Geoff- have you had a chance to test drive either the MLA putter or the Railgun II putter and if so what are your thoughts on their benefits/performance. also, what exactly was it about the (now illegal) Muirfield putter (that the Railgun was purportedly designed after) that made it so effective?
You mentioned the Medicus Revolver putter recently but a google search came up empty - can you tell us a little bit about it?
Lastly, i realize that the putter is a tool and that successful putting is more the Indian than the arrow, but what are the design elements that, in your opinion, contribute to a better arrow?
Thanks for your insights.
This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 71.43.93.93 on Mar 5, 2009 9:52 AM
If you think about it, you can easily spend upwards of $2000 for a set of golf clubs from driver to lob wedge, and this covers only 58% of the game. Putting contributes ~ 42% and should also command an equivalent expenditure in equipment.. the Kramski putters ..!!!
Why purchase inferior $100 to $250 putters annually when all you need do is buy one Kramski putter and you have the ultimate in putting weaponry ?!
(Of course, you should also purchase Geoff Mangum's Optimal Putting eBook for a mere $15.95 so you have the know-how to use these putters .. otherwise your klutzy putting stoke will most certainly frustrate your good intentions.)
The Revolver Putter is not yet officially on the market. Basically it is a putter with two weights at heel and toe that "revolve" from the inside to the outside making a narrower or wider putter, so you can set it both inside, both outside, heel inside / toe outside, heel outside / toe inside, one somewhere in-between all the way inside with the other all the way outside, etc. It's sort of like two "fingers" of metal off the toe and two off the heel, and one of the fingers revolves over the other so that one finger is fixed in the putter head and the second finger is attached at the far end of this finger and revolves at this point of fixation and is then screwed tight into a legal posture that won't change during play. This allows setting the weighting in a wide variety of patterns that change the putter MOI, total weight, swing-weight, center of gravity in the heel-toe and the up-down dimensions, and more.
As to design features that help the Indian be a better Indian on the green:
1. a nice putter head weight that works well with the golfer's body in the mass of the arms and hands, the strength, the sensitivity, the stroke timing pattern, and the type of green surfaces usually played.
2. a decent MOI that does not require too deep a recessing of the putter's center of gravity.
3. loft that does not launch the ball more than slightly off the ground for the greens usually played.
4. a lie that has the sole flat to the surface when the shaft angle naturally fits into the life line axis of the palm when the arms and hands hang naturally in gravity at setup, so the lie axis of the shaft matches the axis of the forearm as it naturally hangs beneath the shoulder at address.
5. a putter grip that does not cause activity in the hands but allows a nice forming of the palm and fingers and thumbs onto the putter handle, so one that is sized in diameter to fit into the golfer's hand, such that the nice-pressure grip is comfortable and forgettable at address.
6. a length such that the the naturally, balanced, comfortable setup posture of the golfer with neutral arm hang in gravity matches the height of the hands with the middle or lower portion of the handle, as opposed to the handle requiring the arms to crook to take hold of the putter handle too high on a length that is too long or to take hold lower by stretching the arms straighter or bending deeper over than the natural and comfortable preferred bend for a length that is too short.
7. a shape of the putter head that encourages appreciation of whether the putter is simultaneously aimed squarely at a target and also appears square in reference to the body's chest and shoulders and hips and feet at address, which for me means a simple, uncomplicated shape and appearance whether blade or mallet, with the shape being more valuable for aim and stroke sense than alignment markers.
8. a hoseling pattern that does not create confusion in the sense of the end of the stick that is being swung online thru the center of the ball.
9. a heel-toe weighting scheme and shaft hoseling that does not promote the toe swinging open and closed in the stroke above what the golfer by the body action causes to eliminate or at least reduce the added opening-closing action of the putter from the off-balanced mass in the heel or toe (usually the toe).
10. a sole "footprint" of the putter that promotes the golfer orienting to the very bottom of the stroke as the putter swings forward down to and thru and up away from the bottom of the stroke, with a very simple and clean stroke thru the bottom, without too little a sole and without too large a footprint as to cause attention of concern to whether the putter will swing on its natural down-up arcing without conflict with the flat surface of the green.
Fundamentally, these features are ones that do not add to the action of the golfer or make it more difficult than necessary to make a simple stroke. Practically nothing a designer can do will materially compare for effectiveness of the golfer learning performance skill for reading, aiming, stroking, and controlling distance with accuracy and consistency. A little extra skill helps results far more than the most highly-touted design feature offered by putter companies struggling for market share and your dollars.
I agree completely with Werner and Grieg, How Golf Clubs Really Work and How to Optimize Their Designs (Origin, 2000), p. 162: "There is negligible difference in performance between what is representative of the best and the poorest of conventional putter designs." And also (pp. 170-171): "For putters, we reached the surprising conclusion that performance differences among modern putters is negligible, including designs we have produced. ... For putters, the most important error is clubhead orientation [aim]. Proper alignment of the swing path [stroke] and proper head speed [distance control] are next in importance. Design can do little or nothing to reduce scatter [missing the line or distance] caused by these three [skill] errors."
To the extent the "smaller" effects of design features on the result of the putt are less than about 10% to 25% the size / importance of skill errors affecting the results, the design effects "rapidly diminish to negligible importance" (p. 162). For example, skill errors in distance control are typically 5-10 times (500% to 1,000%) greater than very effective MOI designs are effective to "save" distance loss from off-center impacts.
The golfer wants a simple design that promotes his instinctive use with good aim and a sound stroke with a smooth tempo and a nice launch and send of the ball. By far, the efforts of designers of putters trying to gain a marketing edge undercut the basic skills while not adding significant effect by dint of design. For example, the really ugly, complicated shapes of the big-headed MOI putters of today don't help nearly enough from the designs to justify the non-help or the hurt caused to basic skilled performance.
Less robotic stupidity and more human tool-use intelligence would be nice, but don't hold your breath. Putter manufacturers have a very clear history and a vested interest in not straying too far from what they have succeeded in branding and marketing to golfer as "conventional", lest a radical departure frightens the herd buyers and causes a reduction in market share. That's not so much a cynical point of view as one that accepts what the companies have always done as a fact. Car companies and other established consumer-goods companies simply won't risk market share with design that does not stay in the established track.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
PuttingZone Coach and Theorist
Welcome New PZ Coaches:
Steve Bourbon, Tour Coach, Orlando FL
David Grant Geier, Golf Inside-Out, Cleveland OH
Alan Martini, Head Pro, Tot Hill Farm Golf Course, Asheboro NC
Won Park, Won Park Golf, Seoul, Republic of Korea
1. a nice putter head weight that works well with the golfer's body in the mass of the arms and hands, the strength, the sensitivity, the stroke timing pattern, and the type of green surfaces usually played.
Okay, Geoff ... what's "in the bag" ... everybody wants to know what yer 10 favorite putters are for yer personal use. Spill the beans and list them for us ... the putters you hold near and dear to yer heart.
2. a decent MOI that does not require too deep a recessing of the putter's center of gravity.
Ahhh, MOI ... Magic Of Inertia ... the more the better according to the ads. Would you agree that the overall weight of the putter should be adjusted for golfer's height, stance, stroke radius and putter shaft lengths so that the pendular MOI from the body's rotative axis to the putter head center of mass are relatively equivalent? This means the mr^2 for a 32 inch and 35 inch putter are the same. There is a 20% difference(if you use a wrist pivot stroke) in the r^2 between 32 and 35 inches so that a 300 gm. putter head on a 35 inch shaft is equivalent to a 360 gm., 32 inch putter. Of course you will recognize that such a relationship is counter to the location of the putter's overall Center of Percussion positions ... with the longer shafted putter suffering a CoP more removed from the putter face sweet spot ... snookered again by physics..!!!
As for the MOI around the putter head center of mass ... well that assumes you are unable to hit the ball on the sweet spot and you expect that MOI will rescue your cockeyed stroking. Not a good putting strategy.
