After following @mancest 's thread ( https://www.thehackersparadise.com/forum/showthread.php/91859-Ultimate-putting-Experience ) with his SAM Putt lab lessons and fitting and it really intrigued me to find one. I struggled most of last season with putting consistency and I cant tell you how many strokes I left on the greens. It was embarrassing. The greens I play at my club aren't easy, very sloped, and fast (like most Country Clubs). Im tired of being "that guy" that everyone says "man you played well today except for on the greens".
Being in Mayberry, I had to travel 3 hours to Kansas City to find a SAM Putt Lab. Which wasn't a big deal as I travel to KC quite often and I have family there. I went to the Martin City Golf Center & Academy in south KC https://martincitygc.com/.
As with a lot of THP'ers lately I bought the PuttOut putting mat, Pressure Putt Trainer, and Eyeline mirror here recently and im LOVING it. Thanks @Jman. Review thread here ( https://www.thehackersparadise.com/puttout-putting-mat-review/) Super product for the money especially for the hackers in the northern parts that aren't able to get out in the winter months. The mirror helped the most for me as I found out I was standing WAY to far away from the ball. Once I got my eyes over the ball the feel and roll was much better. Although after working on it for most of the winter and rolling the ball much better than before with better alignment and eye position I wanted more.
After getting to MCGC, I met and worked with instructor Chris Cone on a few things with my irons. Chris was a super nice guy, patient, excellent on communication, and really stressed fundamentals. I wont get to detailed on this since this is mainly my experience with the flat stick but I wasn't far off. He got me rotating more, quieted my lower body, and retouched on some fundamentals resulting in MUCH better ball striking. Great start for the year.
Anyway, back to the flat stick.
Chris had me roll a few putts to see what he is working with. He seen that I rolled it pretty decent and used a left hand low grip. He liked this but wanted the grip more in the palm of my left hand to emulate the back side of my left hand as the putter face. (Dave Stockton'ish) He also said my putter is a face balanced putter which would promote a SBST stroke which I had been working on prior.
Here is Chris setting up the SAM program and calibrating my putter to the machine. To calibrate, an arm comes out to a spot on the turf and shines a laser down to the hole. Then you put the putter face flush on the arm and the sensor on the shaft calibrates the square face. Then retract the arm. The sensor on the shaft has a module attached to it with a cord that goes either in your pocket or attaches to your belt.
After it was setup and calibrated he said to roll 10 putts and then we'll review the data and go from there.
I rolled 10 putts and made 7 out of 10 from 10 ft approx. The data this thing provides is crazy cool. Some I thought I would see and some was like wow that's great information to know. After all the putts, Chris went through each slide in detail.
First section of data was Aim. As you can see, my aim at address was great. I dedicate this to @SeeMore's Rifle Scope Technology. If you don't know what that is, look it up. It works and I proved that. Just a snatch hair closed but within the grey area which is compared to tour pros. You will see the bars below with all the colored lines in them and the grey area in the middle. The grey area is tour level comparison throughout all the slides.
Next was direction. As you can see, I have an out to in stroke which I thought I might experience this.
Next is putter path. This was the point I was like wtf. You can see at impact the face is decently square but after that I turn the toe over something fierce. (inconsistency)
Next is impact spot. Was pretty good
Next is putter path - side view. As you can see I am delofting the face slightly at impact. Chris suggested that adjusting ball position would help with that by moving the ball slightly forward
Face rotation. Here again, you can see after impact im swinging the toe WAY over. He also took a video of one of the putts and you can see im swinging it way over. You will also see in the next slide as to why my face is so crazy all over the place but I made 7 out of 10 putts.
Face angle relative to path. Chris said this is where its starting to make sense on why I made so many putts but my path was so off. He said my timing at impact was really good which is why they went in but you can see that my face is very inconsistent.
Movement dynamics. Basically tempo and length of stroke
Timing. Again, inconsistency in my forward stroke as we have seen
As you can see, the data this thing gives incredible. On the other hand, I can see how this can mentally scramble someones head with all this data. As you know, 150 pre shot swing thoughts in your head results in disaster for most especially for a feel type aspect of the this game such as putting. BUT, what this does give you is data to reveal your inconsistencies and what you need to work on. To touch on what just said previously, its not something you get on then go right to the course and it magically fixes your putting game. It is now going to take repetition and drilling to overcome what this revealed. Chris gave me a few tips and drills to work on to straighten my stroke out and said that having my Puttout mat will be great for this.
