I had never heard of The Perfect Pendulum before its inventor, John Marini, sent me an email asking if I’d be interested in taking a look at his new product. Here at Qwowi, we’re really not in the habit of turning down much of anything in the way of review requests, so I was more than happy to take John up on his offer.

So what is the Perfect Pendulum? First and foremost it’s a putting aid. The basic idea is that by using John’s product, you can develop a consistent, repeatable, pendulum putting stroke. I’m not going to go into detail as to why a pendulum stroke is a good thing. John has plenty of information about the benefits on his website. I’d encourage to take a virtual walk over there and have a look at the information. Of particular interest are:

• A Pendulum Stroke and Why it Matters
• 5 Reasons Why the Perfect Pendulum is Better than Buying a Belly Putter

Most level-headed golfers will tell you that a pendulum stroke is the key to consistent putting and lower scores. If your not willing to concede as much, the Perfect Pendulum probably isn’t for you.

In addition to its putting benefits, the Perfect Pendulum can also be used to improve your chipping. The company also claims it works as a club alignment tool for full swing drills.

Once again, all of the details; the hows and whys, are available at http://www.perfectpendulum.com/.

I’ll spare you my usual rant about how your putter should be the most expensive club in your bag because it’s the one you take the majority of your strokes with (at least it should be). It doesn’t matter if your putter was a $10 Wal-Mart special, or if you’ve spent over $315 on the latest Scotty Cameron, if you don’t have a reliable putting stroke, no piece of short game hardware is going to lower your scores. Hmm…I guess that was a bit of a rant.

Transporting and Attaching the Perfect Pendulum

The first thing I noticed about The Perfect Pendulum is its size. When fully collapsed, it’s just a bit shorter than a $1 bill (or $100 bill if you’re luck enough to be carrying a few of those around). Size matters, and in this case smaller is better. The modest size of the Perfect Pendulum makes it highly portable, which means you can take it with you to the golf course without sacrificing much in the way of valuable bag space, and without interfering with other golfers using the practice area.

Attaching the Perfect Pendulum to your putter, wedge, or iron couldn’t be much easier. All you need to do is loosen the hook and loop fastener, slide the opening over the butt-end of the shaft, and pull the fastener tight again. The attachment piece has one squared side which makes it extremely secure when mounted to a standard putter grip. Even though it was clearly designed with a putter in mind, it secures resonably tightly to rounded grips as well.

Putting with the Perfect Pendulum

Once attached to your putter, all you need to do is adjust the Perfect Pendulum so that you can take your normal, comfortable, putting stance while still keeping the Perfect Pendulum anchored to your body. Training with the Perfect Pendulum is as simple as putting a golf ball, while, again, keeping the end of the device anchored to your body. For me, anchoring the device is especially easy since the ball-shaped knob at the tip of the Perfect Pendulum fits perfectly into my freakishly over-sized belly button (did I share too much?).

There’s something to be said for simplicity. You can think of the anchor point (your belly) as the top of a tether ball pole. You still have the freedom to maneuver your putter along any path you choose (just as that ball can swing in any path around that pole), which means that it doesn’t matter if you’re a “straight back and straight through” guy, or you subscribe to the arc theory of putting. The Perfect Pendulum will work equally well for both types of stroke. The same holds true for your grip. Regardless of whether you’re conventional, left hand low, or something more exotic, like the claw, the Perfect Pendulum will work for you no matter how you choose to grasp your putter.

John has a whole section on his website comparing using the Perfect Pendulum to using a belly putter. As a guy who owns (and loves) a belly putter, and who goes back to it from time to time when my conventional putter stops working, I can tell you that feeling you get from using the Perfect Pendulum is very similar.

If you’re currently practicing with a belly putter and using your “normal” putter for your actual rounds, I would still recommend the Perfect Pendulum. Although it mounts firmly to your putter, the small amount of wiggle between your body and the butt-end of your putter forces you to be a little more honest with your putting stroke.

Chipping with the Perfect Pendulum

It took me a few days of use to warm up to the notion of the Perfect Pendulum having any value from off the green. During my first couple of sessions I found it to be practically useless when attached to a wedge. I had half a mind to send John an email letting him know that his Perfect Pendulum was absolutely worthless as a chipping aid. I was miserable with it. Having a long extension attached to my wedge was a bit distracting. I struggled to find a stroke, any stroke, that would allow me the feeling of natural movement through the ball. In short, I hated the thing.

In my particular case, using the Perfect Pendulum for the short game took some getting used to. I’m easily distracted by anything different (like my wedge growing by a foot and a half), so if your level of concentration is higher than mine (and it probably is), you might adapt more quickly to having a new appendage suddenly attached to your wedge.

My initial disdain aside, the more I use the Perfect Pendulum for chipping, the more I like it. I’m even willing to accept that fact that my initial problems with it were a result of my own personal swing flaws, of which there are many.