3. loft that does not launch the ball more than slightly off the ground for the greens usually played.
I think you mentioned a loft range of 0 - 2 degrees as acceptable. Is the average golfer consistent enough to deliver the putter head loft to the ball, or does it vary because the hand-putter handle position varies too much? If you think about it, a ball located in the geometric center of the stance will be struck at 0 degrees with a 0 degree lofted putter. If the ball is moved forward by say one inch it will be caught on the upstroke with an effective loft of one degree (because the swing radius is so large 1"=1º .. 2"=2º approximately trigonometrically). Can anybody putt within such tolerances ... or are we all within say +/-3 degrees making putter loft at impact somewhat problematic..??!!!
8. a hoseling pattern that does not create confusion in the sense of the end of the stick that is being swung online thru the center of the ball.
What kind of confusing hosel patterns are you referring to ... one bend .. two bends .. offsets .. certainly not a straight shaft directly into the putter head itself ?
9. a heel-toe weighting scheme and shaft hoseling that does not promote the toe swinging open and closed in the stroke above what the golfer by the body action causes to eliminate or at least reduce the added opening-closing action of the putter from the off-balanced mass in the heel or toe (usually the toe).
Are you advocating a so-called "face-balanced" putter design where the shaft axis and hanging gravitational axis are coincident? I believe you have a preference for a heel-bias weighted putter which pulls the putter heel down at address thus forcing the putter face to align perpendicular to the putting line. Of course you realize that the face-balanced putter should align similarly if it is positioned in this manner.
As for a toe-weighted putter head opening and closing capriciously because the golfer is not controlling the putter head with enough grip pressure ... well that is a bogus argument against the heel-shafted 8802 style putter. Golfers who attempt to use a true blade putter and claim they cannot control it are yielding to the putter head ... the tail wagging the dog. Golfers who cannot putt straight back and through, and must stroke on a sweeping arc, may be anatomically compromised and unable to articulate their arms and upper body properly .. and to blame it on the tiny putter head .. no ..!!!
10. a sole "footprint" of the putter that promotes the golfer orienting to the very bottom of the stroke as the putter swings forward down to and thru and up away from the bottom of the stroke, with a very simple and clean stroke thru the bottom, without too little a sole and without too large a footprint as to cause attention of concern to whether the putter will swing on its natural down-up arcing without conflict with the flat surface of the green.
The putter designs I can think of that admirably meet this "footprint" criterion is a plain and simple putter like the Titleist Bullseye design ... where the sole is quite narrow and the shaft is directly mounted into the body of the putter. Another putter is the Spalding T.P. Mills models such as the T.P.M. 6.. I own and still use these old 1900s designed putters ... and when I go to the big box golf stores to test them against the new mallet-monstrosities ... well, I laugh.
Geoff ... why do all these golf-ing suckers fall for the latest, newest, "scientifically-improved" rube goldberg putters that are more like sculptures machined to incredible tolerances, and reject plain old efficient ball poking tools .. do they really think they will be able to avoid, bypass, eliminate, learning and practicing as is promised to them annually with the new designs .... sheesh ....???!!!!
Sammy, I'm confused in one post you ask Geoff why golfers keep falling for these new fancy putters when old is just as good if not better than new. ( I agree with you by the way) But in another post you say if one is serious about their game they should check out one of these Kramski putters. I went to the site and they are some fantastic looking putters but to me they are exactly the putters that you are asking Geoff why people fall for them. To me they seem to be the exact putters that you laugh at when you go to the big golf stores. Unless I am missing something, I don't get it? I mean if we say it is the indian not the arrow, then what would make somebody in their right mind pay for one of these Kromski or other boutique putters?
By the way there is a nice article in this weeks golfworld about putters namely Scotty Cameron. What is nice is to get his feelings on his other putter peers. Kind of a rare article. It even says Scotty first denied the article or his agent did b/c it talked about other makers in the article but then it appears he wanted to do it anyway, so he did.
Irony and sarcasm don't register in text normally. It appears sammy was being sarcastic in recommending the Kramski, as that is consistent with his usual position. Sarcasm is a tone of voice, and there is one spot in the brain that is required to "get it". If you are missing that spot or it gets damaged, you end up being a literalist who takes EVERYTHING anyone says, regardless of facial expression or tone of voice or even gesture that normally signals irony, mockery, or sarcasm, and understands only the face-value statement. There is a very similar spot for "getting" jokes. The Web is like that, hence the emoticons.
Chasing Scotty Cameron
Titleist's iconic puttermaker is a marked man. Long is the line of those who'd like to steal his crown
Scotty Cameron
Craftsman: Cameron designs his putters at a studio in San Marcos, Calif., where tour pros come for high-tech custom fittings.
By Max Adler
Photos by Thomas Broening March 2, 2009
The name might sound thought up by a corporation, the Betty Crocker of putters, but Scotty Cameron is in fact a real breathing human. Every morning, the boyish 46-year-old wakes to put on expensive wireframe specs and chooses one of his vintage cars to make the short commute to his hi-tech studio in San Marcos, Calif. There he fires up a milling machine and proceeds to sculpt the objects drooled over by golfers around the world. Tiger Woods has sworn by the same Cameron model for all his 14 majors.
"I don't know a single serious player who hasn't putted with a Cameron at some point in his life," says David Eger, a two-time winner on the Champions Tour. There are other men who make putters, but their existences pale by comparison so much it's as if they're in a different line of work. Original millings by the Cameron hand (not the stock models purchased by you and me for $300) have fetched prices as high as $30,000 at auction. He has become to putters what Les Paul is to electric guitars. There is even a museum dedicated to him in Japan, complete with the paint-splattered worktable and tools the boy genius used in his formative years.
Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime and died 83 years before he, or anyone for that matter, could visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Online auctions run by the Scotty museum regularly return bids of more than $1,300for a headcover.
"Most of the tour guys in the late-'70s and early-'80s used factory stock Ping putters," says Clay Long, designer of the oversize MacGregor Response putter Jack Nicklaus used in his victory at the 1986 Masters. "As obvious as it might seem today, the notion of fine-tuning the specifications to the player, massaging the look to fit his eye, wasn't until later. Scotty was essentially the first to go out on tour successfully and say to pros, 'Let me make a putter just for you.' "
At least first in the era of modern milling machines. Puttermaker David Mills, who carries on the legacy of his father, T.P., recalls, "Back in the 1960s players would come over to my dad's shop, which was in our home, and he'd look at their stroke and build them a putter by hand. They'd pay cash or by check. My dad never gave putters away. It wasn't ego. He needed the money."
With the exception of the odd-looking mallet, say a Futura or a Detour, a cynic would contend most Cameron shapes are unoriginal, merely elegant versions of T.P. Mills blades or the first Ping Ansers by Karsten Solheim.
"Scotty Camera" is the derisive nickname sometimes whispered by rival designers.
But almost every designer makes a putter that mimics the Anser. Will any of them ever be big enough to truly classify as a rival?
One man who was big enough, at least once, is Bobby Grace. Nick Price used Grace's high-MOI "The Fat Lady Swings" mallet to capture the 1994 PGA Championship. Annika Sorenstam used Grace's "Pip-Squeak" to win her first seven pro events. As TV cameras zoomed in on the final rolls of those victories, the puttermaker from Florida who never graduated from high school shared in the glory. For puttermakers, purchase orders always spike the day after someone wins using one of their designs.
"The small guy is only going to get known through use on the tour," Grace says of aspiring designers. "But it's not like it was when I got started. Now the PGA Tour has stonewalled this guy by making the guideline for credentials a catch-22. It's impossible to get a credential to hang out by the putting green to get tour players to try your putter. You can only get a credential if a player is already using your product."
Because dreamers are thwarted from loitering on golf's grandest stagein part to protect player privacy the pros who have played David Whitlam putters have names such as Dae-Sub Kim, Sung-Hyun An and Bae-Kyu Tae. "As much as I'd like to get out on the PGA Tour again," says Whitlam, "I'm happy right now with my Korean Tour players. They're young, and they're a lot of fun." If instigated, Whitlam is full of crazy stories of nights out until sunrise in faraway Asian cities.
