Face Balance Putter / Arc Stroke

[keb]

I am reading Stan Utley's The Art of Putting and working on utilizing his concepts of an arc stroke. My PXG Lightning mallet is face balanced which I understand is designed for a more straight back / straight forward stroke. Is my putter going to cause difficulty using an arc stroke?

 

[Clemsonfan]

The face balanced putter is not ideal, per his description. That said, if you consistently miss left, it would be an issue for you. Chris Como had a great Swing Expedition show with Stan Utley about 5 years ago. Highly recommend it for anyone trying to jumpstart their development in Stan’s method. His description of the proper elbow movement is much better than what I understood from the book.Good luck!

[boogielicious]

I don’t think it matters much at all, face-balanced vs other. The torque during putting is so minimal that your hands can easily overcome it. The putter stroke is much slower than with irons, wedges and woods. I’ve been using Stan’s method for quite a long time with some refinement from Erik. I could use any kind of putter head and as long as I can aim it, I can putt well.

[iacas]

10 hours ago, keb said:

I am reading Stan Utley's The Art of Putting and working on utilizing his concepts of an arc stroke. My PXG Lightning mallet is face balanced which I understand is designed for a more straight back / straight forward stroke. Is my putter going to cause difficulty using an arc stroke?

What Scott says, and Utley is a little influenced by the past misconceptions and storylines.

Almost nobody has a straight back, straight through stroke on any putt longer than a few feet. And never really has.

[saevel25]

Yea, S-S is not an optimal putting stroke. I get the logic behind it, but it is counter intuitive to with how the body is set up. You got to do a lot of manipulation with the wrists/arms to attempt S-S. 

Like Erik said, very short putts. 

I am not sure if any putter promotes or is ideal for any specific putting stroke. I am sure people at PING have some sort of data that validates their methodology around putters. They were doing putters based on putting stroke type for a long time now. 

I think there are two things that matter with a putter. Can you aim it and can you have good speed control. The rest is just marketing fluff. 

[Clemsonfan]

20 hours ago, saevel25 said:

I am not sure if any putter promotes or is ideal for any specific putting stroke. I am sure people at PING have some sort of data that validates their methodology around putters. They were doing putters based on putting stroke type for a long time now.

I respectfully disagree, with your initial statement, and agree that Ping has copious data on proper models for different strokes.
 

I have sat in on hundreds of putter fittings and seen the influence of toe hang on make rates with similar putter designs. Good putters can make putts with anything, as seen by Jim Furyk winning tournaments with heel-shafted blades and face-balanced putters. I have seen video of Utley draining putt after putt with a face-balanced Futura, but he said he thought he was fighting his stroke. We aren’t those guys. 
 

Poorly matched putters can lead to some poor results in amateurs. Golfers with high arc strokes using minimal arc putters often develop a hold-off move. Even pros, like Scheffler, whose game didn’t take off until he started using a putter with a deeper center of gravity to slow down his rotation. Block stroke putters who lead with heel, like McIlroy and the Boss of the Moss do much better with a half-shaft offset, or less. You can definitely do harm with an ill-fitting putter.

[boogielicious]

29 minutes ago, Clemsonfan said:

Poorly matched putters can lead to some poor results in amateurs

This is important. But I would think that having the proper shaft length, lie angle, weight and ability to aim the putter head would be far more important than face-balanced/toe hang. Getting fit is key.

[saevel25]

3 hours ago, Clemsonfan said:

I respectfully disagree, with your initial statement, and agree that Ping has copious data on proper models for different strokes.

They may have data, but how impactful is it really? Maybe on the extremes, but maybe not much at all. I think a few things matter more. 

1) Weight of the putter, and counterbalance weight of the putter matter for putting distance feel. Which speed control matters the most in putting. 

2) The geometry of the putter head, offset, alignment lines all influence how you aim the putter. I've seen people go from aiming like 20 degrees right of their target line to right on their target line by adding a few alignment lines to the putter. You'd think people can line up a putter, but your eyes can play tricks on you. Aiming the putter matters a lot. 

Those two things are hardly ever marketed or taken into account when buying a putter of the shelf.  It is not economical for the Golf Galaxy's to buy the same putter head, same putter shaft length, but then have multiple versions with different weighting. You don't see Ping making the same putter head, but different alignment markings. It's not economical for them to do so. 

