Is the PUR Truth Trainer the Ultimate Putting Aid?
I tested this do-it-all putting aid—find out how it helped my stroke
The PUR Truth Trainer is creating quite a stir among golf instructors, professional players, and recreational golfers alike. So just how good is this do-it-all putting trainer?
That’s the question I wanted to answer, so I spent weeks putting it to the test to find out.
TL;DR
- Easy to set up and use
- Trains all aspects of your putting stroke
- Expensive but effective
What is the PUR Truth Trainer?
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The PUR Truth Trainer is a one-stop shop of all the best features of popular putting aids in one compact tool. Here are the elements of your putting stroke that the PUR Truth Trainer trains, although you may find more:
- Eye alignment
- Face angle at address
- Alignment at address
- Stroke path
- Stroke length
- Face angle at impact/accuracy
- Distance control
The Power of the Truth
I wasn’t surprised when the Truth Trainer illustrated that my natural putting stance didn’t put my eyes directly over the ball, where I want them. It’s not something I’ve dedicated much practice time to, so I was happy to have an effective tool for training it.
What surprised me was where I was setting up my club face to the ball. Without realizing it, I had a tendency to set up with the ball on the heel side of the center alignment stripe, essentially setting up for an off-center strike every time.
Using the Truth Trainer, it’s easy to ensure the perfect setup, including club face alignment, every time, and I’ve been able to train the feel of that proper setup even when the Truth Trainer is removed, so I’m expecting to perform much stronger on the greens in 2025.
Using the PUR Truth Trainer
PUR Truth Trainer and Truth Prepare shown with a putter for perspective
There’s an unwritten rule of golf training aids that says if you can’t set it up and start practicing in 30 seconds or less, nobody is going to use it. I certainly agree with the sentiment, I know I don’t want to tinker with training aids before and after practice sessions.
When I first saw the PUR Truth Trainer, and its gate, strings, and track, I assumed it was a chore to set up, but I was wrong. It unfolds in about two seconds, and if you need to adjust the strings or the gates, or add the path or stroke length tools, that only takes a few seconds as well.
Eye Alignment & Gate
The Truth Trainer has two strings above the ball, a white string and a blue string. When your eyes are lined up where you want them – directly over the ball, for example – the white string covers the blue string completely.
The strings are adjustable, so if you putt with your eyes inside the ball, you can set it up that way and still get feedback to within a millimeter.
On each end of the track there’s a gate which is also adjustable. Between two gate sizes and two width settings, you get four difficulty levels for your gate.
You can also slide your starting spot up and down the track, meaning you can tune the Truth Trainer to any difficulty you want. PUR recommends a target difficulty of a setting where you can succeed three out of four times, which research suggests leads to optimal improvement.
Who am I to argue with that?
Club Face Feedback
When you address a putt, you get more than just your eyes in the perfect position, you get your putter set up perfectly as well. The track that holds your ball is perpendicular to the target line, so when you address the ball you naturally get your putter square to your line.
Path and Stroke Trainers
PUR Truth Trainer with path guide set up in a slight arc setting
If you want to work on a specific path for your putting stroke – whether it’s straight, slightly arced, or more severely arced – there are accessories for that. The path training rails – like seemingly every element of the Truth Trainer – are adjustable so you can mold the exact path you want with however much or little margin for error you’d like.
There are also stakes that train stroke length. I never realized how much longer my putting stroke was than it needed to be until I started training a shorter stroke with these stakes. This part of the Truth Trainer has really helped me improve my stroke to be more compact and more consistent.
PUR Truth Trainer vs. Everybody
The whole concept of the PUR Truth Trainer is that it combines what other putting aids do into one device.
I spent a lot of time putting through makeshift gates, but resetting the gates after each miss interrupted my practice. Since the Truth Trainer’s gates automatically fall back into place, it keeps me focused.
I’ve always loved the yardstick drill for alignment and start-line training – especially given the cost and convenience of a yardstick – but there’s a pretty low ceiling on the feedback you can get from that alone.
As much as each individual element of the Truth Training makes it effective, having everything in one device, so you can train proper set up, alignment, stroke length, path, and accuracy with every stroke, makes it unrivaled.
Truth Trainer Limitations
The Truth Trainer comes in a nice portable case, but it’s too big to fit into a golf bag. While the track slides into itself to cut the footprint roughly in half when stored, it’s still not a compact unit.
For me, that pretty much rules out using the Truth Trainer as a pre-round warm-up tool, unless I want to make a trip back to the parking lot before teeing off.
This isn’t a deal breaker, however, as PUR actually makes a compact version that trades the strings on top for fits-in-your-bag convenience and makes an excellent pre-round calibration tool. That device is actually called the Truth Prepare, and at $149, sets you back half as much as the Truth Trainer.
That brings us to what ultimately is the only real drawback of the Truth Trainer, which is price. I know it’s effective and I know it does everything for your putting stroke, but $299 is still a bridge too far for many players.
That price is not without its value, however. Consider that if you buy the Truth Trainer, there’s a good chance it’ll be the last putting training aid you’ll ever buy. If you use it regularly, there’s a great chance your putting will improve noticeably. When you factor in discounts (GolfLink readers save 20% with code GLINK), you certainly get a lot for your money.
PUR Truth Trainer Key Takeaways
The Truth Prepare is a fit-in-your-golf-bag sized sibling to the Truth Trainer
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Pros:
- Very adjustable to fit your preferred mechanics and difficulty level
- Trains every element of putting
- Improvements translate well when the Truth Trainer is removed
- Built-in bubble level on both ends to guarantee accurate feedback
- No resetting the training station during training
- Easy-to-understand feedback
- Easy to set up
Cons:
- Expensive for a putting training aid
- Does not fit inside a golf bag
Here’s how my typical training session goes with the PUR Truth Trainer. I’ll set it up on my putting mat in my kitchen and roll a few unsuccessfully into one of the gates. Then I take that feedback, calibrate my stroke, and start hitting good putts pretty consistently.
Once I’m hitting three or four out of four pretty consistently, I’ll up the difficulty by swapping the standard green gates with the fat red gates. When I’m feeling good from the higher difficulty, I step out of the Truth Trainer and start putting unassisted, tapping into the same feels that I calibrated from inside the Truth Trainer. That’s when I see smooth, end-over-end rolls right on my target line that make me feel like I just became better at putting.
Stacking these effective training sessions, one on top of the other, is no doubt turning this improvement into second nature.