Set down a David Whitlam Signature Series next to a Scotty Cameron Studio Style and you see two shiny Anser-styles milled from high-grade stainless steel that sit dead square. Save the aficionado, it is similar to trying to tell the difference between twins. Yet Whitlam could be described as the anti-Cameron. The Canadian turned Californian plays golf in sunglasses, an untucked shirt, cargo shorts and prefers carts to caddies. He makes no pretensions about being an artist. He's more of a jeweler.
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"My putters are for people who like having nice things," Whitlam says. "A putter is a flat surface with a few degrees of loft and an attention to weighting. A Timex can tell the time as good as a Rolex, but which would you rather have?"
Whitlam says he sells about 14,000 putters each year. Weaving in and out of four lanes of So-Cal I-5 traffic at 85 miles per hour in his Chevy Suburban with flashy aftermarket rims, talking on a cell phone, Whitlam comes across as a high roller. But you wonder how secure his slice of the putter pie actually is. He is heading to Mario's, a finishing shop in a nondescript commercial lot, and it is here you see he is a shrewd businessman with eyes on the margins.
It's dusty and crowded and ripping with metallic noise. Piled at the main door are cardboard boxes spilling with raw steel heads. About a dozen men, mostly Hispanic, are operating grinding belts and bead blasters and affixing grips, while three steady-handed women apply colored paint into tiny sole engravings. Whitlam knows the employees by name and jokes with each one as he goes around checking their work. Guerin Rife of Rife putters is also in the room, standing at a work table sorting a batch of heads. Along with Whitlam and Rife, companies such as SeeMore, Bettinardi and Sizemore also ship milled heads to Mario's for finishing touches. "It's one of the best, most trusted shops around," says Whitlam. At its maximum Mario's can process 1,500 putters a week.
The person best positioned to supplant Cameron as putter king was working at a finishing shop similar to
Mario's for $4 a hour the first time he touched a golf club. Kia Ma, who now customizes putters for TaylorMade's staff of 179 tour professionals, emigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam in 1980 when he was 26.
When you meet Kia, he shakes your hand and bows slowly. But when he moves around his shop at TaylorMade headquarters rifling through cabinets, he barks orders as if there wasn't a spare second. One moment he is fiddling with a face insert, but blink, now he's in the corner securing a head in a vice and igniting a blowtorch with a Bic, sans goggles or gloves. Once the hosel is glowing orange, Kia fits a female bending rod over it and pulls slightly in one direction to decrease the lie angle, then slightly in another to increase the offset. Before the hosel has cooled completely, Kia grabs the next form off a pile on his worktable. It has the heading "Mike Weir," and a chart of specifications with a headache of digits, and a scrawled note about changing the alignment aid.
Kia picks up three overstuffed manila folders of these forms to demonstrate their weight. "These are the best golfers in the world," he says, and takes a long unblinking pause to impress upon you the seriousness of his job. "I cannot be late."
Says Nick Faldo of Kia, "It's a very visual process, so language has never been a problem." Kia's English is still a work in progress.
Kia Ma picks up three overstuffed manila folders and says: "These are the best golfers in the world. I cannot be late."
For all the years of grunt work in the shadows, Kia, 54, is only now getting to stamp his name on putters. TaylorMade has just introduced the Rossa TP by Kia Ma line to the general market. Could it be the company sees star potential in Kia as its man to finally rival Titleist?
Golf was not part of Kia's early story. "In Vietnam I was boat mechanic," he says. "I can redo a whole engine." It was also through these skills that Kia, as well as several people from his village, were able to escape their war-torn country in the first place. On a boat whose hauling purpose and capacity was 3,000 bags of rice, Kia captained the one-way refugee trip to Malaysia. He lived there, and then in Indonesia, before eventually coming to the U.S.
If a good reputation with tour players and the marketing backing of one of the biggest companies in golf is what's positioning Kia Ma to chase Cameron, Kevin Burns is relying solely on himself.
KB Golf, which designed the putter José Maria Olazábal used to win the 1999 Masters, once had 20 employees. But now the workforce is just the boss. "People were just showing up for the paycheck," Burns says. "I'd find all these mistakes and chatter marks and end up having to scrap a bunch of heads. I'm an artist. If a putter is going to have my name on it, it has to be perfect."
p3:
When you first walk into the KB Golf warehouse in San Jose, you can't find anyone. An industrial contraption the size of 20 refrigerators occupies half the floor space. An empty forklift is parked in the corner next to two barrels of metal shavings. The only sound is of a man talking agitatedly to someone who isn't getting any words in. Where is Burns?
You find him in the belly of the contraption, cell phone propped between his shoulder and ear, both hands investigating the controls as he continues talking down to whomever is on the end of the line.
"I paid them $650,000 for this machine," Burns huffs after hanging up. "You'd think they could send a guy down here to check it out." He then launches into a detailed physical explanation of why certain mathematical accuracy standards are necessary when machining multiple heads from raw blocks of steel on five-axes with the touch of a button. It's very complicated.
"People think I've gone into the dark," Burns says, "But this thing I've been working on could turn out to be huge."
"This thing" is what Burns calls "mass-customization." Once up and running, the giant Mazak 650 milling machine automatically will accept orders from electronic Kevin Burns fitting kiosks in retail shops. By gripping the telescopic grip of the kiosk, a customer's length and lie specifications are recorded, allowing them to choose alignment and head-shape options from a screen, and even order their name engraved in any color. The putter will arrive in the mail two weeks later. "I want Joe Consumer to feel he's got something that's just as good as the guy on TV has," Burns says. "That the putter has been finished and fit just for him. And not bent or weldedthat destroys the metal. I mean specifically machined."
Burns doesn't draw on napkins. To explain his creative process, he boots up an engineering program. Equal to the ambition of inventing new head shapes is programming the machine to cut metal blocks in the correct sequence to achieve them. A seemingly simple tweak, such as rounding the area of the neck underneath the shelf of the hosel, can pose terrible complications.
Burns looks at the dead machine. "Every day I'm down costs me a thousand dollars."
The phone rings. He fishes it quickly from the pocket of his track pants and answers cordially. The downward shift of his moustache indicates it's the service technician again, who doesn't have an answer.
Scotty Cameron
Cameron was once on his own, too. Fortunately, his start coincided with the economic boom in Japan. In the 1980s, at a shop in Honolulu called A Piece of Time, Cameron sold custom putters, often inlaid with diamonds, for as much as $50,000, mainly to Japanese men. This netted enough capital to go out without a financial backer on the PGA Tour, where Cameron promptly got a dozen players using his putters. He got his first PGA Tour win in 1992 and then his first major with Bernhard Langer at the 1993 Masters. Mizuno approached Cameron to design a commercial line, which he did in 1992 and 1993. Then, in September 1994, Titleist approached him. The following year Wally Uihlein, CEO of Acushnet, commissioned the building of the Putting Studio in San Marcos, an expansive fantasy workshop of lasers and cameras that run at 1,000 frames a second for Cameron to explore the most basic, yet most maddening, shot in golf.
"Back when nobody could afford it, Wally said 'OK,' " Cameron remembers, gratefully. "It was a place to bring tour players and show them the facts nobody knew. Should the face be square to the putter arc or the line of the putt? What is the proper loft? Does the ball roll at impact? Which putter shape is going to get them to line up square every time? The Studio let us answer all these questions, and players were able to leave with confidence."
"People pick up a Cameron putter and they don't know why they like it so much," says the maker himself. "I've learned to make the trailing edge of a putter very soft in shape. Roly-poly edges. Golfers feel nerves, tension when they putt. I believe you can make a putter soothing to take out that tension."
