Review: SKLZ Putting Gate Trainer

Don Fisher

Posted 2009-10-23

The idea behind this putting trainer is not bad. The product, unfortunately, just doesn’t live up to the idea behind it. The Putting Gate is made up of three parts. You have a 9 inch wide piece of 1/16” thick rubber as a base. Then there are 2 wooden blocks that attach to the top of the rubber base, one on each end. This gives you a channel that you are supposed to putt between. You then place a golf ball in the center of the rubber base. The idea is you have to stroke your putt, WITHOUT touching either of the 2 wooden blocks. Pretty simple concept. If you can make a straight back and forth stroke without striking one of the blocks, you are making a good stroke, and you should be sinking a lot of putts. At least that's the idea. Problem is it didn’t quite work out that way when I tried it.

The first problem I experienced was with the rubber base, and the small detent you set the golf ball in. This hole that the ball is setting in causes the ball to HOP a little when you strike it. And this causes the ball to go off line at least half of the time. Not a good way to gain confidence in your putting skills. Second problem is when you try to make that nice straight back and forth stroke. Next thing you know, you’re thinking about making the straight stroke, and you completely lose your distance control. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to lose distance control when I’m working on my putting stroke. This was bad enough, until I happened to hit one of the blocks of wood with my putter as the putter head was coming back to the ball. That was all it took for me to completely lose all confidence in my putting stroke. After that, all I could think about was NOT HITTING THE WOODEN BLOCKS. I lost all feel for my stroke, I lost all my distance control, and my aim was terrible as well. I’d estimate that I spent a good hour working on my putting using this Putting Gate aid my last time out. And in that time, I DIDN’T MAKE ONE PUTT. I don’t know about you, but I never miss that many putts in a row. I was putting to a cup that was 25 feet away, and never made a putt.

In all, I tried the SKLZ Putting Gate for 2 putting sessions at two different golf courses. In both sessions, I putted terribly. Not one putt sunk over two days of practicing with this training aid. What was worse was the fact that I completely lost my feeling of being comfortable, while standing over the ball.

I will say one nice thing about the Putting Gate. The two ball trainer does work pretty well. The way it works is pretty simple. You set it on the ground with each ball side by side, and then you try to strike BOTH balls at the same time with the putter face. IF the face of the putter is SQUARE to your putting line, then you strike BOTH BALLS equally, and they roll straight toward the target. But if the putter face is not square to your putting line, you strike ONE ball more than the other, and the two ball device SPINS in a circle as it rolls off line. So if all you want to know is if your putter face is square to your target line at impact, this two ball device works fine. Only complaint I have is that you can do the same thing with two STANDARD GOLF BALLS. If you set 2 balls down and strike both, you get the same thing. If both balls roll at the same speed and roll the same distance, you STRUCK BOTH at the same time, with equal force. And that means your putter face was square to your target line. No need for any special two ball device. Why carry this 2 ball thing, when you already have half a dozen golf balls in your bag already?

I’ve saved the best, or should I say the worst, for last. Quality. Quality is what either makes or breaks most anything we buy. If the quality of the product is no good, the value of the product is pretty low. And this is where the SKLZ Putting Gate really failed my test. In total, I used the Putting Gate three times. I folded it in half to place it in my golf bag to transport it to the range and back twice. I adjusted the width of the opening once to fit my putter. And after this minimum amount of use, the unit fell apart at the seams! It literally fell apart. The rubber base has 2 pieces of Velcro glued to it. The two wooden blocks have matching pieces of Velcro on them to hold the block in place. Problem is, the two pieces of Velcro attached to the rubber base came off, after only 2 uses, and only one adjustment of the blocks. This is pretty poor quality in my opinion. Certainly not what I would expect from a so called Training Aid. To make things worse, I’m not the only one to try this training aid and have the thing fall apart in the same way. Truth is, I COULD RE-GLUE the Velcro strips back onto the rubber base. But in all honesty, I don’t think it would be worth my time and glue to do it. If it really worked well, I’d do it, but as it is, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Bottom line is this is one more training aid that is not worth the time or money to bother with. It didn’t do a thing for my putting game. In fact, it made it worse until I was able to regain my confidence again. And falling apart at the seams, is just too much to overlook. The poor quality of this thing, brings back my dis-like for the words 'MADE IN CHINA'. I think we have all come to understand things are going to be made in China these days, that’s just part of life in this economy. But this piece of junk brought back old memories of the first things that were made in China. Things that were not worth buying. I honestly don’t know why an instructor of Rick Smith’s reputation would put his name on something this bad. My advice would be to save your money and not buy this thing, it’s just not worth it. It’s a nice idea totally wasted on a bad product.

SKLZ Putting Gate with 2 ball trainer

Retail price is $24.99

Don Fisher

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Review: SKLZ Putting Gate Trainer

Don Fisher

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