The Path Exaggeration Drill

Split the pathpal into its two separate halves and position them independently — one behind the ball as the backswing reference and one in front of the ball as the through-swing reference. The back stick should be positioned low and inside, so the club passes beneath it on the backswing. The front stick should be positioned higher and outside, so the club travels above it on the through-swing. The diagonal corridor created between the two halves forces an inside-out path direction — the club enters from inside-low and exits from outside-high. Pat notes that both halves can be adjusted independently — back stick in or out, angle more or less vertical, front stick in or out — giving the drill a wide range of path exaggeration severity depending on how aggressively the corridor is angled.

Path exaggeration intentionally overcorrects a swing fault beyond the desired endpoint to break the motor pattern associated with the fault and establish a new directional feel in the opposite direction. For a chronic over-the-top slicer, swinging to a neutral path feels identical to the old outside-in pattern because the nervous system's reference point for "neutral" has been calibrated to the slice path. Exaggerating to 15–20 degrees inside-out feels wildly different — hooks, push-draws, right-side misses — but it resets the internal compass so that when the golfer works back toward a neutral 3–5 degrees inside-out, it feels like the correct middle ground rather than the old outside-in pattern. Pat's TrackMan-confirmed 22 degrees is the drill working exactly as designed.

The pathpal's split functionality is what enables the diagonal corridor that the Path Exaggeration Drill requires. A single-unit pathpal creates a reference on one side of the ball at one angle. Two independent halves positioned at different locations and different angles relative to the ball create a before-and-after corridor — one reference for the backswing direction and a different reference for the through-swing direction. The diagonal from inside-low to outside-high is only possible because both halves can be positioned independently. No other training aid in the pathpal library uses this split configuration, making the Path Exaggeration Drill the drill that most directly demonstrates the hardware's unique split-unit architecture.

Start with maximum exaggeration — the corridor angled as aggressively inside-out as the two halves can be positioned — to break the over-the-top pattern and establish the new directional feel. Once 10–15 reps through the exaggerated corridor produce a consistent right-field miss or push-draw, begin narrowing the corridor by moving the back stick slightly outward and the front stick slightly inward — reducing the path angle from 20+ degrees toward 10–12 degrees. Continue narrowing over multiple sessions until the corridor is calibrated to a realistic playing path of 3–6 degrees inside-out, which produces a controlled draw or neutral ball flight. The exaggeration is the starting dose, not the maintenance dose. Pat's explicit instruction to "get that club path 6, 7, 8 degrees inside out" after the exaggeration phase confirms this progressive narrowing is the intended protocol.

Both drills use two pathpal rods to create a corridor for swing path training, but the configurations and goals are different. Kevin Sprecher's corridor is parallel — two rods set at the same angle to create a lane the club travels through, reinforcing a consistent path on both the back and through swings. Pat Bernot's corridor is diagonal — two rods at different positions and angles creating a direction-change gate that forces a specific inside-out path exaggeration. Kevin's drill trains path consistency; Pat's drill trains path direction change. Kevin's setup is for golfers maintaining a path they already have; Pat's setup is for golfers whose path is currently opposite to where it needs to be. Together they represent the two uses of a path corridor: maintenance and correction.