Cameron's puttermaking began long before he was a clubhouse name. "My father and I used to go to the tire store to get lead from old rims," he says. "We'd heat the lead in a coffee can and then mill our own heads. We'd stick them on the ends of old 3-iron shafts. We'd go play nine holes, and then come back to our garage and manipulate what we didn't like. Putting was my weakest link in high school, so I was always tinkering."
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Visit cameroncollector.com, a fan-run discussion forum, and you can glimpse the mania. An army of devotees type messages like, "Does anyone else suffer Scotty yearning, it's like a religious faithyou just believe!" or refer to a putter's aesthetics as "sex on a stick."
You don't often (ever?) hear such sycophantic waxing about the work of Kia Ma or David Whitlam. Last June a press release announced Grace's resignation from MacGregor. For legal reasons, neither party will disclose much, but Grace says he was dissatisfied with the lack of marketing firepower. The release coldly stated, "MacGregor Golf retains ownership of all trademarks and other rights associated with Bobby Grace and the name Bobby Grace." So as the company fights its own troubles, Grace has to wait to see when he can use his name again on his putters. Kevin Burns finally got the Mazak fixed, five months after we visited him.
"I feel their jealousy. I'm very lucky to be in the position I'm in. ... I just wish people would stop with the negativity." Scotty Cameron
One of Cameron's playful stampings is a crown, and it seems he will continue to wear it for a while longer.
"I feel their jealousy," says Cameron of designers who aren't him. "I'm very lucky to be in the position I'm in. T.P. Mills and Karsten Solheim opened the door for Scotty Cameron. I just wish people would stop with the negativity, and see I'm just carrying the torch for the next generation."
Cameron has been talking for more than an hour, this from someone who initially "respectfully declined" to be interviewed because his agent didn't want him featured in an article with other putter designers.
"Sorry," says Cameron. "I get talking about putters, and I just keep going."
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
PuttingZone Theorist and Coach
Welcome New PZ Coaches
Won Park, Won Park Golf, Seoul Korea
Steve Bourbon, Tour Player Coach, Orlando FL
David Grant Geier, Golf Inside-out, Cleveland OH
Alan Martini, Head Pro, Tot Hill Farm Golf Club, Asheboro NC
This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 24.28.240.12 on Mar 2, 2009 5:09 PM
1. a nice putter head weight that works well with the golfer's body in the mass of the arms and hands, the strength, the sensitivity, the stroke timing pattern, and the type of green surfaces usually played.
Okay, Geoff ... what's "in the bag" ... everybody wants to know what yer 10 favorite putters are for yer personal use. Spill the beans and list them for us ... the putters you hold near and dear to yer heart.
A Positive Putter, a Q-Roll Putter, a TaylorMade TPI, a Plop 14 degree, an STX Tour Sync, a Symple Putter, a Medicus Revolver, a Hogan Junior blade, an American Putter by Chuck Todd, ... these consistently float to the top.
2. a decent MOI that does not require too deep a recessing of the putter's center of gravity.
Ahhh, MOI ... Magic Of Inertia ... the more the better according to the ads. Would you agree that the overall weight of the putter should be adjusted for golfer's height, stance, stroke radius and putter shaft lengths so that the pendular MOI from the body's rotative axis to the putter head center of mass are relatively equivalent? This means the mr^2 for a 32 inch and 35 inch putter are the same. There is a 20% difference(if you use a wrist pivot stroke) in the r^2 between 32 and 35 inches so that a 300 gm. putter head on a 35 inch shaft is equivalent to a 360 gm., 32 inch putter. Of course you will recognize that such a relationship is counter to the location of the putter's overall Center of Percussion positions ... with the longer shafted putter suffering a CoP more removed from the putter face sweet spot ... snookered again by physics..!!!
As for the MOI around the putter head center of mass ... well that assumes you are unable to hit the ball on the sweet spot and you expect that MOI will rescue your cockeyed stroking. Not a good putting strategy.
There is a trade-off in recessing the COG and weighting the toe and heel. The farther back from the face the COG, the greater tendency for putts to stray left-right off line. But a greater MOI saves distance more than a COG close to the face mitigates off-line error. If you hit the ball pretty much in the sweetspot, the greater MOI doesn't matter much for off-line error or distance error. Apparently, hitting within 0.3" on the true sweetspot (and the true sweetspot is within about 0.2" of the geometric center of the face up-down and heel-toe) basically zeros out all the jazz about MOI. The better you are, the less MOI matters.
There is not that much difference in distance between a 300-gram putter head and a 360-gram putter head on most greens, both impacting the same ball on the same green with the same impact velocity. A 300-gram putter swung with a 15.87" backstroke into impact with the usual torqued stroke and a 360-gram putter swung with a 15.53" backstroke into impact with the usual torqued stroke both send the ball the same distance. Similarly, a 300-gram putter impacting the ball at 100 in/s (about that usual for a 15-foot putt), sends the ball off with about 151 in/s initial velocity, whereas the 360-gram putter impacting the ball at 100 in/s sends the ball off with about 155 in/s velocity -- not a big difference (4 in/s is only 2.5% difference in velocity for 17% difference in mass).
3. loft that does not launch the ball more than slightly off the ground for the greens usually played.
I think you mentioned a loft range of 0 - 2 degrees as acceptable. Is the average golfer consistent enough to deliver the putter head loft to the ball, or does it vary because the hand-putter handle position varies too much? If you think about it, a ball located in the geometric center of the stance will be struck at 0 degrees with a 0 degree lofted putter. If the ball is moved forward by say one inch it will be caught on the upstroke with an effective loft of one degree (because the swing radius is so large 1"=1º .. 2"=2º approximately trigonometrically). Can anybody putt within such tolerances ... or are we all within say +/-3 degrees making putter loft at impact somewhat problematic..??!!!
Loft does not have to do with "reducing skid" or "getting the ball up and out of a cup-like depression on the green" -- the issue with loft is avoiding "launching" the ball into the air more than 2-3 inches tops, and less is desirable. Design loft up to about 3 degrees used with a ball position about 0.5 to 1" forward of where the stroke bottoms out and starts adding "dynamic" loft to the design loft before impact will not launch the ball for almost all reasonable impact velocities. So that is a dynamic loft of about 4 degrees. Ergo, any combination of design loft and added or reduced dynamic loft that results in "presentation" loft at the impact with the ball of about 4 degrees or less will not excessively launch almost any putt. So what I am saying is that the design loft that stays within 3 degrees can be handled by the golfer a) bottoming out consistently the same distance back from the back of the ball, and b) not adding dynamic loft so that presentation loft exceeds about 4 degrees total. Five degrees of dynamic loft works for mild-velocity putts on fast and true greens without launching the ball, too, but above that the risk of launch increases rather sharply. This has to do with the mass, weight, and inertia of the ball and what is typically required to launch this mass airborne using standard weight putters for standard length putts on standard green speed surfaces with the resulting impact velocities in that range.
8. a hoseling pattern that does not create confusion in the sense of the end of the stick that is being swung online thru the center of the ball.
What kind of confusing hosel patterns are you referring to ... one bend .. two bends .. offsets .. certainly not a straight shaft directly into the putter head itself ?
Any hoseling that points into the putter head other than at the face sweetspot (or front-back plane that includes the sweetspot) creates ambiguity for what constitutes the end of the stick: either it is the end of the axis of the shaft or it is the imaginary center of gravity of the putter head (at least as expressed on the face or in line with the shaft or in line with the heel-toe fatness of the front of the putter head). And this is due to the difference between the visual end of the shaft and the felt center of the mass in the putter head. A putter design that makes the shaft aim to the putter head's center in the front-back plane that includes the sweetspot avoids this ambiguity.
9. a heel-toe weighting scheme and shaft hoseling that does not promote the toe swinging open and closed in the stroke above what the golfer by the body action causes to eliminate or at least reduce the added opening-closing action of the putter from the off-balanced mass in the heel or toe (usually the toe).
