Dear David,
I have a little experience with the Heavy Putter and am aware of the SAM Puttlab measurements. I don't really recommend changing the putter head weight to try to match the putter to green speeds from day to day or course to course as the BEST way to get a handle on green speed, but in limited ways and in more or less BIG differences in green speed, this tactic can help a little. It's a tradeoff.
The relationship between putter head mass and "touch" is not straight-forward. The notion that "touch" or distance control depends critically on "feel" is in my view a bit off the mark. Granted, what the hands "feel" in impacting a golf ball with a putter depends upon the putter head mass, overall weight of the putter, ball type, putter face material, grip on the putter, grip form of the golfer's hands on the handle, golfer's chosen grip pressure, the putter shaft and its hoseling, and the velocity of the putter head at impact (along with a few other factors), the idea that the golfer is striving to recreate a specfic "feel" in the hands in order to send the ball a specific distance is just baloney.
What the golfer really wants is the SAME TIMING PATTERN of "feel" in the hands on every putt, even if the intensity of the blow varies with longer strokes or faster impacts. As the backstroke progresses, the golfer feels a certain differential pressure inside his hands with the handle pressing a little more firmly into the lead-side palm, and then the hands and putter coast at the same pace to the top of the backstroke, during which the golfer feels NO DIFFERENCE in the two hands. As the downstroke starts itself, the golfer may or may not feel a slight DIFFERENTIAL pressure against the palm of his rear-side hand, depending upon his tempo -- whether it is the same or faster than a gravity free-fall. Right around impact, both hands have a tendency to tighten slightly in anticipation of impact. This tendency makes the putter face rotate inwardly in a "pull" direction. Staying relaxed in the hands thru the impact region is pretty important to avoiding this "handsiness" and face alteration, and this means moving thru impact almost exclusively with the lead shoulder powering the whole system.
The upshot of all this is that golfers who think and believe that the "feel" of the hands is HOW they get the distance right are chronically plagued with the "pull" tightening thru impact, and their stroke adjustments and misses show this problem every day.
The REAL way that golfers control distance is not in the hands at all but in the timing pattern of the stroke. So long as the timing pattern of the stroke is consistently the same total time from beginning to end of the motion (regardless of stroke size) and has the same-every-time proportionate parts back and thru and has the same pattern of acceleration to a peak speed that occurs always at the same point in the stroke, then distance control is utterly and solely instinctive and very accurate. This is so because the human brain relies upon the timing pattern of the stroke (plus sense of distance and familiarity with green speed, putter and ball) in order to provide the correct stroke size for the distance. The part of the brain that does this is the ancient, animal-movement brain at the back of the skull called the cerebellum. Human conscious awareness does not encompass the vegetable / chemical functioning of this organ of movement any more than the human can experience his kidney or his spleen. The word "instinctive" really means "non-conscious functioning of the organ as it is designed and has developed over time to do."
Part of what confuses the notion of "feel" is that golf-instruction writers don't distinguish clearly between the "feel" in the hands and the sort-of "feel" of a real or imagined practice stroke in anticipation of the correct distance generated based upon memory of prior similar putts. This sort of "feel" is undeniably real and valuable (although the reliance upon memory and the accurateness of the imagined feel in my view make this approach to distance control less effective than "instinctive" control via timing and targeting), but it is not at all a "feel" of the hands. This is a feel of the upper torso, shoulders, arms, and hands as a whole system in motion. While it is true that the brain is a movement simulator and is designed to forecast the future effectiveness of movement so that humans and animals can best avoid danger or take advantage of threat by planning future action based upon present circumstances and past experiences, this is not to say that CONSCIOUS simulation is the way to go. In fact, NON-CONSCIOUS simulation is the normal order of affairs, and conscious simulation as in a practice stroke searching for elusive "feel" that corresponds to past memory is a less effective and somewhat detracting approach that actively harms the better instinctive system for distance control. (So, if you use a practice stroke to try to get feel, knock yourself out, but don't let it override your instinctive adherence to great timing!)
Back to the Heavy Putter:
This all being the case, changing the putter head weight has next to nothing to do with keeping the same timing pattern day after day, putt after putt. So what if the "feel" in the hands is altered slightly by the changing of weights? So what if the "feel" in the upper torso as a whole is altered slightly by the changing of weights? You still need to keep the same timing pattern regardless of the changed weights. An ultra-light putter and a heavy putter should both be stroked with the same timing pattern.
