Don’t you just love it when things just seem to happen right at the perfect time? Here I was gearing up for the 2011 golf season and I was pondering what improvements I felt that I needed to make early on to ensure the best season of my golfing life. It didn’t take long for me to come up with my answer, it was putting. It’s not that I’m a bad putter, at times, I’m actually a rather good putter, but where I struggle is with my consistency. About 3 weeks before finding out about this review I made the decision to start over from scratch on my putting. I picked up a new putter and I decided to change my grip from cross-handed back to conventional. Most importantly though, I committed to working my tail off before the season started to do everything that I possibly could to improve my putting. Just then I received word from THP that I would be receiving a training aid for review, not just any training aid, but a putting training aid. Perfect timing indeed!
The Boomerang Putting Professional arrived at my door and I immediately tore open the package and setup a spot in my basement family room. This spot would become my new training area and there is no chance of it being put away any time soon. Like a typical guy I laid everything out and was ready to start rolling putts before I even thought about instructions or finding out how to set it up properly. Basically, what I ended up with initially was a ramp to putt my ball up and have it roll back to me. I knew there was more to it so I went to their website at www.boomgolf.com and watched some tutorials on exactly how to set up the Boomerang Putting Professional. It was on the site that I learned about the “Catch and Release” theory behind the boomerang.
Before I get too far into talking about the functionality of the cup and the whole story behind that let me talk about the “green” for a minute first. What you have is a 9 foot 9 inch by 6 inch (9’x9″x6″) strip that you lay out and use as your putting surface. The strip comes rolled up and basically all you do is unroll it then re-roll it in the opposite direction to get it to lay flat. I would recommend rolling and unrolling a couple times each way to really get it to break the memory of being rolled up before you try to lay it out. Once laid out the first thing you’ll think is that just getting the putts to roll within that 6 inch strip for the nearly 10 feet of surface would be work enough. It really isn’t difficult, but does actually help ensure you’re rolling straight putts all on its own. Putts definitely roll fast and true on the St. Andrews Travel Mat. This mat by itself would work as a great training aid for putting. But believe me, there is much more.
So far you’re probably thinking the Boomerang is much like other 9 foot long putting mats on the market today, however, you’d be very wrong. Rather than a little ramp with a cup you have this adjustable ramp that has a hole cut in it where your cup screws in. The cup depth is completely adjustable to accommodate the type of practicing you’re looking to do. You can remove the cup completely and just simply putt to a hole much like some of the older style putting mats or you can screw the cup in so that it’s flush with the rest of the ramp to just roll putts so they’ll roll right through the cup and back to you. I’ve used the Boomerang in each of the described scenarios and each of them works great depending on what you’re looking to work on.
I mentioned the “Catch and Release” theory above and this seems to be the Boomerang Putting Professional’s biggest draw. Not only is the Boomerang Putting Professional an excellent training aid it’s also an addicting game that you will find yourself both frustrated and challenged as you roll putt after putt. So, what you do is set the cup to a depth that will stop your ball from rolling back to you, depending on the level you’re on you’ll need to adapt your cup accordingly. The first step in this game is to roll a putt so that it will go in and catch your lip on the way back to you. Now with one of your golf balls hung up on the lip your next challenge is to putt the 2nd ball to “bump” the ball off its perch and send it back down the ramp to where it started. Get that far, good, that’s 1. Now the challenge that will keep you rolling putts long after you thought it was time to quit is that if you break the record of 12 in a row you will win $1000. Here’s the thing; you have to have video proof of you doing this 12 times in a row, submit it on the website, and boom you’ve won a cool grand! I did not break that record in my testing; in fact I only got up to three in a row two different times.
As I said, this training device could not have shown up at a better time. I have been using this device every day since it has shown up and I have yet to grow tired of it. It is a great mix of a challenging game and very useful training aid all in one. Before using this I thought that my basement carpet was great for rolling putts. Its fast, rolls pretty true, and is always there for me to work on my putting. The Boomerang Putting Professional has taught me that my carpet was not in fact good enough, comparing putts side by side on the St. Andrews mat vs. my carpet made for a night and day difference. I found myself working on short putts just using only the mat and not even the rest of the Boomerang, that’s yet another example of how versatile this training aid is. At first I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, I didn’t know if I’d get that much more of a benefit than simply rolling putts across my carpet. I was very wrong and the Boomerang Putting Professional has provided me with both a fun challenge and a very useful device as I work toward improving my putting.
You can learn more about the Boomerang Putting Professional on their website www.boomgolf.com which is also where you can buy this training aid for a cost of $49.99 plus shipping. The price does seem a little high, but when you consider both the entertainment value plus the benefit to your golf game, the price does seem to fit more reasonably. I am very confident that using the Boomerang Putting Professional will bring me the results I am hoping for by putting in some hard work on my putting prior to the 2011 golf season.
