of different putters out there today. Every week on TV we watch the winner make almost every putt inside of ten feet plus a number of long putts, right? The numbers don’t lie – the winners on all of the pro tours each week are almost without exception the best putters that week, and certainly among the best at saving strokes with their putting. But how long does it last, and what about the 149 other players each week who did NOT win? How many times do we hear a pro talking about putting being the difference between a win, a paycheck or moving on down the road to the next tournament? If it happens to the best players in the world then it most certainly happens to the rest of us!

A simple test

Before we go any further I’d like to ask you to try something for me, just to get a quick sense of what this book is all about. Get a couple of pairs of clean (hey, use dirty if you want but -- yuck!) socks and roll each of them up into a ball. You can use tennis balls, ping pong balls or even golf balls but I’m suggesting something soft, just in case! Go to a room in your house or apartment (or outdoors for that matter) and pick out some chairs or place a few paper plates around on the floor at different distances. Now, I’d like to have you face toward each target and toss the socks (or whatever objects you’re using) underhand. Unless you have a physical disability you should be able to come pretty close to each target the first time. After a couple of sessions I would suspect you’re hitting the targets pretty regularly and the quality of your occasional miss has also gone up dramatically.

Now, if you would stand in the same place but this time, take a TP stance with your body at 90 degrees to the target and your upper body bent over and your arms hanging down just like you were holding your putter. Now, using which ever is your trailing arm (that would be the right arm for right-handed golfers and the left for lefties), toss the socks underhanded to each target. Go ahead, I’ll wait… try it several times both ways, including not looking at the target when you are in the traditional putting stance just to give you a third option! For bonus points try tossing the sock using both hands from a traditional putting stance! That’s four different methods, so give yourself some time to test each of them out and try whatever variations you can think of that might help your score. Please keep honest track of your score with each method – if you cheat then I doubt I’ll be able to open your eyes about a different way to putt and there probably isn’t much point in you reading any further.

Light bulb moment?

Now think about what you just did in terms of being able to see your target and making a natural motion to toss the sock to your target. You didn’t have to think about where the toss in terms of distance or accuracy since it was automatically taken care of by your brain and body! Your LEVEL head and binocular vision gave your brain the distance range and the natural underhanded toss made use of your body’s instinctive alignment to take care of directional accuracy.

But, when you took a traditional putting stance you could no longer see your target with both eyes unless you rotate your head almost 90 degrees. It’s almost impossible to do that without raising your head, your shoulders and your torso – heck I’ve seen people completely stand up when they try to look at the target while putting! The result of the TP stance is a visual disconnection because your eyes can’t see the target and the ball at the same time. And since you can’t actually see your target I would bet a nickel you didn’t land very many socks on the target. If you can consistently hit the target that way then either you are an elite athlete or simply have amazing skills!

When you face the target and make a natural, instinctive underhanded toss to the target you don’t have to change your stance or your vision alignment, plus you have interactive feedback (also known as "self-discovery learning") on each toss that improves your accuracy as your go along. Using a TP stance you lose both, and each toss becomes pretty much a guess. This visual disconnection was one of the first big revelations I had during my research, and it became one of the first principles my Tru-Vu putting system was based on.

Now, I don’t expect this simple sock test to change your mind about putting all at once -- otherwise this would be a pretty short book! I just wanted to give you a quick, hands-on lesson about what you are getting into here! I don’t expect you to believe me just based on the socks -- but it’s a mental starting point that hopefully will help you as your read through this book. You may even get the socks out a few times as you are reading, just to visualize the various points I’ll make throughout the book.

Arrangement of this book

This book is not arranged in chapters per se, but short sections that are meant for quick reading and hopefully understanding. Some sections are much longer than others and a few can actually be skipped entirely if you are not interested in the details of the personal journey that led me to writing this book. The same goes for much of the research, although I really think it’s important for a more complete understanding of why you’ve missed short putts or three-putted so often. Plus I would hate to think I wasted all those years gathering up the information and distilling it down to a more readable level!

So let’s get started with what was the original introduction to the book six years ago and see where it takes us!

Are we all doomed?

Golf can the most frustrating game in the world and putting is without a doubt the most frustrating part of golf. Have you ever wondered why you cannot putt consistently well day after day, week after week, let alone month after month or year after year? Have you ever asked yourself -- Why I can’t putt like the pros, or at least close to how well they putt? Is there some mystery they have solved that I don’t have access to? Good grief, is this rocket science or something? Or are the pros just blessed with athletic and putting skills I don’t have?