Now that it is warming up, I will be able to get out on actual practice greens to work on what I found along with getting the feel for speed and pace. I will try and keep track of my progress as I go throughout the year.
Being in Mayberry, I had to travel 3 hours to Kansas City to find a SAM Putt Lab. Which wasn't a big deal as I travel to KC quite often and I have family there. I went to the Martin City Golf Center & Academy in south KC https://martincitygc.com/.
As with a lot of THP'ers lately I bought the PuttOut putting mat, Pressure Putt Trainer, and Eyeline mirror here recently and im LOVING it. Thanks @Jman. Review thread here ( https://www.thehackersparadise.com/puttout-putting-mat-review/) Super product for the money especially for the hackers in the northern parts that aren't able to get out in the winter months. The mirror helped the most for me as I found out I was standing WAY to far away from the ball. Once I got my eyes over the ball the feel and roll was much better. Although after working on it for most of the winter and rolling the ball much better than before with better alignment and eye position I wanted more.
After getting to MCGC, I met and worked with instructor Chris Cone on a few things with my irons. Chris was a super nice guy, patient, excellent on communication, and really stressed fundamentals. I wont get to detailed on this since this is mainly my experience with the flat stick but I wasn't far off. He got me rotating more, quieted my lower body, and retouched on some fundamentals resulting in MUCH better ball striking. Great start for the year.
Anyway, back to the flat stick.
Chris had me roll a few putts to see what he is working with. He seen that I rolled it pretty decent and used a left hand low grip. He liked this but wanted the grip more in the palm of my left hand to emulate the back side of my left hand as the putter face. (Dave Stockton'ish) He also said my putter is a face balanced putter which would promote a SBST stroke which I had been working on prior.
Here is Chris setting up the SAM program and calibrating my putter to the machine. To calibrate, an arm comes out to a spot on the turf and shines a laser down to the hole. Then you put the putter face flush on the arm and the sensor on the shaft calibrates the square face. Then retract the arm. The sensor on the shaft has a module attached to it with a cord that goes either in your pocket or attaches to your belt.
After it was setup and calibrated he said to roll 10 putts and then we'll review the data and go from there.
I rolled 10 putts and made 7 out of 10 from 10 ft approx. The data this thing provides is crazy cool. Some I thought I would see and some was like wow that's great information to know. After all the putts, Chris went through each slide in detail.
First section of data was Aim. As you can see, my aim at address was great. I dedicate this to @SeeMore's Rifle Scope Technology. If you don't know what that is, look it up. It works and I proved that. Just a snatch hair closed but within the grey area which is compared to tour pros. You will see the bars below with all the colored lines in them and the grey area in the middle. The grey area is tour level comparison throughout all the slides.
Next was direction. As you can see, I have an out to in stroke which I thought I might experience this.
Next is putter path. This was the point I was like wtf. You can see at impact the face is decently square but after that I turn the toe over something fierce. (inconsistency)
Next is impact spot. Was pretty good
Next is putter path - side view. As you can see I am delofting the face slightly at impact. Chris suggested that adjusting ball position would help with that by moving the ball slightly forward
Face rotation. Here again, you can see after impact im swinging the toe WAY over. He also took a video of one of the putts and you can see im swinging it way over. You will also see in the next slide as to why my face is so crazy all over the place but I made 7 out of 10 putts.
Face angle relative to path. Chris said this is where its starting to make sense on why I made so many putts but my path was so off. He said my timing at impact was really good which is why they went in but you can see that my face is very inconsistent.
Movement dynamics. Basically tempo and length of stroke
Timing. Again, inconsistency in my forward stroke as we have seen
As you can see, the data this thing gives incredible. On the other hand, I can see how this can mentally scramble someones head with all this data. As you know, 150 pre shot swing thoughts in your head results in disaster for most especially for a feel type aspect of the this game such as putting. BUT, what this does give you is data to reveal your inconsistencies and what you need to work on. To touch on what just said previously, its not something you get on then go right to the course and it magically fixes your putting game. It is now going to take repetition and drilling to overcome what this revealed. Chris gave me a few tips and drills to work on to straighten my stroke out and said that having my Puttout mat will be great for this.
Now that it is warming up, I will be able to get out on actual practice greens to work on what I found along with getting the feel for speed and pace. I will try and keep track of my progress as I go throughout the year.
Last edited:
No worries. I went through the Sam Fitting in January and I enjoyed it. The changes made a world of difference for me. I hope it does for you as well. 
