Putter Fitting

[NativeTxn]

I am considering/interested in getting a putter fitting, mainly to confirm my stroke type, and then get the length, lie, loft measurements and what not. I've dabbled with the iPing 2.0 app on my phone, but not 100% sure I'm entering in some the info correctly to ensure a proper result.

I'm in Frisco, TX, so I've got basically all of the choices in a reasonable distance from me - PGA SS, Club Champion, GolfTec, Cool Clubs, etc.

I know the general suggestion is to at least find a place that uses a SAM, but beyond that, does anyone have insight or thoughts as to which might be the best for a putter fitting and/or experiences with any/all?

[boogielicious]

  On 7/22/2020 at 3:51 AM, NativeTxn said:

I am considering/interested in getting a putter fitting, mainly to confirm my stroke type, and then get the length, lie, loft measurements and what not. I've dabbled with the iPing 2.0 app on my phone, but not 100% sure I'm entering in some the info correctly to ensure a proper result.

I'm in Frisco, TX, so I've got basically all of the choices in a reasonable distance from me - PGA SS, Club Champion, GolfTec, Cool Clubs, etc.

I know the general suggestion is to at least find a place that uses a SAM, but beyond that, does anyone have insight or thoughts as to which might be the best for a putter fitting and/or experiences with any/all?

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I’ve not done a fitting with Dennis, but I have taken an AimPoint lesson from him. He is excellent.

Dennis sales golf

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Dennis Sales Golf provides the best junior golf training programs in Dallas Fort Worth. Expert junior golf instruction, junior golf coaching and on-course golf lessons provided.

 

[NativeTxn]

So, I ended up doing a fitting with Bo at Golf Tech in Plano, TX today. It was very helpful in seeing the numbers and my tendencies with my stroke.

I went in fully intending to want to add a mallet to the couple of putters I have at this point, which are both Anser style - Cleveland Classic I and an old Ping Ally. I hit several with the Cleveland since that's the one I play. They all rolled on line, slight in to out path, face averaged about +0.4 degrees open at impact, average of about 1.46 efficiency, all of the putts were in the putter's sweet spot, and I was hitting the ball basically straight through (I.e. I wasn't hitting at an upward trajectory or at a downward trajectory). The biggest area for improvement was the skid/distance before the ball actually started rolling.

He said that the arc in my stroke and the rate of closure lends itself to a putter with slight toe hang (I pretty much knew this ahead of time after dabbling with the iPing app, but it was nice to get confirmation). Then we talked about what I was looking for and told him I was interested in testing some mallet style options so we grabbed an Odyssey SL Black 7S and 10S.

I started with the 10, and pulled every single putt to the left of the cup. He said that it was likely due to not being used to the added weight of the 10 vs the Cleveland, but my closure rate increased so the face went from the 0.4 degrees open to over 1 degree closed at impact.

Then we tried the 7, and even though I was trying to compensate and not close it as fast, I was still pulling most of them to the left. The numbers were better than the 10, but still not as good as the Cleveland.

So we went and he grabbed a Scotty Phantom 5.5 and also adjusted my putter from 3 degrees down to about 2.25 degrees of loft to try to reduce the skid distance.

I hit several with the Scotty followed by a few more with the Cleveland after the loft adjustment. The Scotty was definitely better than the Odysseys in terms of the numbers, but still wasn't quite as good as the Cleveland, especially after the loft got decreased, which reduced the skid distance to where he said you generally wanted to see it.

At that point he said that I really would be best served by sticking with a blade style putter. He said that I could get a mallet and work on adjusting my stroke to work well with the mallet and get the numbers where they needed to be, but is that really what I wanted to do with a new putter? Or did I want to get something that would maximize my overall stroke?

This made perfect sense to me, and was interesting given that I was all geared up to find a higher MOI mallet, but the numbers simply showed that wasn't the best bet (at least at the moment).

He then asked if I wanted to try a few blades or just have him throw a new grip on my Cleveland (I had told him that I wanted to get one of the more midsized grips since the Cleveland had a pretty thin stock grip on it) and play around with some blades if I still wanted to get a new one in the future?

