| Original Message |
donald (no login)
Posted Apr 29, 2006 2:18 PM
Geoff !!!!
Thank you for your well-reasoned response to my sincere questions. I can tell you I enjoy you sharing your extensive knowledge with me and the forum lurkers. Please feel assured that I understand what you are saying, and I am learning from you too. However this does spawn a few more questions on my part, and I hope you will consider them as worthy of further response and clarification. Refering to your message:
1. " Today's greens are more suited to a less robust physics in the putter head motion and to more repeating and reliable big-muscle movement for simple accuracy."
I personally believe that the putting stroke is a function of body-shoulder-arm build and nothing much else. The mind will accomodate the ability or limitations of the golfer's physique and the putting stroke will be adapted accordingly. Short stout golfers may not be able to conveniently utilize their big-muscle movements of their thick torso and their putting stroke is from wrist action with their thick arms pressed against their bodies. Whatever putterhead path they can generate is theirs for perpetuity, and if they want to own a humungous mallet putter for status, they will forever be lousy putters. Tall thin golfers with loose shoulders will rotate or slide their shoulders around a still torso to maintain steadiness, and if they can hover over the ball they are closests to a vertical pendulum action. The remaining 80% of all "normal" golfers must decide how they want to putt given the abilities of their body types.
Interestingly, Mickelson used a heel-shafted true blade putter on the slick "bikini-waxed" greens of Augusta to win his Green Jacket ... some physics ... go figure .. !!!
2. "In my style, the shoulders generate the stroke (either straight-back or on a tilted plane) and the hands are truly "dead" and inactive."
Ah the "hands" ..... the ultimate "feel" machines, and since golf is supposed to be a game of "feel" at the highest levels, to kill the hands is almost heresy... !!! The aphorism of "different strokes for different folks" may be the operative concept for putting. In my case, my hands are highly sensitive because of my classical violin training from an early age, so not only do I possess "feel", I have great "rhythm and tempo" too ... and adding my natural latent athleticism from H.S. and college sports, I should be a tremendous golfer .... not. That aside, I can tell you that I find the unbalancing feedback from my 8802 and 45º "hanger" a positive sensation to maintaining putter head control, while the horizontal face-balanced putters are a total loss of feel resulting in my hands hunting for feedback causing the putterhead to wobble. (Vertical face-balance with heel-biased weighting seems to be wrong because the vertical cg axis is below the shaft.)
Also I have the ability to putt from the wrists or the shoulders, and use either as needed. Violinist-basketballers have good wrist or shoulder control .... so I expect that I am the freak exception from the norm ! Nevertheless, I appreciate your concept of putting style for most golfers.
3. "In answer to your question about lie angle and stroke path, I say: not necessarily." .... and ... "While the farther out from the body the lie angle requires the putter head to be tends to increase the body tension to support the putter head out of vertical, that is another story about setting and maintaining body tension at address and during the stroke."
Even though I have chosen to only quote these two statements, I do not ignore what you have further explained on lie angle of putters. What I take issue with is your statement that "body tension" increases to support the putter head when the lie angle is out of vertical. It may be so, but the loading on the hands must be more significant than the body tension when the shaft lie angle is flattened. The hands must exert a much greater force couple on the putter handle to maintain the putter cantilever at say 70º lie than at a more pendulum-like 80º lie angle. This static hand force couple must be held throughout the stroke and if there is any variation between the push down and pull up forces, the putter head will rise or fall. So how does one control or cancel out this cantilever supporting hands force couple in the vertical plane and still achieve a "dead hands" consistent putting stroke while implementing an axial torso rotation?
Personally, I lose hand control of putters at say 72º lie angle, and my putters are all bent to 80º maximum lie angle to achieve near-pendulum weighting.
I hope my questions are relevant and worthy of further discussion. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge with us.
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