Match Pace and Line Putting

Separate both pathpal halves and place them on the green as a gate — positioned on your intended start line accounting for the break of the putt. The gate should be wide enough for the ball to pass through when struck on the correct line, but narrow enough that a path deviation is caught. For a right-to-left breaking putt as Mike demonstrates, the gate is set on the line that accounts for the break — not straight at the hole. The drill then requires both a correct start line through the gate and the correct pace to allow the break to bring the ball to the hole.

Line and pace are inseparable because break is pace-dependent. The same putt played at two different speeds will take two different amounts of break — a faster putt breaks less, a slower putt breaks more. Mike demonstrates this directly: a putt that passes through the gate but is hit too slowly will finish on the low side because the extra time on the green allowed the slope to pull it further off line. A putt that passes through the gate with too much pace will finish on the high side because the speed reduced the effective break. The correct line only produces the correct result at the correct pace — which is why practicing start line alone without pace produces incomplete putting improvement.

A standard line drill — using a chalk line or a single alignment rod — only tells the golfer whether the ball started on the intended line. It provides no information about whether the pace matched the line. Mike's gate drill reveals both simultaneously because the ball flight after the gate is the diagnostic: through the gate but finishes low means the line was correct but the pace was too slow. Through the gate but finishes high means the line was correct but the pace was too aggressive. Missing the gate means the line was wrong regardless of pace. Three different outcomes, three different diagnostics — all from the same single drill setup.

The gate should always be positioned on the intended apex line — the highest point the ball needs to reach before the break takes over — not on a straight line to the hole. For a right-to-left breaking putt, the gate sits to the right of the hole at the apex of the intended path. For a left-to-right breaker, it sits to the left. For an uphill putt with minimal break, the gate can sit closer to the hole on a nearly straight line. The key is that the gate tests the start line that accounts for the specific break being played — not a generic straight line. Mike's use of the separated pathpal halves is ideal for this because the two pieces can be positioned independently at any point on the intended line.

The three pathpal putting drills form a logical progression from mechanics to execution. Jason Kuiper's Linear Putting Stroke drill trains the stroke shape — a near-zero arc, highly linear path for start line consistency. Brad Pluth's Arc vs. Straight Drill corrects the mechanics misconception — teaching the natural arc the putter's geometry requires. Mike Barge's Match Pace and Line drill is the execution layer that sits on top of both: it doesn't prescribe a stroke shape, it tests whether whatever stroke is being used produces the correct start line and — crucially — whether that line is matched with the correct pace to account for break. It's the final integration drill that connects practice mechanics to on-course putting performance.