Are you advocating a so-called "face-balanced" putter design where the shaft axis and hanging gravitational axis are coincident? I believe you have a preference for a heel-bias weighted putter which pulls the putter heel down at address thus forcing the putter face to align perpendicular to the putting line. Of course you realize that the face-balanced putter should align similarly if it is positioned in this manner.
No it won't. That is an omni-balanced putter like the old Plop design, which remains wherever the face is positioned when the shaft is balanced on a finger about 10" up from the head. A "face-balanced" putter today usually has a recessed center of gravity perhaps 1" back of the putter face in line with the shaft axis, but when the shaft is balanced on the finger, this COG swings to the bottom like a heavy saddlebag hanging by two straps, one off the toe and one off the heel. No matter where you position the heel or toe, the saddle bag COG will still swing to the bottom so the face is level in gravity. Only putters without a recessed COG are omni-balanced -- the shaft axis bisects these putters both heel-toe and front-back.
As for a toe-weighted putter head opening and closing capriciously because the golfer is not controlling the putter head with enough grip pressure ... well that is a bogus argument against the heel-shafted 8802 style putter. Golfers who attempt to use a true blade putter and claim they cannot control it are yielding to the putter head ... the tail wagging the dog. Golfers who cannot putt straight back and through, and must stroke on a sweeping arc, may be anatomically compromised and unable to articulate their arms and upper body properly .. and to blame it on the tiny putter head .. no ..!!!
I agree except for the terminology "a sweeping arc". So long as the putter face is cemented in place by grip pressure (sufficient, not excessive) to coordinate with the chest and shoulder frame, and sweeping arc of the shoulder frame that causes a sweeping arc of the putter face is not especially troublesome as long as the golfer gets back to square before impact and then doesn't continue closing with the shoulder frame past this point.
10. a sole "footprint" of the putter that promotes the golfer orienting to the very bottom of the stroke as the putter swings forward down to and thru and up away from the bottom of the stroke, with a very simple and clean stroke thru the bottom, without too little a sole and without too large a footprint as to cause attention of concern to whether the putter will swing on its natural down-up arcing without conflict with the flat surface of the green.
The putter designs I can think of that admirably meet this "footprint" criterion is a plain and simple putter like the Titleist Bullseye design ... where the sole is quite narrow and the shaft is directly mounted into the body of the putter. Another putter is the Spalding T.P. Mills models such as the T.P.M. 6.. I own and still use these old 1900s designed putters ... and when I go to the big box golf stores to test them against the new mallet-monstrosities ... well, I laugh.
I think you misunderstand what I am describing as good for the sole "footprint." A TaylorMade TPI simple mallet head is better in my view than a BullsEye "thin" sole, the same way that a walking cane with a nice fat rubber tip is safer and "better" at relating the person to the ground than a cane with a pointed end. There is a very happy medium between the too-thin and the the too-big soles. My view is that the BullsEye and the basic flange putters have too-thin a sole, made much worse by designers like Scotty cameron by radiusing the sole to make one design more attractive to a wider group of bad golfers -- those who putt toe-up and those who putt heel-up without knowing the difference all equally can use the Scotty Cameron radiused sole so the market department overrules good design or (worse) the desinger doesn't really care to help golfers and enables bad form for the sake of increased sales. A radiused sole is like a par-3 green at Augusta National -- very little real landing area. From heel-to-toe underneath a Scotty cameron Newport, the "flat" part of the sole is not 4"x1" but is more of a small central patch about 1"x1" -- about 1/4th what it could and should be. And modest-sized mallets with the heel-toe dimension 4"+ and the front to back being about 3" with rounded perimeter haveabout 10 square inches for the sole area, not 1 square inch. Given that the putter in a very undisturbed stroke arc thru the bottom (with the flat sole grazing flatly over the grass) will "rock" front edge up about 0.1" off the ground when the front edge reaches 3" past the stroke bottom, there is a front-back limit beyond which the rear edge of the putter head digs in the ground on the way up. The back edge is never a problem in the backstroke or the stroke down to the bottom, but too-long a putter head front-to-back causes golfer anxiety and manipulation to overcome the problem. Typical sole designs have a radiusing of the sole so the back end slopes up away from the ground to make sure there is no conflict. Even so, the visual appearance of the head shape looking down from the golfer's perspective doesn't signal the absence of a risk, but signals a risk from the front-back length being over the limit for what the golfer has learned about the shape of his stroke. When the head appears too big front-to-back the golfer manipulates the stroke. So there is a happy medium, and it is around 3" front-to-back.
Geoff ... why do all these golf-ing suckers fall for the latest, newest, "scientifically-improved" rube goldberg putters that are more like sculptures machined to incredible tolerances, and reject plain old efficient ball poking tools .. do they really think they will be able to avoid, bypass, eliminate, learning and practicing as is promised to them annually with the new designs .... sheesh ....???!!!!
I guess they believe what manufacturers tell them and what endorsing pros promise. I'm not sure that makes them suckers, as you say, so much as it calkls into question the manufacturers and designers. I'd rather think they are just not too good at helping golfers and are "situation ethics" sort of folks.
Cheers!
Geoff mangum
PuttingZone Theorist and Coach
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This message has been edited by aceputt from IP address 24.28.240.12 on Mar 2, 2009 5:19 PM
All due respect Geoff, but I don't get even the slightest hint of sarcasim in Sammy's post about the Kramski. I even went back and re-read it. Not only does he seem to seriously like these putters, he gives the company contact info and price list as well as telling people to ditch their annual $200 putter for one of these fine weapons and then make sure to download your book. Maybe your right and he is being sarcastic, I normally pick it up pretty good but not in this one scenario.
If he is not being sarcastic then he is contradicting himself in the 2 posts, if he is being sarcastic then my bad.
Thanks for the "shazam" moment, Geoff ... and as lawyers say: "Don't as a question for which you do not know the answer!"
1. Re Medicus Revolver ... now that heel-toe rotating weight rod design should provide even the most insecure golf-ing buckaroo with the ultimate in putter one-upmanship ... but is the design in keeping with the tradition of golf as protected by the manufacturer-infiltrated USGA? We await your review with bated breath ... go for it .. please.
2. Yes Geoff ... as you say: "The better you are, the less MOI matters." If you do strike the ball say 0.5" off the sweet spot, you can compensate with a firmer grip pressure in a torqued putting stroke ... whereas in a soft-handed gravity-assisted stroke you will be at the mercy of the eccentric impact causing putter head and shaft torque going into your hands. Most novice putters are taught to hold the putter handle very lightly and that destroys their feel and feelings as they lose control when they hit off center ... which induces the manufacturers to go to extreme MOI designs to compensate for klutziness. If the stroking techinque was improved, this MOI issue would vanish and relieve putting angst.
3. Ball 'launch' must be a function of initial ball velocity. A high initial ball velocity may launch upwards or skid level depending on the putter loft position at impact. The putter head becomes a virtual moving target attempting to meet the stationary ball at some loft amount. If impact is ascending, the ball will launch ... if level it will skid horizontally ... if descending it may even get driven into the ground . For very short putts, there is no launch, only short skid and immediate rolling. The position of the CofG of the putter head obviously is a factor in these examples.
Again, I suggest that novice and even decent golfers may not be able to hold the dynamic loft conditions constant, making initial impact putting conditions problematic. The solution requires knowledge how to properly present the putter to the ball, and actually doing it consistently.
8. Amen ... and I notice several of your preferred putters have the hosel and shaft aligned directly into the putter head, or at least reasonably so. A slight deviation is not that significant, but when the hosel or shaft have many bends and twists and turns, I find it near impossible to adapt to that orientation, regardless of my putting skills.
9. Re: Face-balanced. Yes, I was thinking of a simple bilateral blade putter with the shaft and gravitational hanging axes coincidental so it can be rotated and hold that rotation in any axial position. Face-balanced for the masses is with the putter face flat and pointing upwards because of backweighting ... and since the word "balanced" is uses to improperly describe an axial condition, everybody believes such a design is desireable. Obviously a backweighted face-balanced putter is not balanced in all axes.
