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Stay at Home and Get Better at Putting!
Many training aids require a driving range or space to practice that many of us don't have in our homes or even our backyard. So what happens when golf courses are closed and "stay at home" orders sweep the nation? Your golf game probably suffers. However if you have a way to practice at home you can keep at least the most important aspect of your game sharp. The Delta Putt and Delta Dueler are one of the best putter training aids I've seen to help improve the quality of your putter stroke. It uses visual feedback as the key to improving your putting. It is different from every other putting mat I've ever used, but yet simplistic enough to not frustrate the golfer. You can stay at home and actually get better at putting. |
The Delta Putt and Dueler both rely on the same basic parts. A triangle puck and a smooth plastic mat. The triangle puck is the key to improvement. It is a plastic puck with a silicone "wristband" wrapped around it. It has 3 different levels of accuracy: amateur, pro, and tour. On the triangle there is a raised impact zone for putter contact. The amateur is the largest while the tour is the smallest. This means it is easiest to hit a solid putt on the amateur side while most difficult to hit square putts with the tour side. You will soon learn how consistent and accurate your putting stroke is. When you use the putt on the Delta Putt it will show your path and face angle through the lines and triangle puck results. Did it stay on-line? Did it spin? Did it reach the target? You get visual feedback 3 essential areas of putting, face angle, speed and stroke path.
The Delta Putt is a 5' mat that has a starting line to square it up and lines to show results. It comes with one puck for practicing. The Delta Dueler turns putter training into a game. The Dueler comes with 4 triangle pucks and a 10' mat. It reminds me of a shuffleboard court in that you have specific distances and points that you are aiming to get along with avoiding or bouncing off the other triangle disks. It can be a competitive putting game to enjoy with a buddy, or the other golfers in your family. You can play it according to the rules included in the box or make up "house" rules to make the game fit your family and friends.
The Delta Putt and Dueler mats are impressive because of how thin they are, how easily they roll up and yet how flat the lay on the ground. So many putting mats come rolled up and are made to be stored rolled up, but when unrolled they still have significant curl and never really seem to lay flat unless you leave them out for weeks. This doesn't always work with limited space since you don't always want to walk on your putting mat. The Delta mats however are a totally different material. They are a smooth perforated plastic sheet. They roll up incredibly tight. I can get both in the small triangle box they came in. The big key is that they unroll perfectly smooth even on the first try or the 20th unroll. You can use the mat on virtually any surface. I liked it best on carpet, but it worked on tile, concrete, and hardwood. The grout lines in my tile were thick enough that it caused the triangle puck to hop a little. But overall I am most impressed by the mat for in-home practicing.
The only downside I could find of the Delta Putt and Dueler is the fact that you don't and can't use golf balls with it. You get used to looking down on triangle pucks instead of a ball. While that doesn't impact the effectiveness of practicing face angle, speed and stroke path, it visually is different. I've started visualizing a triangle puck when putting the ball and it kind of help line me up on the green while playing a round of golf.
I'll be honest, I'm not a training aid kind of guy. I always seem to try them, review them and then put them on the shelf to collect dust. The Delta Putt and Dueler have a real shot at getting use beyond this review. The feedback is vital to better putting and the Dueler game is fun for more than just me, but the whole golfing family. If you are staying at home, you can get better at the most important scoring part of golf, putting. The Delta Putt and Dueler is new, unique, different, simple, offers different levels and works. The price is decent too, which means you can improve your putting for about the cost of a dozen golf balls or 2 dozen if you get the Dueler.
