Two Tees, Two Gates, One Incomplete Diagnosis: What Sweeney's Putting Drill Tells You and What It Doesn't

Six-ten in the morning. The practice green at the Karnataka Golf Association is only half awake; a gardener is trimming the hedges at the edge, and a twenty-three-year-old professional stands dead centre with both hands resting on his knees. Before a three-foot putt, he presses two tees into the ground — one about three feet short of the hole, the other roughly a foot short. Both on the same imaginary line he has drawn in his head before he has even addressed the ball.

I asked him why two tees. He said his coach had sent him a video — the gate drill. Through the first gate and your start line is fine. Through the second and your speed and break are fine. Through both and still outside the hole, and your read was wrong.

I asked him: if the ball passes gate one and misses gate two, is it certain that the speed was wrong? He paused. That pause is the subject of this piece. Because what the gate drill produces is not a verdict, it is evidence — and evidence still needs a reader, which is a skill the video never mentions.

Sweeney's name is known for the reason every coach's name is known in golf: his players. Collin Morikawa won the PGA Championship at Harding Park in August 2026 and the Open Championship at Royal St George's in July 2026. Ludvig Åberg turned professional in June 2026, won the RSM Classic that November, played the Ryder Cup in Rome in September 2026, and finished second at the Masters in April 2026. That is a credential, not a proof. But in golf the credential is the currency in which a method circulates — and in India it is the most expensive currency of all.

The instruction market has shifted. There was a time when putting advice hung on the charity of a club pro. Now there are videos, slow-motion captures, lasers laid across greens, and an entire cottage industry selling 'diagnostic coaching' to the recreational golfer. Against that, the value of a two-tee, two-gate drill is that it is the cheapest link in a very expensive chain.

The two-tee gate is not new. On every range in India, some version of it already exists — two tees set at hole-width, putt through the middle. Sweeney's addition is small and good: gate one at roughly one-third of the intended line, gate two at roughly two-thirds. The putt is cut into three acts, and each act asks a different question.

It helps to be plain about the mechanics. A putt can go wrong through four doors — read, start line, speed, and face angle. All four work together; all four can fail together. A club golfer has no instrument for separating them. He misses, mutters that putting isn't happening today, and repeats the same session tomorrow. The problem is not that he doesn't practise. It is that he practises without feedback.

The drill intervenes exactly there. Ball through gate one but not gate two: the line was broadly right and the pace let the break push it off. Ball misses gate one entirely: face or starting direction was off. Ball through both gates and still not in: the line the gates were planted on was misread to begin with.

The drill's real strength is not diagnosis. It is compulsion. The golfer commits to a predicted line before he putts, and physically writes that prediction into the ground with a tee. That is a heavy little act, because the miss can no longer hide. Before, he could say the line was fine and the roll simply didn't come. Now there are tees in the turf. The excuse is gone. Practice stops being 'hit putts until some drop' and becomes 'run an experiment and read the result.'

For me the most honest part of this drill is its price. I have spent years standing at the edge of Indian practice greens, and the gap between a tour pro and a fortieth-on-the-merit-list pro is usually not equipment. It is access. A launch monitor is expensive; a putting studio is expensive; a coach's hour is expensive. Two tees are free. This is one of the few diagnostic tools in golf that a caddie-turned-professional and a club member can both use tomorrow morning without anyone's permission. That is rare in this sport, and it should be said plainly.

But the next question starts right there, and it is where the drill is weakest.

The mapping from failed gate to failed cause is not one-to-one, however clean it looks on video. The four variables sit inside each other. A putt with an open face can pass gate one and then have the break carry it outside gate two — the outcome reads like a speed error when the cause was the face. A putt with a correct line and too little pace can pass both gates and stop an inch short, and the golfer will log it as a bad read when it was a bad speed.

Then there is the foundational assumption: the drill presumes the read is correct. If the line itself was misjudged, the tees are planted in the wrong place, and 'missed gate one' means your eye was wrong, not your start line. The video never states that condition in as many words. Which is why I add two cautions before treating this as a measuring instrument.

First, gate width. 'Roughly the width of the hole' is a loose specification. A narrow gate stress-tests start line; a wide one can hide the error you are hunting. One player, one green, two widths, two different answers — and no guidance on the trade-off. Second, sample size. Reading a result off three putts is mistaking noise for pattern. Of the club golfers I have watched run this drill, not one was logging outcomes.

There is one workaround I have written into my own notebook, and it isn't in the original video. Run a set on a deliberately wrong read: plant the gates as if the putt breaks right-to-left when it actually goes the other way, and watch which gate the error surfaces at first. That is calibration — you are measuring your own diagnosis. Put a coin at your intended finishing point beyond the hole as well, so pace and line can be read separately. The tees were free; the coin is too.

The notebook knows the story before the press box does — I learned that on these greens rather than in any mixed zone. And in that same notebook there is one date: 7 August 2026, Tokyo. That was the day Indian putting got more attention than it had perhaps ever received, because a twenty-year-old finished fourth at Kasumigaseki at fifteen under. The week ended, the conversation ended, and by the following Monday the putting was back in the silence it came from. The drill remained.

That twenty-three-year-old hit twelve putts that morning and stood up. Nine of the twelve passed gate one and stopped before gate two. He said the problem was speed. I said maybe. He said he would come back tomorrow. I said bring the results written down.

Some seasons do not end; they are simply left open. He has two tees now, an imagined line, and a question he has not yet answered. That is the most honest place golf offers — where you don't yet know whose fault it is, but you have stopped hiding it. I don't know whether his position on the merit list will move in the next few weeks. I do know that the next time he misses a three-footer he will not say his putting isn't happening. He will ask which gate.