At any given time, my chipping can suffer from 1 or more of the following 3 afflictions:

• Flippy hands - Trying scoop the ball on to the green instead of just hitting it there like a proper golfer.
• Deceleration - Instead of accelerating through the ball, I gradually reduce speed as I approach the contact point. Instead of traveling 15 feet, the ball travels about 15 inches - awesome.
• Coming over the top - the classic outside in swing path. If I’m lucky I’ll push the ball left. More often than not though, I shank it off the hosel - even more awesome, especially if there’s a pond nearby.

So how effective is the Perfect Pendulum at addressing those issues I just listed?

Let’s start with the bad. It does nothing whatsoever to alleviate deceleration problems. That’s not really what it’s designed to do, so I can’t really fault the product. You can decelerate to your heart’s content and not receive one iota of feedback from the Perfect Pendulum (so long as you don’t get flippy while doing it). If you’re looking to cure that one specific affliction, you’re better off looking elsewhere.

For those of us with overly flippy hands - the scoopers among us, the Perfect Pendulum works as advertised. If you try and scoop the ball, or flip the clubhead at the ball (letting your hands get behind the ball) rather than hitting through it, the Perfect Pendulum will make contact with your body, letting you know you’re doing it wrong. As it turns out, I do it wrong quite often.

While not explicitly stated in the marketing information, the same holds true if you try and chip from the outside in. While the contact is not as pronounced as it is when you scoop the ball, if you come at the ball from the outside, the Perfect Pendulum will give you a gentle tap to let you know that you’re not quite where you should be.

Using the Perfect Pendulum for Full Swing Drills

I’m hoping that the full swing aspect of the Perfect Pendulum was an afterthought, a throw in. Generally, I’m not a big fan of swing aids you can’t hit balls with (although weighted clubs do have their merits). I’m less of a fan of swing aids you can’t actually swing. And the bottom line is you’re not going to take a full swing with the Perfect Pendulum attached to your 5 iron (or any other iron for that matter).

It’s good enough for what it is, I suppose. It will help you get a clearer picture of your backswing, particularly if you’re trying to develop a one piece takeaway. Apart from that, however; I find it’s application as a full swing trainer somewhat limited.

Final Thoughts

If the Perfect Pendulum were designed exclusively as a visual aid for full swing drills, I’d tell you to keep your money in your wallet. However; my experience has been that the Perfect Pendulum has real benefit from both on and off the green.

As a chipping aid it absolutely can help with the common problem of scooping, or flipping. Having used it almost daily for several weeks now, I’m making better contact with my wedges, generating more spin, and more importantly, leaving the ball closer to the pin. As a short game tool I’m absolutely enamored with the Perfect Pendulum. If you’ve bumped into me at all in the last couple of weeks, I’ve no doubt told you as much…repeatedly. For me, the chipping benefits alone are worth $40.

Considering it was designed to be a putting aid, it should come as no surprise that it excels in that area. You could, quite literally, spend almost 10 times as much on a putting aid (the “Z Factor” springs to mind). And while I’m sure that those more expensive putting trainers have their merits (I’ve heard great things about the Z Factor), the real strength of the Perfect Pendulum is its simplicity.

The Perfect Pendulum is easy to carry, and easy to use. It’s also highly effective at developing exactly the putting stroke the name implies.

I generally consider myself a good putter (the best of the guys I play regularly with). Like the rest of my game, however; my stroke does get away from me from time to time (especially over the unfortunate winter break that comes with living in the Northeast).

After just a few short sessions with the Perfect Pendulum, the ball is rolling more smoothly for me, and more importantly, I’m striking tricky 3 and 4 footers with authority, rather than tapping the ball and leaving it to the mercy of the green.

I fully expect you to be skeptical about a product you haven’t seen on one of those 1 hour Golf Channel marathon infomercials. Admittedly I was, especially after seeing how small and simple the device actually is. After using it for several weeks, I can honestly say I’m a firm believer in 2 of the 3 applications of the Perfect Pendulum (I’m not sold on it for full swing drills).

By no means am I trying to suggest that it’s a cure all for every one of your golfing woes (I still have plenty of issues the Perfect Pendulum won’t help me resolve). My point is simply this; for putting and chipping, the Perfect Pendulum does exactly what it’s advertised to do.

If you’re not willing to take my word alone that there’s $40 worth of value in the Perfect Pendulum, consider that a number of golf’s top 100 instructors, as well as LPGA, Nationwide and PGA Tour players have used and are using the Perfect Pendulum. That’s fairly impressive for a product that launched less than 6 months ago.

You can try the Perfect Pendulum 100% risk free. John Marini stands behind his product by offering a money back satisfaction guarantee (with return shipping included). He also offers discounts for high school golfers and their coaches.

Visit http://www.perfectpendulum.com/ for complete details.