At THP, we are driven by questions, in particular, the ones which you want to know more about when it comes to club design. That is the place where the biggest opportunity for learning exists in golf equipment, and those questions are also the reason behind our creation of The Education Zone.
Previously, we dove deep into irons, more specifically the dance between sound as well as feel when it comes to construction and design. In case you missed that piece which featured Chris Voshall, you can check it out here.
This time, we are turning our attention to the flatstick.
There is something about the putter which captures our imagination and brings out our preferences (or biases) more than perhaps any other club in the bag. Sure, some of that is due to it being the most used club every single time we set foot on the course, but it also goes much deeper than that. Realistically, it is an enigma that is driven by not just performance, but also aesthetics.
Long gone are the days of the old school cavity-free blade, and in its place, we have seen the development and creation of a seemingly endless shapes, sizes, materials, as well as balance principles. However, the biggest leap in non-insert designs remains milling, and that is exactly what we are here to focus on, specifically face milling. Of course, it wouldn’t be The Education Zone if we didn’t tap some of the best in the industry for some additional information on the topic, and for this one it is an absolute titan in putters, none other than Sean Toulon and Toulon Golf.
A History Lesson –
The Roots of Putter Face Milling
If you know anything about me, then you know my addiction to putters, milled putters to be exact. Over the past fifteen years I have been an absolute addict, delving deep into the depths of milled designs from the most boutique to the budget minded face-milled options we see year to year. That journey has meant a couple of things, an angry wife, and a deep dive into the absolute art that is putter milling.
Once upon a time, vintage blade putters were all golfers knew with many possessing lines like race cars that flowed to the eye and at address. That was also a world of grinding, a world which putter legends like TP Mills took the source material and worked it over without the mechanical advantages that exist today, this included hand filing the faces.
Eventually, casting became the wave of the future and made it possible to take shapes to places no one had ever dreamed of like the PING Anser. Even then, there was a degree of hand finishing required, and that brought with it the chance of inconsistencies from head to head. So, in seeking a solution, some minds like the great Tad Moore began to use milling machines to increase precision.
Now, when we talk about milling at this point, understand that it means face milling and not the CNC driven full milling that we see present day on the highest tier of putters. With time though, Dick DeLaCruz with Callaway and Tad Moore with Maxfli eventually did bring the CNC world to golf, utilizing methods previously only for aerospace and finding ways to create fully milled putters which took the Tour, and golfing world, by storm.
But why did this move to milling more and more aspects of a putter create the shockwaves that it did? That is exactly what we are diving into here with this Education Zone piece.
The Power of Precision Putter Face Milling
Why was, and is, milling such a huge part of the story when it comes to what is considered “premium” in putters? In a word, precision.
Though there is absolute beauty in the old-school ability of some of the greatest putter makers of all time to hand shape a billet of material into an elegant putting instrument, the reality is that it carries with it a certain margin of error. Not error in the shaping, but in the flatness of the face. In fact, according to Sean Toulon and Toulon Golf, the most under talked about aspect of a milled putter is the true flatness which it achieves.
Along with that though is something not considered enough by any of us when it comes to putter milling, specifically where the face is concerned, repeatability. The precision of modern milling is great, but it also allows manufacturers and designers to produce a quality that is the same every single time.
“What makes putter milling stand out, is a combination of a lot of things – materials, mill patterns, depth of the milling and ultimately the shape of the head itself. It is better because it is so precise and so predictable in the manufacturing process. In other words, you can repeat the process and deliver the final design as you intended. Not to mention, if it’s all done right, the performance is unmatched.”
– Sean Toulon
However, it is important to note that the precision is also a reason we have seen a rise in “face milled” putters year over year. The ability to machine mill a face on a cast putter to a precise degree of flatness while also fine tuning the impact it has on the overall acoustics/feel has made a massive difference in the perception of more affordable options. Now, the conversation of fully milled versus face milled is for another time and place, perhaps a different Education Zone down the road, but one must accept the substantial impact which precision milling of any design aspect has had.
