The Putting Slice Correction Drill

Split the pathpal into its two halves and use them independently. The first half uses the center alignment feature with a rod threaded through it — positioned to verify stance squareness and ensure the feet and body are aligned to the target. The second half is placed just outside the golf ball on the far side, creating a barrier that the putter face and path must avoid on the through-stroke. Any across-the-ball cutting motion will contact the outside half immediately. The combined setup gives the golfer both the alignment reference they need at address and the path correction barrier they need through impact — a two-problem solution in a single station.

A putting slice — also called cutting across the ball — occurs when the putter travels on an outside-in path through impact, similar to the full swing slice but applied to a putting stroke. When the putter cuts across the ball from outside to inside, it imparts sidespin and a glancing contact that causes the ball to start left of the intended line and roll inconsistently. The face-to-path relationship in putting is as important as it is in the full swing: a cut path with a square face produces a left-pull miss, and a cut path with an open face can produce a ball that starts near the line but curves off it. Golfers who cut across their putts often compensate by aiming right of the target, creating a compounding alignment error that makes the stroke unreliable on breaking putts.

The outside barrier occupies the space that the putter head would move through during a cut stroke — the area outside and beyond the ball on the through-stroke. When that space is blocked, the only path available that avoids the barrier is one that works from inside to straight or inside to slightly outside through impact. The barrier doesn't require the golfer to understand path geometry — it creates a physical constraint that makes the correct path the only available path and the incorrect path immediately punished by rod contact. This is the same mechanism as all barrier-based pathpal drills applied to the putting stroke: replacing an abstract direction cue with a spatial constraint.

Putting slice correction without alignment verification creates a new problem: a golfer who corrects their cut path but is aimed incorrectly will now miss the other direction. The center alignment feature on the first half gives Ed's drill a complete setup correction — the golfer is squared to the target before the stroke begins, then the outside barrier ensures the path matches that alignment through impact. Most putting drills address either alignment or path, not both simultaneously. The two-half configuration of Ed's drill solves both variables in a single station, which matters especially for golfers whose cut-across putting fault has led to compensatory misalignment — aiming right to offset the leftward miss from the cut path.

The Putting Slice Correction Drill is the putting mirror of Pat Bernot's Path Exaggeration Drill — both use split pathpal halves to address path direction for two different aspects of the game. Pat's drill creates an exaggerated inside-out corridor for full swing iron and driver shots; Ed's drill creates an inside-path constraint for the putting stroke. Both drills use the pathpal's split architecture as the enabling hardware feature. The putting application also parallels Shawn Koch's Wall Drill in conceptual structure: both create a barrier on the side toward which the incorrect path travels, making the fault path physically impossible and the correct path the only available option. The pathpal library's split-unit drills — Pat's path exaggeration and Ed's putting slice fix — together demonstrate the training aid's most architecturally distinctive feature applied across the full game.