Dear Geoff,
I walked into my local golf store the other day and noticed a putter that looked like a sausage. The face was vertically convex. I've noticed you've replied to posts about horizontally convex putters so I was wondering what you make of these sausages.

Cheers
Tigersimmo



TIGERSIMMO

Dear Tigersimmo,

The basic idea of the vertically radiused putter face has been around quite a while, and is usually associated these days with the Tear Drop putter design. The basic idea is to promote an impact modelled after a no-skid, all-roll billiards shot with a cue stick. In physics, imparting a level blow with a stick thru the top quadrant of a ball 5/7th the way up the ball's diameter matches the rotational motion with the translational motion, so there is roll matching the sidewise motion, and hence no "skid" at the start. Tear Drop designed a putter with the face radiused vertically, like putting with a tube sideways on a stick, so that the forward-most edge of the tube shape met the ball at the 5/7th height on the ball, moving level.

The usual trouble with these designs in that the golfer is not that consistent in the "level" delivery thru impact, so you still get variable results notwithstanding the basic general concept. When the golfer delivers the putter head too high, you really get bad results, as the putter's shape both tops the ball and punches it down into the turf at the start. It's not very easy to hit the ball too low with one of these putters. Tear Drop eventually reassessed the trade-off of trying to reduce a little initial skid versus inconsistent impacts and loss of energy and redesigned the shape of their putters with a drastically milder radiusing. The last one I saw had such a mild radius that extending the curvature into a complete circle would make a circle with a 40-foot diameter.

Other models include the Benson putter and the Rolo putter. Today, all these putters appear to have given up on the 5/7th level blow idea in favor of something simpler -- just send the putter COG on a rising path above the ball's COG and be content with impact near the equator.

Recent Tear Drop theory:



Benson Putter:



Rolo Putter:



A mild radiusing can be a good thing, and I have a knock-off putter like this that works very well. Whether it is better than a standard "slab" design is another question. The variability in the golfer's movement probably swamps any minute difference attributable solely to the design.

Cheers!

Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor

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Tigersimmo & Geoff
For what its worth, I'd like to throw my 2-bits worth into the mix about these putters as I have tried a few of them as well. I was curious as to what happens when two round faces meet...the convex putter face & the ball. Prior to testing the putter, I played in a Pro-Am event and one of our foursome was using the Rolo-type putter...it may have been a Rolo, I didn't look that closely, but it looked very similar...a perfectly cylindrical attachment to the end of a shaft. Each time he putted, his golf ball jumped off the surface of the green about an inch or so. Occasionally, if he struck his ball perfectly it rolled fine and there was no bounce, but most of the time his ball bounced. He was never accurate with his putting that day and looked as if he wanted to throw it a few times during the round. Now whether he was striking the ball too hard, I don't know, but he was truly struggling with his putting...definitely having a bad day putting. I personally knew this fellow and the next time I played with him, he was using a different putter. For my own satisfaction, I then demoed a few of these convex-faced putters, but had no success at all. Some of the convex faces were not as extreme as a perfectly round cylinder, like the Rolo, and putted a bit better, but not all that better. I understand the theory behind the design, but my way of thinking is that one cannot bring two round objects together and make perfect contact with every putt. The one positive aspect from demoing the putter was that it truly makes one concentrate! I may be wrong, but I don't think any Tour Pros have won a PGA event with the Benson or Rolo-type putters; however, I'm not absolutely sure about this.
As I always stress, if a golfer is having great success with a particular putter, such as the convex-type, stay with it.
Regards,
Larry
The Putting Edge...How To One-Putt Every Green!
theputtingedge.com