The TrueStrike Anti-Over-the-Top Drill

Brent Witcher places the TrueStrike pad slightly outside and angled along the ball's path, leaving about an inch of clearance between the pad's edge and the club at address. If you come over the top, your clubhead strikes the pad — instant feedback. If your path is truly inside-out, the club misses the pad cleanly. It turns an invisible path problem into a physical pass/fail test on every single swing.

The easiest real-time check is ball flight: an outside-in path with an open face produces a slice that curves left-to-right (for right-handers), while a pull straight left means the face was square to the outside-in path. A more reliable method is Brent's barrier drill — if the club consistently catches the pad on the outside, your path is over the top. If it clears on the inside edge, your path is inside-out. TrackMan and similar launch monitors can also quantify it precisely.

Brent recommends leaving approximately one inch of clearance between the end of the club and the edge of the pad at address. This gap is intentional — it's tight enough that any meaningful over-the-top move will catch the corner of the pad, but forgiving enough that a proper inside-out path clears it with room to spare. Too close and you'll catch it even on good swings; too far and it loses its effectiveness as a feedback tool.

Both drills address the same root problem — the over-the-top move — but they target different points in the swing. The Arm Drop Drill uses the pathpal rod to intercept a steep downswing during transition, training the feeling of dropping the arms under the plane. The TrueStrike Drill uses the pad as a ground-level barrier at impact, enforcing the correct inside-out path at the moment the club meets the ball. Together they address both the cause (transition) and the result (impact path).

Yes — Brent notes that the pathpal pad itself can serve the same purpose. In a pinch, a headcover, a towel, or an alignment stick laid flat on the ground just outside the ball can create a similar barrier. The key is placing the object slightly on the outside path of the ball at a slight angle so it intercepts an over-the-top swing without being in the way of a proper inside-out path. The TrueStrike pad is ideal because it's stable, weighted, and won't move unexpectedly on a near-miss.