10. If I understand you, the putter "footprint" is actually the shape of the putter sole and how it's designed to compensate for "scuffing" in the downstroke should contact be made with the grass. This kind of goof is lack of control of the putter's elevation off the green, and is a sign of inadequate stroke control. I must admit this occasionally happens to me, but only when I fall into a lackadaisical moment and botch the stroke. Forward stroking bravely with increasing velocity or even constant velocity together with concentration on the task, eliminates scuffing. Of course a longish front-to-back putter head with inadequate clearance can be dragged in it's derriere if the stroke is too ascending.
The safest designs are the Bullseye "thin sole" models. And as for highly rockered putter soles to accommodate a range of shaft lies, that brings in the question of the 'problematic' effective face lofts at impact ... because rotating a 3º lofted putter face through say a range of 60º flat lie to 80º vertical lie will skew the static face loft on it's stroke path to the ball. However it seems irrelevant if the golfer knows how to compensate for his/her biases .. whether they consistently pull or push the putt.
Re: golf-ing suckers ... being exploited psychologically by avaricious manufacturers. I refer you to the 1994 paper by Frank W. Thomas (when he was in his last days as USGA Technical Director) contained in the Science and Golf II published proceedings on pages 237-246.
Some snippets ....
Manufacturers are supplying a demand driven mostly by our insatiable urge to gat a little more our of equipment than we are prepared to work for. Our wishes seem to be granted by each new piece of equipment we decide to purchase, as this seems to carry with it a presently unexplained phenomenon, which temporarily separates our minds from interfering with our natural swing movements, exposing our real potential for a brief period of time. .......
It is understood by the administrators of the game, as it is by the participants, that a golfer's need and wants differ fairly dramatically at times.
It is very common that extraordinary performances are credited to new equipment by the golfer, his golfing companions, and the manufacturer "Placebo Effect". The manufacturer would like to believe that the new design actually works and the golfer would like to believe the manufacturer's claims. This synergistic form of wishful thinking results in a temporary dislocation for the golfer's mind from interfering with his body. He is on fringes of the world of "make believe," and the results are extraordinary. The golfer swings better and the manufacturer takes heard ( considerably more than he should) from this extraordinary performance. This then snowballs, wending the manufacturer's marketing division into a "hype frenzy". The elders of the game understandably express concern and call for something to be done to curb this new innovation. At the same time, they seem anxious to get their hands on the particular piece of equipment in question. This cyclical phenomenon is as predictable as winter following summer, and almost as common.
Science has at last entered every aspect of the game of golf. This is, in the most part, due to competition in the marketplace, and thus, the need to produce something that really is better. Also, men of science are among those who have taken to the game. From the rules making point of view, it has become evident that a rule which permits only clubs of the "traditional and customary form and make", is extremely important to retain, but may not be sufficient any more, and tat as science enters the game, so must science be used to protect it.
Science is entering golf, and the game can only benefit from this.
..............................................
The references are to the golfswing, but it can also be applied to the putting stroke and putters. Your contribution to the science of putting goes beyond the mere design of putters ... it defines the use of the putter from address to holing the putt. Those who ignore your knowledge and still hold on to the juvenile desire to find the "best putter" are surely part of the ignorant masses who resist knowledge and learning.
Geoff .. you have no peers on this fine forum, and neither is there a community group to discuss your concepts and recent eBook - Optimal Putting. Perhaps that reflects on the state of the game and it's adolescent participants seeking "fun" without paying the price. Yes .. everybody wants to know, but few are willing to pay the price.
Thanks for the "shazam" moment, Geoff ... and as lawyers say: "Don't ask a question for which you do not know the answer!"
As the scientist says: "Always ask what you don't know, so you know where to start with science."
1. Re Medicus Revolver ... now that heel-toe rotating weight rod design should provide even the most insecure golf-ing buckaroo with the ultimate in putter one-upmanship ... but is the design in keeping with the tradition of golf as protected by the manufacturer-infiltrated USGA? We await your review with bated breath ... go for it .. please.
All putters that have "adjustable" features like changeable weights, lofts, lies, aim lines, etc., are required to be "fixed" so as not to present much chance of altering during play. The USGA allows equipment that can be changed between rounds, so long as the changes get locked down adequately. In approving these designs, the USGA tests the locking down to make sure it is adequate. Then the approval by the USGA constitutes the "de facto" tradition of the game. The USGA and R&A define the traditions.
2. Yes Geoff ... as you say: "The better you are, the less MOI matters." If you do strike the ball say 0.5" off the sweet spot, you can compensate with a firmer grip pressure in a torqued putting stroke ... whereas in a soft-handed gravity-assisted stroke you will be at the mercy of the eccentric impact causing putter head and shaft torque going into your hands. Most novice putters are taught to hold the putter handle very lightly and that destroys their feel and feelings as they lose control when they hit off center ... which induces the manufacturers to go to extreme MOI designs to compensate for klutziness. If the stroking techinque was improved, this MOI issue would vanish and relieve putting angst.
The "insurance policy" of high MOI is a little like wearing a scuba tank in the swimming pool -- potentially useful if you get your toe stuck in the drain grate, but sooner or later you have to learn not to stick your toe in the grate. you SHOULD want high MOI so long as it doesn't take a weirdly shaped and looking and weighted putter head to get there.
3. Ball 'launch' must be a function of initial ball velocity. A high initial ball velocity may launch upwards or skid level depending on the putter loft position at impact. The putter head becomes a virtual moving target attempting to meet the stationary ball at some loft amount. If impact is ascending, the ball will launch ... if level it will skid horizontally ... if descending it may even get driven into the ground . For very short putts, there is no launch, only short skid and immediate rolling. The position of the CofG of the putter head obviously is a factor in these examples.
Again, I suggest that novice and even decent golfers may not be able to hold the dynamic loft conditions constant, making initial impact putting conditions problematic. The solution requires knowledge how to properly present the putter to the ball, and actually doing it consistently.
I think the physics of launch is a bit more complicated. First, a straight line of force thru the center of gravity of the ball will "punch" the ball in the same direction, and with a "slab" planar putter face that can only touch the back of a sphere on the sphere's tangent plane that matches the slab's presentation plane ("dynamic loft at impact"), hitting level;, up, or down thru the ball all will equally "punch" the ball off the face in that one direction (normal to or perpendicular to the tangent plane of contact, whatever that might be). This isn't quite what actually happens, because the presentation loft of the putter actually (99%+ of the time for all golfers, except perhaps Dave Stockton Jr. and a couple of others with techniques that are learned and honed over 3+ decades) changes DURING impact / contact between ball and putter fro straight thru the COG of the ball to some other line of force that misses the ball COG to the high side of the ball's COG. The "resultant" line of force from the "impulse" over the contact time does not normally "punch" the ball but affords a bit of "knocking a top half of the ball over a bottom half". I say "a" bottom to avoid the mistaken notion that there is only one top and one bottom of a golf ball defined by the equator. The "equator" divides above and below in reference to "level in gravity". That's one definition of top and bottom, but in physics the reference is not gravity but the COG of the ball that combines with ANY line of force thru the COG to define a top and a below. Balls can be 'rolled" to some degree regardless of whether the initial contact tangent plane directs the line of force level, up or down thru the ball. These differences make a difference in launch and skid, but starting contact straight thru the center is ALWAYS the case. You cannot possibly in geometry use a slab to touch or hit a sphere EXCEPT by matching slab to tangent plane, and this by definition means ALL initial contact with ANY ball by any PLANAR putter face directs the initial line of force ONLY thru the center of the sphere, where the ball's COG is (supposed to be) located.
