Since Erik posted on the forum sometime back about Edel putters and the way you are fit for them, I have wanted to go get one. The thing is they aren't cheap. They aren't much more than an off-the-rack Scotty but still, not cheap and on top of that the closest place to be fit was 2 1/2 hours away so not exactly close either.
Anyways, thoughts of getting one had been in my head for a while and when the "Seemore v. Edel" thread popped up it kind of renewed my interest in them, especially since I currently use a Seemore putter. In that thread, Clambake talked a little about his fitting and after PMing back and forth with him a bit on the subject, I was convinced it was a good idea for me so I managed to set aside the necessary funds and convince the wife that it was a good idea and made my appointment with Sheri at the San Diego Golf Institute to get a fitting.
My fitting was yesterday and I must say that I was very impressed. To start, Sheri rolled out the fitting cart to the practice green and set up a black screen with a white disk the size of a hole in front of it. Starting with my putter (which had a mirror attached to the face) I aimed a golf ball at the "hole" which was shooting a laser at the ball. Sheri would remove the ball and see where the laser was being returned to on the screen. We discovered that with my putter I was a left aimer. However I had the toe WAY up off the ground which she showed me in some video and pictures that she took. After changing my setup a little so that the toe was more down I went from a left aimer to a right aimer. From there we tried 4 of the 6 different head shapes (she only tried one mallet with me and left out one of the blades) and played around with different hosel styles until I started to get the ball closer to the hole. I should note that through this entire time I wasn't looking at the screen to see where I was aiming as she said doing so would make me try to get it right. We narrowed it down to two different head shapes (the last two in the picture) and she said from there it was really my choice as I had aimed them both equally well. I went with the slightly thicker one as the other looked two thin to me. From there she used a stencil to draw different combinations of dots and lines on the top and in the cavity of the putter to fine tune the aim. We settled on two lines on the top. Throughout the process, she also changed the face of the putter to change the loft. She said with my current putter, I wasn't getting the ball rolling quick enough (she showed me this on video) and on the screen my aim was too high. We also messed around with the length of the putter and ended up going with something shorter than I had (I already was down to a 33").
After the aiming process was done we worked on getting the weight correct and she had me putt to a string about 15 feet away with the goal of trying to stop it on the string. I couldn't do it with any combination; heavy, light, weight in the butt, shaft, or head. I struggled getting the balls to stop on the line. However, she noticed that all of my balls were at least stopping in the same place with the heavier combinations, just well beyond the line and and decided to have me putt to holes instead. She mixed up the lengths of the putts and after changing weights a few times we found one that put me at the hole nearly every time (and I made quite a few as well).
So the putter I ended up with is the second one from the right in the picture above with two lines on top... It will have 2° of loft and is 32" long. The head weight it 370g with no weight added to the shaft or butt of the club. I also opted to have the Pixl insert on my putter. Sheri had me put with hers for a few minutes to make sure that I liked the feel of it, which I did. I'm going to have the dancing "EDEL" stamped on one side with "TH85" on the other. I chose black and red for the paint fill and TH will be in one of those colors with "85" in the other. However, I couldn't decide which one for each so I told Sheri to choose and surprise me, so I'll know when the putter gets here. I chose the red headcover, however she said that one may be out of stock so if they don't have it, I'll end up with the black.
I was very impressed with Sheri and the entire fitting process. She worked very hard to find the right combination for me even though I made things somewhat difficult (she said that I was kind of backwards with my aim in that what normally makes people aim more right had me aiming more left and vice versa). If you are in the market for a new putter or constantly switch putters I'd recommend doing this process. If you are anywhere in SoCal, go down to see Sheri at SDGI as I can say without a doubt that she'll do an excellent job for you.
I know that this is kind of a long post, but it was a very in depth process and I wanted to try to convey the amount of work that is put into finding the right putter. I'll update this thread later with pictures of my actual putter when it arrives, but if you have any questions for me about the fitting or whatever, let me know.
