Geoff,

I've just bought a starter set of golf clubs at a discount store because I
decided it was time try out this game. I don't have a lot of money invested
and probably won't until I spend some time learning. At this point (with
snow on the ground yet) I am doing a lot of reading and not much practicing.
I have never so much as played miniature golf, so this is completely new to
me.

I bought two standard 35-inch putters and a golfing tips video. And I set
up a dixie cup at about 15 feet and practiced putting until I was getting
consistent speed and direction (to my satisfaction) I spent about four
hours putting on carpet just for fun.

The first thing I noticed was that either the putter was too long for me or
I was doing something extremely wrong. I was simply trying to find a
technique that worked for me in combination with the tips I've been watching
and reading and I just wasn't finding myself comfortable with the situation.
I am about a half inch short of 6'.

When I place the putter behind the ball, stand about 1? putter lengths from
the ball, bend over so my eyes are parallel with the line, and let my hands
fall naturally to the putter, I find the index and middle fingers of my
right hand touching metal and no part of my right thumb on what one would
consider a flat portion of the grip face.

I thought I was doing something wrong and so I stepped another head length
away from the ball so that my hands would fall more naturally into place on
the grip, but in so doing I discovered that I wasn't looking down on the
ball anymore and my putting suffered from new innacuracies. I then tried to
adjust by bending my elbows out at an angle, but then my stroke wasn't
consistent.

So I got online and started looking around for putting tips and techniques
and I discovered your web page about what is wrong the the "standard"
putter. I must say that I was glad to find that my perceptions weren't
quite as bad as I had first thought. I'm going to look for a 30-inch putter
to try out and see if that improves my consistency.

Thanks for your interesting article and for clarifying my confusion of why
my putter seemed too long!

Best regards,

__________________________________
Stephen W. Buza, CEO
Maineline.net
V: +1-207-255-3825
F: +1-207-255-5825
stephen.buza@maineline.net
__________________________________
"The truth is, by definition, absolute and not
subject to variance by perception."

Dear Stepehn,

Thank you very much for the nicely detailed description of your experience.

Let me suggest some experimentation for you that can save some trouble and expense. First, just adopt your grip on the 35" putter where your hands fall. Try that until you just HAVE to have a shorter putter. Second, you can get a cheap short putter either by buying a kid's putter or by buying a used 35" putter and asking a local clubmaker or club repair shop to cut it down for you.

The reason I suggest this is because there are different ways to bend to the ball at address, depending on the combination of hip bend and neck bend. You may well find that your initial way of bending to the ball is fine for the long haul OR that you prefer to stand a little taller in the torso with a little more bend in the neck. What I am suggesting is that you MAY well be at the lowest point in your setup that your hands will ever be, so if you choose to cut an expensive putter to this short length, you won't have any room for adjustment later.

If 30" seems the best length to you now, you probably should consider this the minimum length and then check to see if there is a longer "shortness" (perhaps 32-33") that also seems good for you on occasion with an adjusted setup posture. You can always grip "down" on a 32-33" putter, but if you cut the putter all the way to 30", you may not have any room to grip "up" on occasion.

Thanks for contacting me and I hope to hear lots from you. I'd love to be part of your getting into golf.

--
Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor

The PuttingZone.com
http://puttingzone.com
The Future of Putting Now -
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
Over 40,000 page visits each month and growing strong...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC USA 27401
336.230.0612 home
336.402.1602 cell

geoff@puttingzone.com

Join the PZ for the free Newsletter, Tips, and Updates: just send me an email with "yes" or "ok" or "subscribe" or "sure" etc. in the subject or body and I'll add you. Or, go here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PuttingZone/join

Geoff,

Thanks for your reply.

I have been doing further research and I have settled on getting a 32 inch putter if I can find one. I though that an extra two or three inches would be useful in certain inclined situations. I've had several manufacturers respond that they will cut the length to pretty much anything I'd want. I found that the 35-inch putter really was just about two inches too long--or more to the point that the grip stopped about two inches short of where I wanted it to be.

What are your thoughts on the non-twist putters like the positive putter and the zero-twist putter? What about perimeter weighting? It seems to me that some of the issues with arctic swings are diminished when you allow your hands to fall naturally in pendulum fashion. I really didn't like having my elbows pointing outward because I felt like I had to concentrate on holding the putter head above the ground during the swing, which seemed like a lot of extra muscle work that could cause inconsistencies.

Thanks for your interest in my golfing inexperience

Steve

Dear Steve,

I like the Positive Putter. I met the designer and played around with his putters at the IMG Show in Cleveland recently. I have written about this so-called Reality Balancing before on my Forum. I don't really like heel-toe weighting schemes, as they promote toe flaring in the stroke, which is a little different from "arcing" of the sweetspot itself (and probably worse for the putt). In this sort of flaring, the putterface comes out of square to the putter path itself, whereas in arcing the putterface and the path both arc and remain square. The worst of all worlds is an arcing path with a flaring toe opening out of square, in which case both the path itself comes out of square to the targetline and the face separately comes out of square to the path. I like whatever stays square to the path, and hopefully want a path that stays square to the targetline.

I have found that hanging the arms as low as they are likely to go BEFORE taking up the grip results in a system that has the sole of the putter as close to the ground as it will ever get when it is in the middle of your stance (which is the bottom of the stroke). This means that the putter will not stub on the ground so long as you don't lower the pivot of the system, will rise going back by itself, and will rise symmetrically going past the bottom of the stroke going thru impact. This means you CAN hover the putter's sole slightly on the tips of the grass blades without any special effort. Should you? I think yes, because in my experience I have found that this "dangling" of the putter requires you to be careful about the elevation and still of your pivot, to wait until the system as a whole is calm before starting, to sharpen up your sense of how to start the putter back on line in your arms and hands as a triangle unit, and to free up your mind about dropping the stroke thru impact from any concern about the system getting longer and stubbing.

I find your anayltical skills at this stage of golf involvement tremendously accute! Keep it up. The two rules are "one brick at a time" and "onward and upward steadily until you die."

--
Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor

The PuttingZone.com
http://puttingzone.com
The Future of Putting Now -
Golf's most advanced and comprehensive putting instruction.
Over 40,000 page visits each month and growing strong...

518 Woodlawn Ave
Greensboro NC USA 27401
336.230.0612 home
336.402.1602 cell

geoff@puttingzone.com

Join the PZ for the free Newsletter, Tips, and Updates: just send me an email with "yes" or "ok" or "subscribe" or "sure" etc. in the subject or body and I'll add you. Or, go here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PuttingZone/join