In fact they probably do have some physical and visual gifts you don’t possess, but that doesn’t mean you can’t putt as well as them with just a little practice with the Tru-Vu putting system! I’ve got to warn you though -- if a tour pro starts using my Tru-Vu putting system they will most likely still putt a little better than you because they simply have better physical skills. Plus they are most likely much better at reading greens, have a psychology coach, and keep accurate charts of all the courses and greens they play each year. As they say on the TV ads, these guys and gals are good!

The game of golf is at a crucial crossroads as I write this introduction. In the early part of 2013 the governing bodies of the games (the USGA and the R&A) proposed a very significant change in the rules that would abolish anchored putting. This has created a firestorm in our golfing world, with strident voices on both sides claiming the moral high ground, a discussion I really don’t plan to enter with this book. The rule change has been formally announced by the USGA and R&A in late May, 2013. But, the way the rules change is written, it has no effect on my Tru-Vu putting system whatsoever.

This rules change is happening at the same time the game is losing players at an alarming rate, in no small part due to the frustration with putting. My wife enjoys going out to the golf course with me on rare occasions (she’s a runner and exercise nut) -- but simply won’t take more than two putts before picking up her ball and moving on to the next tee. That’s her way of avoiding the whole stress thing with three or four-putting.

After he retired, Ben Hogan didn’t like to putt in casual rounds with friends, and invented games within the game that emphasized ball striking over putting. To me that speaks volumes for how frustrating putting can be. I realize Mr. Hogan had physical and visual issues resulting from the horrific car crash he was in years before, and I can sympathize more than most after my experience with multiple sclerosis.

It all comes down to this simple question we’ve all asked ourselves a thousand times -- Why do I miss putts even when EVERYTHING felt right and I was sure I put a good stroke on the ball? Is there something wrong with me? I can take the truth! Are we all doomed? I don’t think so, but the solution I found might surprise you. I know it surprised me!

The title of the book says it all – I believe you have to change the way you physically LOOK at putting to make yourself into a life-long good-to-great putter! I’ll get into much more detail when we finally come to the chapters on how you stand at the ball to putt the Tru-Vu way, but if you can’t wait any longer please go to the section entitled Now, are you finally going to describe how to putt the Tru-Vu Way? But, please come back to this spot and finish the rest of the book after you check that section out!

It’s hard to explain to non-golfers the thrill of a well struck shot, or the exhilaration that flows into our bodies after making a birdie or recovering from a bad shot with a good chip and putt for par. I feel that if we can remove the ongoing frustration with putting more new golfers would stick with the game until it becomes an important part of their life, as it is for so many millions of us!

As for the true golf nuts out there, I guess a lot us just kept trying and hoping for the best when it came to putting. Or else we became even more determined to find that magic formula -- on sale today for three easy payments of $29.95! Well, maybe $59.95 or more these days!

And putters, oh my what can we say about the putters we’ve owned over the years? Arnold Palmer is famous, if that’s the term, for having at least 2,000 putters that he has tried over the years. I bow to the King in that department but not from lack of trying! My best guess is that I’ve used at least 40 different putters over the past 50 years. I used to rummage through used club barrels at pro shops looking for the next magic wand. I even won a college tournament with a putter I found in a used club barrel the day before! My coach wasn’t too thrilled with that idea and he still gave me grief for weeks about it, even though I won in a playoff!

I simply couldn’t understand it because I was in love with that old, scratched and scarred putter and nothing anyone could say would change my mind for nearly three whole weeks! Then it turned on me and became an object of scorn that I couldn’t wait to sell for $7 to a teammate. I made a cool $2 in profit, which paid for a pitcher of beer that evening! Not all my putter transactions turned out that well in terms of winning tournaments, but I seldom if ever lost money on any trade with another player. I could always honestly say that I had not used up all the putts that putter had in its tank!

And just for a point of information -- I looked down in my golf shop just now and counted exactly three traditional putters remaining that have survived the years and the ebay sales block. Now, mind you, I’ve got a wedge fetish, with at least a dozen wedges of various makes and models enjoying the peace and quiet of my basement golf shop. Most of them make an annual pilgrimage in and out of my bag for various periods of time.

But there is one -- a Spaulding wedge (1949 model) that has been in my bag for nearly 45 years. It’s so old it just says Wedge on the back of the head. I have pitched or chipped in with that club at least 1,000 times over the years, at last count. It hasn’t been out of my bag for more than two rounds in a row all these years. I would have had it even longer but it took two years to talk my dad into loaning it to me -- knowing full well he