Second, "skid" is pretty much misunderstood. Most people have the false notion that skid means "no rolling at all." What "skid" really means is "bottom of ball is engaged with the sliding friction of the surface and this friction torques the mass of the ball and imparts a forward rolling force". The torquing force on the ball decreases as the ball rolling velocity speeds up, but the "skid friction" or "slide friction" does not really change. Calling something "skid" is just referring to the rolling state of the ball being less than 100% rolling. Skid disappears altogether when the ball's rolling matches its "translational" lateral motion across the surface, so that in the course of 5.28" of distance the sphere rolls so that each point on the perimeter of the ball comers in contact with the surface without sliding laterally. For a sphere, this point always occurs whenever the surface friction slows the ball translational velocity to 5/7th its initial velocity when first engaging the surface. That's because this is the magic point when translational velocity matches rotational velocity of a sphere, from the geometry of the relationship of rolling sphere and lateral motion of the bottom-most point of the sphere across a plane. So "skid" is what happens when the ball translational velocity is faster than 5/7th the initial velocity -- period. The green surface does not present DIFFERENT sliding friction except by irregularities in the grass and surface shape. For purposes of science and clear thinking about "skid", this variability is ignored. Hence, ALL skid on one green or common-speed greens is the SAME skid at all times until the ball velocity reaches the 5/7th point in the putt, when skidding stops. The "relative" combination of skid and roll at different points in this skid phase is actually the state of forward rotation as it approaches the angular rotation velocity of the magic 5/7th velocity. The notion that there is 100% skid and 0% roll at the start of skidding and then gradually the friction of the surface "adds" more rolling so that there is a 50-50 point and then there is a 0% skid -- 100% roll point at the 5/7th velocity is not exactly correct. The "skid" does not really change. What changes is the angular velocity of the ball due to the rate of acceleration imparted by the skid's torquing the bottom of the ball. The more the ball accepts this accelerating force, the faster the angular rolling velocity of the ball, and that means in turn the less torquing force. The torquing force depends upon the DIFFERENCE between rolling speed and sliding speed.
On the green, the golfer does not want to know when the ball reaches 100% rolling, and instead needs to know how long engagement with the surface takes to get a ball's rotational state to match or equal something reasonably attainable with a different stroke technique that does not sacrifice something valuable. What does that mean? Forget "true roll" as an ideal and focus on what's real and what matters. What's real is what you can get done without going nuts and making a mess of something else in the putting consistency and accuracy. It's a trade off. Don't give up something for nothing, and don't make a bad deal. If you MUST own the Brooklyn Bridge of putting, then give me $100 and a) I'll show you how and hand you the title today, and then b) I'll beat you on the greens and take another $100 every day of the week until you're older than Dave Stockton Jr., at which point you'll receive a diploma as a graduate of the School of True Roll that you can put in a lock-box along with the bridge title. So what is normal for 99% of golfers? A putting stroke combined with a putter that imparts some backspin (about 30-50 degrees backspin at launch and landing). What's realistically attainable with all the special putter design features plus special stroke techniques? A launch of 2-3 inches in the air and initial landing rotational state of positive spin of 30-50 degrees forward rolling. Only about 10% of all golfers will ever get this latter combination of skill and putter, and perhaps you're one of these. If not, it is a total waste of effort to pretend otherwise. But if you are and spend the time and money chasing this level of realistic "true roll", what difference does it actually make? Comparing putt A with "true roll" putt B, Putt A hits the ground with backspin and then the friction accelerates the ball into forward spin. Okay, how long before putt A's initial backspin rotation / rolling state gets changed by friction and "catches up" with the initial rolling state of putt B (30-50 degrees forward roll on landing)? About 2/100th of a second and 2" of grass. You would really have to do something weird to get much more "bad" backspin into a putt than this, and you would also have to do something really weird to get much more "good" forward spin into a putt than this also. So you can either: a) not worry about 2" of the putt and just try to make solid impact with accuracy and consistency, or b) shift your practice and attention to less backspin / more forward roll because you're afraid something horrible will (eventually) happen in that dreaded 2" of extra "skid" in the usual stroke. Knock yourself out. But for my money, I'd rather see you work on a "plain jane" technique and get the consistency and accuracy down.
8. Amen ... and I notice several of your preferred putters have the hosel and shaft aligned directly into the putter head, or at least reasonably so. A slight deviation is not that significant, but when the hosel or shaft have many bends and twists and turns, I find it near impossible to adapt to that orientation, regardless of my putting skills.
9. Re: Face-balanced. Yes, I was thinking of a simple bilateral blade putter with the shaft and gravitational hanging axes coincidental so it can be rotated and hold that rotation in any axial position. Face-balanced for the masses is with the putter face flat and pointing upwards because of backweighting ... and since the word "balanced" is uses to improperly describe an axial condition, everybody believes such a design is desireable. Obviously a backweighted face-balanced putter is not balanced in all axes.
10. If I understand you, the putter "footprint" is actually the shape of the putter sole and how it's designed to compensate for "scuffing" in the downstroke should contact be made with the grass. This kind of goof is lack of control of the putter's elevation off the green, and is a sign of inadequate stroke control. I must admit this occasionally happens to me, but only when I fall into a lackadaisical moment and botch the stroke. Forward stroking bravely with increasing velocity or even constant velocity together with concentration on the task, eliminates scuffing. Of course a longish front-to-back putter head with inadequate clearance can be dragged in it's derriere if the stroke is too ascending.
No, I mean the brain-body relationship to the plane of the green surface via the tool of the putter and its sole. This "footprint" is the unseen area of putter contact with the surface felt in the body. Scuffing has to do with a) stability of the stroke shape and setup during the stroke, and b) bad putters with the front-back dimension too long. If you have a reasonable putter head shape, scuffing is ALL down to maintaining the height of the putting pivot point in the base of the neck and not allowing any "play" in the arms at setup to change the putting shape during the stroke. So if you hang the arms to eliminate "play", set muscle tone to a steady tonic level in light of the violence level of your forthcoming stroke so the arms don't grow longer in the stroke, set the height of the pivot point and don't let it "bob" during the stroke, you eliminate scuffing entirely.
The safest designs are the Bullseye "thin sole" models. And as for highly rockered putter soles to accommodate a range of shaft lies, that brings in the question of the 'problematic' effective face lofts at impact ... because rotating a 3º lofted putter face through say a range of 60º flat lie to 80º vertical lie will skew the static face loft on it's stroke path to the ball. However it seems irrelevant if the golfer knows how to compensate for his/her biases .. whether they consistently pull or push the putt.
No, I disagree. The area of contact helps the stability of the setup, helps the stability of the body during the stroke, helps the brain's planning the stroke motion thru the bottom, and helps the making of the stroke for timing and for form. The implicit or explicit awareness of the putter sole's contact foortprint during the setup and stroke motion definitely helps consistency and accuracy. Putter soles that are too thin compared to larger-but-not-too-large areas of contact simply do not perform as well for almost all golfers, and golfers using these too-thin soles can certainly do better with a larger-area sole, but they will have to kiss their devotion goodbye before finding this out.
The radiusing you're talking about above is in the heel-toe direction. For this, the trouble does not arise if the putter face has ZERO loft at impact. But for all other situations, a toe-up positive loft at impact biases the direction of the force up and to the inside, and a heel-up positive loft at impact biases the direction of the force up and to the outside. Okay, but how much and does it matter? Not much, but yes, a little, since a 10-foot putt can afford no more line error than about 1 degree off center left or right. Here is the deal:
I don't have time right now to calculate the line error introduced with impacting a ball with 4 degrees of positive loft and the toe up 1/4th an inch off the surface, but I believe it's on the order of "don't go there" for most putts 10-feet and longer. I do this later and post it below.
Re: golf-ing suckers ... being exploited psychologically by avaricious manufacturers. I refer you to the 1994 paper by Frank W. Thomas (when he was in his last days as USGA Technical Director) contained in the Science and Golf II published proceedings on pages 237-246.
Some snippets ....
Manufacturers are supplying a demand driven mostly by our insatiable urge to gat a little more our of equipment than we are prepared to work for. Our wishes seem to be granted by each new piece of equipment we decide to purchase, as this seems to carry with it a presently unexplained phenomenon, which temporarily separates our minds from interfering with our natural swing movements, exposing our real potential for a brief period of time. .......
