BECOMING a better putter is largely guesswork to most amateur golfers - but one North Yorkshire professional thinks his new idea may have unearthed the answer.

Easingwold Golf Club's Alastair Grindlay has teamed up with a club member to develop a new putting surface he is convinced will make his pupils better at handling the subtle borrows of any tricky green.

Grindlay was looking at ways to make his winter lessons better, with wet and wild weather making proper putting practise difficult on unreliable surfaces. So he turned to joiner Mick Dowson, a stalwart at the Stillington Road club, for help.

Dowson developed the Dowputt training surface and Grindlay believes the innovation, which gives those who use it the chance to practise putts over a variety of breaks and gradients, is set for big things.

"I was thinking about how I could improve the experience of my winter putting lessons," he said. "I had just come through a period where putting lessons had dropped off and this was due to surfaces that were unreliable and slow.

"It was a chance conversation I had with Mick that made an idea I'd had come to life. He owns his own joinery business and I explained that I needed a reliable surface that golfers could trust, a fast green that could simulate real putts, a way of changing the surface to add slope and break to putts and the ability to practise putts from three to 12 feet.

"There had to be an emphasis on the capture speed being correct. Within days, Mick had come up a concept and the Dowputt was born. Since it has been installed, I have never looked back.

"Pupils of all standards have enjoyed the surface and the feedback has been brilliant. The ability to change the slope characteristics of the surface is second to none. Right to left, left to right, uphill, downhill, humpback, double breaker - the possibilities are endless."

The surface, which has got the backing of Aimpoint's Jamie Donaldson, has been also installed in the home of new professional player Charlotte Austwick.

Dowson explained that he had his eureka design moment when he looked outside his window.

"I live next to a train line and I wanted to use the idea of sleepers - that you could adjust and lift up - and that really was my starting thought," he said.

"There's roughly a day's machining involved in constructing the surface. It's a premium artificial surface too. You are capable of walking along this where, with a lot of them, you are walking on soft plastic that you can lift up. They give you the nice breaks, but you can't do short putts on them.

"You couldn't walk along it and do a three foot putt. You would have to get off the surface, walk along, and get back on.

"This also has ball collection at the end so, if you are lucky enough to get a ball in, you don't have to walk along the surface to collect them."

Grindlay is hoping the invention, which is retailing at around £2,500, will prove popular with both professional and top amateur golfers alike.

"If it takes off, and it should, it could be massive," he said. "You are looking at £10,000 for some of the hydraulic surfaces. This is relatively cheap, it's quality and all the different combinations of slopes and different putts you can do make it value for money as well."

For more information, log on to www.dowputt.co.uk