3 hours ago, Clemsonfan said:

have sat in on hundreds of putter fittings and seen the influence of toe hang on make rates with similar putter designs.

How close were the designs? Same weighting balance? Same alignment lines? Same color scheme? Where the variables isolated perfectly? 

---

Yea... its just marketing...

Like, this is just a normal putting stroke. Relative to set up, the face opens up on the backswing and closes on the downswing. Odyssey just comes out and tries to market it as something special. 

Maybe arc type as more evidence to be a thing. This zero torque, face balance stuff is just marketing. 

Edited September 16 by saevel25

[colin007]

32 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I've seen people go from aiming like 20 degrees right of their target line to right on their target line by adding a few alignment lines to the putter.

Lmao that was me from 10ft

[iacas]

@Clemsonfan, you see results in fittings because if someone pulls across the ball with a closed face, they might do well temporarily with a putter that feels like it stays open longer, or that they align more open, or that they think will deliver the face more open.They rarely actually move the putter significantly differently.

Again, the forces and torques in putting (that come from the putter itself and any toe hang it has) are incredibly small. The moment arm is pretty small, because the CG is often not TOO far from the axis of the shaft.

I don't doubt that, mentally, some players will move a different putter differently, or even that they might not feel slightly differently swinging a face-balanced or a toe-hang putter, but to truly test it, you'd have to somehow have players hit putts "blind" - not seeing the putter, where it's aimed, what kind of toe hang it has, etc. That way they could react just to the physics of it… and you'd find very little difference, I think, in how the putter moves if the player is completely unaware.

[keb]

Golfed yesterday using Utley's concepts on the green and putted much better with my PXG Lightning / face balanced putter. My assessment so far is no need to consider getting a new putter.

[mdl]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

@Clemsonfan, you see results in fittings because if someone pulls across the ball with a closed face, they might do well temporarily with a putter that feels like it stays open longer, or that they align more open, or that they think will deliver the face more open.They rarely actually move the putter significantly differently.

Again, the forces and torques in putting (that come from the putter itself and any toe hang it has) are incredibly small. The moment arm is pretty small, because the CG is often not TOO far from the axis of the shaft.

I don't doubt that, mentally, some players will move a different putter differently, or even that they might not feel slightly differently swinging a face-balanced or a toe-hang putter, but to truly test it, you'd have to somehow have players hit putts "blind" - not seeing the putter, where it's aimed, what kind of toe hang it has, etc. That way they could react just to the physics of it… and you'd find very little difference, I think, in how the putter moves if the player is completely unaware.

6 hours ago, saevel25 said:

1) Weight of the putter, and counterbalance weight of the putter matter for putting distance feel. Which speed control matters the most in putting. 

2) The geometry of the putter head, offset, alignment lines all influence how you aim the putter. I've seen people go from aiming like 20 degrees right of their target line to right on their target line by adding a few alignment lines to the putter. You'd think people can line up a putter, but your eyes can play tricks on you. Aiming the putter matters a lot. 

Yeah my experience in getting my Edel after playing used putters I just hit in the shop and chose myself for years was the big difference was aiming and speed. Much easier time with speed control with the fit weights. And my aim got way better and way more natural feeling. Of course, it has drifted since then and required some reinforcement to correct. But without significant changes in my amount of putting practice (I practiced more for a short period in my basement right after getting the putter because I was excited but no extra since then) I gained nearly two strokes putting from those two improvements.

[Clemsonfan]

@iacas, I am certain you have more experience with fittings than I do. In the putter fittings I have seen, once you’ve fitted for length and lie, hosel entry point and offset had the most effect on make rate during the fitting. Bruce Rearick has 16 years of experience, at least, with this methodology. Is it your belief that only lie and length matter? Scheffler has done pretty well since moving to a putter with a deeper COG that fit his stroke versus the anser style he favored that had him burning the edges, usually to the right.

That said, we have wandered afar from the original poster’s request. I have maybe seen 5 people besides Stan Utley who use their elbows as a power source. People who do use longer and flatter putters when fitted properly for that stroke. Makes sense when you have your elbows tucked into their sides. Since they are releasing the toe in their stroke the tendency is to miss left. Small sample size, for sure, but I know all of them walked out with anser-style putters with around a half-shaft of offset. Some had huge arcs, while others had moderate. Larger arcs had the shaft axis closer to the heel.