It is understood by the administrators of the game, as it is by the participants, that a golfer's need and wants differ fairly dramatically at times.
It is very common that extraordinary performances are credited to new equipment by the golfer, his golfing companions, and the manufacturer "Placebo Effect". The manufacturer would like to believe that the new design actually works and the golfer would like to believe the manufacturer's claims. This synergistic form of wishful thinking results in a temporary dislocation for the golfer's mind from interfering with his body. He is on fringes of the world of "make believe," and the results are extraordinary. The golfer swings better and the manufacturer takes heard ( considerably more than he should) from this extraordinary performance. This then snowballs, wending the manufacturer's marketing division into a "hype frenzy". The elders of the game understandably express concern and call for something to be done to curb this new innovation. At the same time, they seem anxious to get their hands on the particular piece of equipment in question. This cyclical phenomenon is as predictable as winter following summer, and almost as common.
Science has at last entered every aspect of the game of golf. This is, in the most part, due to competition in the marketplace, and thus, the need to produce something that really is better. Also, men of science are among those who have taken to the game. From the rules making point of view, it has become evident that a rule which permits only clubs of the "traditional and customary form and make", is extremely important to retain, but may not be sufficient any more, and that as science enters the game, so must science be used to protect it.
Science is entering golf, and the game can only benefit from this.
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The references are to the golfswing, but it can also be applied to the putting stroke and putters.
Personally I agree that chasing the performance of Tour players harms the game by changing courses, equipment, instruction, and all of the game in a bad way for 99% of the people who should want to play it. Magazines and television shows feed this nuttiness. Perhaps one day a person can simply find a well-groomed golf course and have a nice round and try to bring real skills to bear with reasonable equipment to play very well and do the best they have ever done in golf, with the hope of going lower the next day, whatever the "par" might be according to the folks manically watching Tour players when they determine what passes for "par." No thanks. That's as a person who enjoys golf and wants children to take to the game without visions of "Superman" Tour stars clouding their eyes when they stare down a 175-yard pitch shot with their suped-up clubs. No one wants the child not to emulate "sports heroes" in terms of their skills, but that doesn't mean teaching the child that anything less than 300-yard drives and near-perfect wedge play constitutes no more than "Goofy Golf" or that 6,500-yard aged-in golf courses are somehow not "really" golf.
As a coach, I accept the challenge of helping ANYONE gain better skills than they currently have, including Tour players. If a Tour players wants to get better and doesn't believe he is at full capacity for performance on the greens, who should he turn to -- his caddie or someone like me who has spent twenty or thirty years focused solely on being able to offer real solutions to real issues? It's not vanity on my part to suggest a common-sense answer to this question: try both and see which one knows more that actually helps performance.
G.M. - As the scientist says: "Always ask what you don't know, so you know where to start with science."
S - How do you know what you don't know if you are ignorant to start? This is the conundrum of the average adult golfer who has the mentality of a 12 year old seeking "fun" on the golf course. Let's admit it, Geoff ... we are dealing with adults who demand instant results for instant gratification. There are more clowns per acre on a golf course than any where else in the world. They reject knowledge, they eschew practice, and they believe a good golfswing/putting strokes starts and ends with their equipment. They cannot admit their brains are inadequate and their bodies are decrepit because that would destroy their quest for "fun". According to statistics, 90% of the world's 50 million golfers cannot break 100 ... and they don't care as long as they attempt having "fun" ... like clowns laughing on the outside and crying on the inside ... and that's humanity. Perhaps humanity doesn't deserve knowledge ... only to be exploited through their abject ignorance and self-indulgence. Surely that is what we are witnessing in the manufacturer's marketing campaigns ... not to change humanity, but to exploit it's weaknesses.
G.M. - All putters that have "adjustable" features like changeable weights, lofts, lies, aim lines, etc., are required to be "fixed" so as not to present much chance of altering during play. The USGA allows equipment that can be changed between rounds, so long as the changes get locked down adequately. In approving these designs, the USGA tests the locking down to make sure it is adequate. Then the approval by the USGA constitutes the "de facto" tradition of the game. The USGA and R&A define the traditions.
S. - The USGA and it's lapdog R&A only serve one overriding purpose in golf ... to maintain the golf industry so the game does not decline in participants. They now cater to the base needs of the average golfer .. whether it is through delusion about their athleticism, or the "scientific" magic built into their equipment toys. The only reason the 460cc driver head is tolerated is because it provides the average golfer with more confidence ... because there is no significant distance gain for somebody with a 80mph clubhead speed. The only reason the long putter was sanctioned is to accommodate the aging golf population which is becoming obese and suffers back pain. The only reason rube goldberg putter designs of dubious benefit are permitted is because naive golfers believe there is magical science inside the putter head and now the shaft. If you can't putt effectively with a Bullseye or 8802 putter, no new putter design is going to save you from your incompetence.
G.M. - The "insurance policy" of high MOI is a little like wearing a scuba tank in the swimming pool -- potentially useful if you get your toe stuck in the drain grate, but sooner or later you have to learn not to stick your toe in the grate. you SHOULD want high MOI so long as it doesn't take a weirdly shaped and looking and weighted putter head to get there.
S. - I experimented building simple putters ... varying weights, shapes, densities, shafts ... to determine if a bass ackward effect would change my putting stroke effectiveness. I came to the conclusion, the simpler the better, coupled with a consistent but variably controlled putting stroke was all you need to be effective. We both know that the "MOI marketing campaign" was only intended to reel in the average sucker who can't come near hitting the ball on the sweet spot. Of course the pros are paid big bucks by manufacturers if they win a tournament using their putter ... what wins on Sunday sells on Monday ...!!!!
G.M. - Personally I agree that chasing the performance of Tour players harms the game by changing courses, equipment, instruction, and all of the game in a bad way for 99% of the people who should want to play it. Magazines and television shows feed this nuttiness. Perhaps one day a person can simply find a well-groomed golf course and have a nice round and try to bring real skills to bear with reasonable equipment to play very well and do the best they have ever done in golf, with the hope of going lower the next day, whatever the "par" might be according to the folks manically watching Tour players when they determine what passes for "par." No thanks. That's as a person who enjoys golf and wants children to take to the game without visions of "Superman" Tour stars clouding their eyes when they stare down a 175-yard pitch shot with their suped-up clubs. No one wants the child not to emulate "sports heroes" in terms of their skills, but that doesn't mean teaching the child that anything less than 300-yard drives and near-perfect wedge play constitutes no more than "Goofy Golf" or that 6,500-yard aged-in golf courses are somehow not "really" golf.
As a coach, I accept the challenge of helping ANYONE gain better skills than they currently have, including Tour players. If a Tour players wants to get better and doesn't believe he is at full capacity for performance on the greens, who should he turn to -- his caddie or someone like me who has spent twenty or thirty years focused solely on being able to offer real solutions to real issues? It's not vanity on my part to suggest a common-sense answer to this question: try both and see which one knows more that actually helps performance.
S. - Geoff ... you are truly a kind and magnanimous person who still has hope in helping others by sharing your knowledge. I am too cynical, and prefer to whack the average golfer and forum lurker who wants to ask you "which is the best putter for me". It's like casting pearls to swine ... because most who golf do not even deserve escape from their incompetence. Let them buy their magical, mystical, beautifully inscribed and sculptured golf toys and let them delude in their happiness for 90 days or so, as Frank Thomas suggest in the "Placebo Effect". All those suckers born every minute are now attempting to play golf ... and none of them will fault their massive brains or powerful bodies for their incompetence ... it must be the equipment.
I must stop my ranting now ... and study the more substantive parts of your last message to which I have not yet responded ... the technical stuff, so I can learn and maybe even ask you more about it. You understand that you have no peers on this forum ... only students of varying capabilities.
