Sure, lead tape to increase putter head feel. Old adage is, heavy putter for fast greens, lighter putter for slower greens. Of course, it is a highly personal matter how much head feel a given player will perform best with taking into account the nature of the greens being played. Add tape and see if there is improvement. If so, add more and keep adding until exceeding the threshold and improvement reverses. Then remove the last tape applied plus a tad more. Now the golfer can use it and adjust it later as may be needed. The old IMG putters were quite popular and had a softer (more flexible) shaft than most putters. Finding an original shaft for an old IMG is practically impossible so a satisfactory workaround is to cut the tip section to length from a graphite R (there are no flex standards for shafts so use your judgment) shaft after mic-ing the tip end cut to fit the hosel and then cutting to length. Some buildup will be necessary to accommodate the grip but you will be surprised how similar it can be to the real deal. As for putter fitting, and certainly everyone knows this stuff but it bears repeating, never fit/buy a putter from trying it on an indoor artificial surface. Everyone knows how duct tape layered under the artificial surface guides the roll path to break toward the cup at establishments more interested in selling putters than fitting them. Take the putter out first thing while dew is still on the greens and check the skip factor--the tendency for the ball to hop and skip before actually rolling, caused largely by the stroke, but the putter can influence or accommodate stroke behavior. Excessive skipping is often caused by trying to swing the putter up and down the line instead of keeping it on plane like any other swing. Up and down the line strokes cause the putter head to close and elevate on the back stroke and cause the putter head to return to the ball while squaring in a downward arc before elevating again while opening on the through stroke. Catching it early can pinch it into the green and cause it to hop and pull the putt left, and catching it late can lift the ball as the head elevates and cause the ball to launch with a hop and a skip and push the putt right. Ben Crenshaw, one of the most admired putters of the modern era--being the 1980s because that is when golf was still played properly before being hijacked by corporations that doubled the wholesale price of clubs between the late 1980s-late 1990s as the USGA and R&A turned a blind eye to the proliferation of compensating golf clubs, ostensibly to make golf more popular, but which had the exact opposite affect as historical statistics document the decline in popularity concomitant with the escalation in pricing without respect to any recession--Ben Crenshaw had/has a pronounced on-plane arc in the back stroke and through stroke. If you can find it, check out the overhead view to see Crenshaw's putting arc. Not sure if forum rules allow linking to other sites. Before Crenshaw, perhaps the greatest putter of all time, Bobby Locke putted with an arc similar to Crenshaw's. More recently, Tiger Woods has an arc and Stan Utley, guru to Tour players, advocates an arc. The arc or on-plane putting stroke keeps the head closer to the green with minimal downward or upward impact potential. Before even offering or selecting a putter head, it is advisable to confirm the player's dominant eye, and you'll see this done incorrectly more often than not. If you use only one hand to make a circle with the forefinger and thumb at arm's length and focus on getting a spot on the wall inside the circle you've done it incorrectly. You must use both hands to form a circle between the thumbs and get the spot inside, then close one eye and see if the spot is still visible. If so, the open eye is the dominant eye. If not, the closed eye is the dominant eye. There is a sensory crossover (my term not scientific) for how the left and right sides of the head tend (eyes in particular) to crossover to the left side of the body below the neck. Many people, if testing for dominant eye with only one hand, will see a different dominant eye depending on which hand is used. Generally, the left eye and right hand are sort of married, while the right eye and left hand seem to be wired together. What does this mean for fitting? These are starting points, not absolutes, but often the dominant right eye player will feel that he sees putts better using an offset putter hosel. This is because the putter face is in full view of his dominant eye that does not have to look "through" the shaft to see it. Conversely the dominant left eye player will tend to see the putts better with no hosel offset because an offset would mean having to look "through" the shaft to see the face with his dominant left eye. But wait, there's more. Dominant eye knowledge is important to knowing how a player should grip a putter. Keeping in mind the paragraph above, a right eye dominant individual is a good candidate for left hand low on the grip. Now the dominant eye and its married hand are in concert with each other. Again, not absolutes, but starting points. When fitting, if you notice a player's misses tend to be consistently left (pulls), you may want to suggest that he or she keeps the weight shifted more to the right foot during the entire stroke. It is not easy to pull a putt and miss left with more weight on the right foot. The converse also applies for the player that tends to miss right consistently, keeping the weight on the left foot usually helps. This was hammered out quite hurriedly, so any lapses in spelling, grammar, or thought are the result of haste by two eyes that both refuse to be dominant these days. From: andre_can...@videotron.ca To: ShopTalk@mail.msen.com Subject: Re: ShopTalk: putter fitting Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 08:11:49 -0400
Anybody here paying attention to a putter's swingweight? I putt
really well with a friend's putter so I asked him to borrow it (Odyssey
dual force 550-black insert-older model) so I could check a few things
out.
Turns out the swingweight is D2.5 at 35 inches from the center of the face.
My other not so likeable putters come in at D1 +- at the same length and are up
for sale or for a donation.
It may not be the only factor in the equation but seems to me that the
subject of putter swingweight is hardly ever discussed as a fitting
parameter.
André.
-----Original Message-----
From: j...@clubmaker-online.com
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 12:39 PM
To: shoptalk@mail.msen.com
Subject: ShopTalk: putter fitting
Any good resources on putter fitting? Any of you have any hot
tips/words of wisdom on this subject?
I'm thinking a putter analysis at the course I do a little work at
might be fun.
>From a few things I've read, it looks like checking loft and lie
would be the main things to work on.
Is putter loft/lie fitting done dynamically (like irons), i.e. watch
a few putts and if they tend to pull left putter is too upright/push
right then too flat?
Will a static measurement while they address the ball tell anything?
--
hanks!
John Muir
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