Told him I'd like to hit a couple of blades and see what that looked like. So, we pulled a SL Black 1 and a Scotty Newport. I hit the SL first, and sank all but one of the putts, the numbers were pretty similar to the Cleveland with the exception that the skid distance had actually decreased a little more from the Cleveland, even post adjustment. Efficiency, closure rate, and everything else was fairly similar.

Then I hit the Newport. I won't lie - it felt really, really nice. The efficiency jumped up to about 1.53, but all of the other numbers were basically the same.

At that point, he said that if he was going to go with a new one, he'd suggest the Odyssey since the Cleveland is milled already. He said that Scotty's efficiency was higher, but that wasn't that big of a deal in terms of overall performance and it mainly meant that the ball came off the face a bit hotter from the Scotty than the Cleveland or the Odyssey. He said that in terms of cost, unless I just really wanted a Scotty Cameron, he didn't feel like the price difference would be justified since the numbers were so similar.

I told him that for today, I thought I'd just get a new grip on the Cleveland and he said he thought that would be a good approach and that would give me an optimized gamer to use while I played around with blades for a while if I decided I did want to get a new one.

So, overall, it was an enjoyable experience and pretty interesting since I'd gone in with my mind set on getting some sort of mallet style. But numbers don't lie.

I also appreciated his candor and honesty when it came to not trying to push me into the more expensive Scotty or even pressuring me to buy from him while I was in the store.

I'll keep working on trying to find a new blade style, because while I don't dislike the Cleveland, I'm not married to it, and I don't see any downside to checking out other options.

[Release]

Putter, it's a unique stick in the bag.  IMHO, the fitting goes beyond just the length , loft and lie angles, and the type and size of grip.

I believe the visual line has to match the actual line of intended putt.  Lot of time, when golfer thought he had the line of the putt.... actually the visual is off by as much as several inches .

No matter which putting style and path, when the putter face returned to the supposed square position of how you line up the putt, will determine the starting direction of the putt.

Hence the 2 ball putter was ans still is very popular.  Not because it's a putter different than the others in performance but the visual line up was helping the golfer to stay on track on the intended line of putt.  So is the other visual aid to help line up the putter head to the putting line.

Find a putter style that suits your eyes, and able to help you keep the line of intended putt.  No matter whether you like it or not, that will be the best flat stick for you.

This visual eye-line relationship could be trained.  If someone had been using the heel shafted putter since day one and stroke thousands and thousands of putt over the same set up.... the brain will be trained to accept the visual connection and adjust.  So in theory, if you love a custom made putter that costs mega bucks, spend hundreds of hours practice with it and you will grow into the set up.   I see a lot of golfers bought very expensive putter but seldom practice with it.... 

[Typhoon92]

I wish the Ping app was still available for us common folk.  I had it a few years ago and I thought it was tremendous.  Good to see that the fitting showed what the Ping app did....just bummed the app is done

[NativeTxn]

  On 8/15/2020 at 12:56 AM, Typhoon92 said:

I wish the Ping app was still available for us common folk.  I had it a few years ago and I thought it was tremendous.  Good to see that the fitting showed what the Ping app did....just bummed the app is done

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You can still use it - it's iPing 2.0. At first, I didn't think you could because it asked for account name, fitter name, etc. and in those, I ended up just putting "ping" and then my phone number and it's worked great.

Edited August 15, 2020 by NativeTxn

[Typhoon92]

  On 8/15/2020 at 2:30 AM, NativeTxn said:

You can still use it - it's iPing 2.0. At first, I didn't think you could because it asked for account name, fitter name, etc. and in those, I ended up just putting "ping" and then my phone number and it's worked great.

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Just checked it out!  They must have just changed the app back to letting anyone use it recently. They got a lot of bad reviews when they went from public to  Ping accounts only.

I downloaded it and just switch it to a public account.  Glad it was mentioned here, I would have never had a reason to check it out anymore!