I wasn’t that happy with my putting last year and I have been doing some work on my stroke this winter. I changed my setup to let my arms hang a bit more and I have been trying to get a bit closer to the ball. I was playing with a 35” putter last year and felt like my eyes were too far inside the line and I was having a hard time getting putts started on line.
So I booked a putter fitting at the local Club Champion. As people know it costs $100 and takes about an hour. The fitter Andie is a Class A PGA pro and seemed pretty knowledgeable about the putting stroke. I brought 3 putters with me. A Bettinardi BB45 (face balanced mallet), Odyssey SL 7 (also face balanced) and a SeeMore Mini Giant Deep Flange. The Betti and SeeMore are (or at least were) 35” and the SL7 is 34.
Andie asked me about my putting, usual miss, what I was hoping to accomplish etc. I talked about what was above and some of the things I was thinking about and working on.
The process after warming up rolling some putts was to attach the sensor to the putter, hit a few putts to make sure you are comfortable with that then roll 7 putts to a hole that was probably 10 feet away. We used the Bettinardi for baseline because that is the putter I played the most rounds with last year. I did choke down about an inch on it because it was obvious when I gripped to the end my eyes were in fact too far inside the line. I made all but one of the putts and most of them were going in the left side of the hole.
The summary my stroke was quite consistent. My path rotated more than I thought I felt I was a bit more straight back and straight through. I aimed .7* closed.
My stroke was 87% consistent and my rotation consistency was 90% which Andie indicated were near PGA Tour level. The Overall Consistency was only 69% because the putter was a bit toe high and I tended to miss the sweet spot a bit toward the heel.
Putter recommendation for me was a face balanced mallet which is what I have gravitated to for a long time. Andie also indicated a wide blade could be a good fit. For adjustments Andie recommended shortening the putter an inch, adjusting the lie to 70* from the 69* it was at and adjusting the lie to the 3.5* recommended. Andie adjusted the three putters I had and watched me rolling putts with all three. It was pretty clear I putted better with the Bettinardi than either of the other putters. Andie offered to shorten the two putters for me that were 35” but I did it myself because I didn’t want to have to come back and I could remove and save the grips.
I took the adjusted Betti to the course today and putted pretty well with it. My stroke is still a bit of a work in progress but I got the ball on line better than I did last year but it is only one round. The Betti has a fairly big grip. The recommendation was actually for a bit thinner grip I may think about trying that out.
I felt there was good value out of the fitting. I never felt pressured to buy anything. I poked around and Andie set up a couple of Sik putters for me try including a Bryson arm lock model but still no pressure. I walked in with two face balanced mallety putters plus the SeeMore. If they had said I needed something dramatically different I probably would have wound up buying something but the seemed to follow what SAM recommended. They had some sweet putters there and lots of stuff you don't see around everywhere.
I attached the complete report in PDF format if anyone is interested in it. I was going to put a few charts in here but I couldn't figure out how to get them attached.
So I booked a putter fitting at the local Club Champion. As people know it costs $100 and takes about an hour. The fitter Andie is a Class A PGA pro and seemed pretty knowledgeable about the putting stroke. I brought 3 putters with me. A Bettinardi BB45 (face balanced mallet), Odyssey SL 7 (also face balanced) and a SeeMore Mini Giant Deep Flange. The Betti and SeeMore are (or at least were) 35” and the SL7 is 34.
Andie asked me about my putting, usual miss, what I was hoping to accomplish etc. I talked about what was above and some of the things I was thinking about and working on.
The process after warming up rolling some putts was to attach the sensor to the putter, hit a few putts to make sure you are comfortable with that then roll 7 putts to a hole that was probably 10 feet away. We used the Bettinardi for baseline because that is the putter I played the most rounds with last year. I did choke down about an inch on it because it was obvious when I gripped to the end my eyes were in fact too far inside the line. I made all but one of the putts and most of them were going in the left side of the hole.
The summary my stroke was quite consistent. My path rotated more than I thought I felt I was a bit more straight back and straight through. I aimed .7* closed.
My stroke was 87% consistent and my rotation consistency was 90% which Andie indicated were near PGA Tour level. The Overall Consistency was only 69% because the putter was a bit toe high and I tended to miss the sweet spot a bit toward the heel.
Putter recommendation for me was a face balanced mallet which is what I have gravitated to for a long time. Andie also indicated a wide blade could be a good fit. For adjustments Andie recommended shortening the putter an inch, adjusting the lie to 70* from the 69* it was at and adjusting the lie to the 3.5* recommended. Andie adjusted the three putters I had and watched me rolling putts with all three. It was pretty clear I putted better with the Bettinardi than either of the other putters. Andie offered to shorten the two putters for me that were 35” but I did it myself because I didn’t want to have to come back and I could remove and save the grips.
I took the adjusted Betti to the course today and putted pretty well with it. My stroke is still a bit of a work in progress but I got the ball on line better than I did last year but it is only one round. The Betti has a fairly big grip. The recommendation was actually for a bit thinner grip I may think about trying that out.
I felt there was good value out of the fitting. I never felt pressured to buy anything. I poked around and Andie set up a couple of Sik putters for me try including a Bryson arm lock model but still no pressure. I walked in with two face balanced mallety putters plus the SeeMore. If they had said I needed something dramatically different I probably would have wound up buying something but the seemed to follow what SAM recommended. They had some sweet putters there and lots of stuff you don't see around everywhere.
I attached the complete report in PDF format if anyone is interested in it. I was going to put a few charts in here but I couldn't figure out how to get them attached.