The only difference comes in how the brain is familiar with the different masses in the putter head. You're either familiar with the putter head mass, or you're not. Gaining familiarity with a new putter head mass is not that difficult and doesn't really take long, but familiar is familiar. Once the brain is familiar with the mass, the stroke size for different distances adjusts instinctively (so long as your primary value is the timing pattern of the motion). The idea that certain sizes are better than others, or that the SAME size stroke for all 10-foot greens regardless of green speed is a good way to go, is misguided because the size of the stroke is irrelevant if set instinctively. The whole problem of great distance control is NOT trying to manage the size of the stroke with the conscious brainm because the conscious brain is just not that good at doing what the non-conscious brain is designed to do and in fact has been doing and does every waking moment of a person's life.
Are short strokes better than long strokes? Some people (not me) think that a shorter stroke is less likely to run off track. A heavy putter promotes shorter strokes for the same "send" and a light putter promotes longer strokes, if the timing is the same. If the stroke sizes are the same instead, a heavy putter promotes a slower stroke for the same "send" with the same-size stroke of a light putter. These two factors (size and stroke timing) inter-play, and the choice is not really whether you want to adjust the stroke size only. If you want a shorter stroke, then use a heavy putter with the same-old timing. The instincts will give you a shorter stroke size. Just watch out that the heavier putter doesn't change your timing pattern as well.
What actually happens if you try to equalize stroke sizes going from a slow green (1 foot backstroke gives a 10 foot roll) to a fast green (where without changing the putter head weight, a 1 foot backstroke gives a 15 foot roll)? Obviously, you need a lighter putter to keep the same stroke size and timing pattern, so you can make a 1 foot backstroke that rolls the ball only 10 feet. How much lighter? You can only get that right IF you keep the timing pattern the same as it was on the slower green, and then only if you experiment on the faster green. Even so, green speeds change in the course of a round and not all greens are the same anyway. So you are chasing a chimera that does you little good even if you can catch it.
Unless the differences in green speeds are pretty large, changing the weight of the putter head doesn't help. And the trade-off is a bit confusing: if you let the putter head weight change your timing pattern, you're set adrift from the best touch system you have and this makes your touch iffy.
What about just the fact that the Heavy Putter is heavy, apart from the idea of changing putter head weigths for different green speeds? I like this aspect. In general, a putter head that is heavier than the industry norm these days is better for "feel" and for tempo and for stroke consistency. This is what the Puttab testing shows for the Heavy Putter in comparison, say, with a Scotty Cameron Newport or similar putter on the light end of the scale. A heavier putter promotes a slow tempo and the heavier mass promotes a smoother flow along the path with less nervous-hands-injected fidgetiness in the motion. The "feel" in the hands and upper torso as a whole can also be promoted and enhanced by a heavier putter than the industry norm these days, but that really depends on the mass of the putter in relation to the mass and size of the golfer and his strength and tactile or proprioceptive awareness. For this, a "fitness" of weight to the golfer is called for. (Incidentally, Jack Nicklaus has called putter weight the primary factor in selecting a putter.)
The designer and head of the Heavy Putter company has said (in my presence) that he decided to incorporate changeable weights as part of his putter because he once read a marketing study that said giving consumers something to mess with makes them more likely to select that product over others without something for the consumer to mess with. Even though I find this approach to putter design a bit cynical and not very helpful to the game of golf, I do think having changeable weights makes the putter more capable of being tuned to specific golfers. That alone is a step up, since mass marketing of "standard:" one-size-fits-all putters is obviously only a convenience and a marketing ploy for the manufacturers, and not something that is good for golfers. At least as far as the one putter design attribute of head weight, the Heavy Putter allows some (self-conducted) custom-fitting to take place that otherwise would not be available. So in my view the owner of the company sort of backed into a lucky choice and is not aware of this better way to pitch his product to golfers interested in performance.
The interchangeable weights that come with the Heavy Putter, in my view, should be used to tune the putter to your body and your typical greens. But other than that, I don't recommend fiddling with the weights to try to adjust to different greens in an attempt to keep a stroke for a 10-foot putt exactly the same size. That approach uses the less-effective brain system and endangers the timing pattern relied upon by the better system.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone
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