Of course, according to Toulon, the better the materials, the better the end results and finished parts will be.
Material Mastery
The material aspect is always going to matter in any club design, not just putters. Of course, in this realm you have all heard of a plethora of different metal types being thrown around. The most recognizable are of course the Stainless Steels (303, 304, 904L, etc.) and Carbons (1018, 1020, 1045, etc.), but let us not forget those like Aluminum, Titanium, Brass, and even Copper.
Each has its place, as well as a specific purpose depending on what the overall construction of the putter design calls for. Sean put it well with his comment to us on all the options:
All materials have things that make them interesting. Some feel a bit firmer while others are delivering a slightly softer sound and feel. Some finish better than others. Some lend themselves to other processes better than others.
The other interesting aspect to different materials is that while they all do have their own specific acoustic as well as tactile feedback tendencies through their perceived and real qualities of “softness”. No doubt, if you know a putter connoisseur (nerd) then they have a preferred material. Some have even garnered legendary cult status as you work into “German Stainless” versus American or simply Carbon against Stainless.
However, application matters, this is especially true of the milling methods used on the putter face.
Purpose and Performance of Putter Face Milling
Yes, we have established that milling the face of a putter creates a truly flat surface, but what does that mean in terms of performance? Well, it brings a consistency across the face for the initial roll which you will see, dependent of course on the individual’s stroke and how they are delivering the putter to the ball (loft, lie, etc.). However, that consistency is the baseline which allows the rest of the design to work.
Milling the face also has a couple more purposes which impact performance though. First, it is a significant way to impact the sound and feel of a putter at impact via the depth and width of the milling. The deeper and more aggressively a face is milled, the less surface area will come into contact with the golf ball, and this is a critical part of the sound is feel dance.
Less area impacting the ball means a much deeper tone upon contact, which golfers associate with the “soft” feel that is linked with a milled putter. Likewise, finer milling means more surface contact with the ball and a much more true to the material feedback. It is a piece of the dance which putter designers can work to achieve their specific goals, and it has evolved even further in recent years to include unique “roll focused” groove designs as well.
While this isn’t really the place to dive deep into roll grooves, they do still abide by the same surface area rules as above with traditional face milling styles. As they are on the more aggressive side of things to start with, they bring a much deeper tone which is typically construed as “soft”.
I did ask Sean Toulon and Toulon Golf just how these various patterns and groove constructions milled into a putter face affect things and if you can go too far, their take was an interesting one which supported the roots of what we have been discussing:
“There probably is not a thing such as too far if it produces the performance parameters you set out to deliver. However, faces create friction with the ball which can affect spin and that can be good or bad. Also, aside from roll they also typically reduce the contact patch of steel on the ball and that typically reduces sound.”
You might be asking yourself, when it comes to all of these face milling styles and patterns, how does each manufacturer decide which one to use? It all comes down to their given goals. We have talked extensively about the impact it has in both consistency as well as sound/feel, and those reign supreme, but looks certainly matter as well. How much of milling the face of a putter performance and how much is aesthetic? According to Toulon:
It is all of both. You can control the output of the design much more closely – meaning you can deliver what you wanted to deliver. That’s big. Plus, nothing looks better than a really well-designed milled putter.
What Lies Ahead?
Of course, as time moves on, so too does innovation, even in a milled putter design. The list of technological advancements we have seen thus far are wide ranging, from the development of multi-material designs to broader access and knowledge of CNC machines that has opened the world to more creativity than ever before. However, the future remains amazing to think about.
We have already seen companies like Cobra are willing to push envelopes with 3D Printing and Callaway is bringing AI into the fold as a critical design element, but even then, the finishing milling remains key. Regardless of the technology implemented, from the affordable to the top-shelf works of art, putter milling has a huge impact on the perception of quality as well as the overall performance seen.
Hopefully there is plenty to take away from this article which will add to your knowledge base about how what we at times see as something so simple in putters, can actually be creative and innovative. Education is everything, and the more you know, the better prepared you are to apply knowledge to improve your own enjoyment of this game we all love.
