See below
tflan wrote:
Hi;
One of my fellow competitors uses a sidesaddle putter. He's a 4 handicapper.
He putts like crap with any other style. The putter he has is a strange
looking device. Its about 40" long. The head looks as though a flat piece of
brass was soldered to a giant bullet. It's "T" shaped and not very heavy.
Sounds like an STX, same one that Scott McCarron uses.
<snip>
The point is, it seems to me that no matter what the style of putter one
uses, what matters more than any other thing is confidence. If a person
starts missing putts with one putter, changing to another often helps.
However, rather than continually changing putters, it seems to me that
changing technique - going to basics - would be a lot less expensive and a
lot easier. I'm not knocking anyone. Just my opinion.
Yes, very true about the confidence. I'll also say that practice is a
key. As Gary Player said, "the more I practice, the luckier I get."
The thing that strikes me as interesting about side saddle putting
is the use of binocular vision. This last month I haven't played nearly
as much as I normally do. The ability to practice helps me overcome my
alignment problems. However, as soon as I quit, my alignment problems
come back. Certain putter styles are easier for me to align than others,
but I have problems with all of them.
Technically my stroke is sound, I just can't aim with precision. This
is what intrigues me about side saddle putting. Yesterday's round was
a relative clean slate regarding putting, as I hadn't hit a conventional
putt in some weeks. On the practice green the side saddle method was
vastly superior to the conventional method as far as aiming the putter
and seeing the line. I didn't have a good side saddle technique, but
MY major problem, alignment, wasn't a big issue.
Will I switch to side saddle? Who knows? Will I spend some more time
exploring it? You bet!
/Ed
