Golf Monthly Staff writer and PGA Pro Joe Ferguson runs through the 6 most common mistakes golfers make when buying a new putter! With so much choice on the market, it can be easy to not consider everything you need to and overlook some key areas when it comes to ensuring your new putter is perfectly matched to you. Hopefully this video will ensure you don't make the mistakes some golfers make when choosing a new flat stick.
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00:00Right, we all know that putting is one of the most important parts of the game for your score,
00:04but I still see so many avoidable mistakes when people are buying new putters.
00:08For this video, we've teamed up with Odyssey and they've provided us with some gorgeous
00:11models from their AI1 range, so let's take a look and see if we can help you make some better choices.
00:20First mistake I often see, it happens long before we even think about the putter we're going to use,
00:25it's to do with the golf ball. Take this for example, I found a beautiful model that
00:29I love the look of here, it's the AI1 number 7. Sits great, feels great and I've been holing putts
00:35all over the place with it, but I've just noticed I've been using the Chrome Tour golf ball
00:40and my game would be the Chrome Tour X golf ball. So I've had all these great results and I'm going
00:45to order this putter, but when it arrives I might get a significantly different feel because those
00:50are two very different feeling golf balls. Different golf balls will come off the putter
00:54face at different speeds which can affect your distance control, so it's not just a feel thing,
00:58it can actually be a performance thing. So the remedy for this is make sure when you're trying
01:03a putter, either just knocking it around in the pro shop or even in a custom fitting, use your
01:08game of golf ball so you can marry up the feel and the distance control and you don't have to
01:12make an adjustment further down the line. Another mistake I see a lot is people buying their putter
01:20purely on looks, not really understanding the functionality. For example, these two putters
01:26here at first glance look identical but they're actually designed for very different stroke types
01:31and I'll show you why. The putter I've got here is actually a face balance putter, but what does that
01:36mean? Well if I hold it unaided and I just hold it at its balance point there, you'll see how the
01:41putter face is pointing pretty much straight up at the sky. Now this face balance style of
01:47putter doesn't want to rotate too much during the stroke, so it tends to suit people with a very
01:51square to square path who don't want to see too much opening and closing. However on the
01:57same head I've got a slightly different shorter slant neck here which gives us what is essentially
02:02a toe hang putter. So again I'm holding it unaided there when I can find the balance point
02:07and the toe is pointing more down at the ground. Now putters can have different degrees of this
02:12toe hang and what that does is encourage a bit more face rotation through the stroke
02:17and that tends to suit people with a bit more of a pronounced arc. So it's really important you
02:22match that up with your stroke type, but how do you find out what stroke type you've got?
02:27Now the smart and precise way of doing this is to head to your local PGA professional
02:32who will get you on some technology like Samputt Lab, Quintet Ball Roll, Capto, those types of
02:36things and give you an exact quantifiable number for your face rotation and your arc and they'll
02:41be able to make a really good recommendation of what style is going to work best for your stroke.
02:45But if for any reason that's out of your reach either financially or geographically there is
02:49another way you can begin to get a good starting point for what style of putter might work for you.
02:54Simply get a friend to video your stroke in slow motion from a vertical position. Ideally
03:00you'd put something like an alignment stick down here and just make a nice uninhibited stroke and
03:05you'll begin to see when you look at it back in slow motion how far your putter is coming away
03:10from that line and how much the face is rotating. Now it's not an exact science by any measure this
03:16but it might just give you a better idea of your stroke and where to begin your putter search.
03:24Another mistake that I see a lot of times is people not considering the grip that they've
03:28got on their putter. Now it's the only point of contact you've got with this putter so it's
03:32absolutely crucial to get right. Nowadays there's so many different shapes, textures and sizes of
03:38grip it can be very difficult to know where to start and it's not just feel that it affects it
03:43can actually influence performance. For example a lot of people using thicker grips have found that
03:49really useful to minimize the effect of the hands controlling the club face and particularly useful
03:54on those shorter putts. However some people also feel that the thicker grips can impede feel a
03:59little bit and lose a bit of distance control on those longer putts so there can be a little bit
04:05of a trade-off. Another thing that people don't think about is grip weight. There's such a variety
04:10you can get grips from 50 grams to well over 100 grams and that can have a dramatic effect on the
04:16feel of the club through swing weight. Essentially if you put a lighter grip on the club the swing
04:21weight of the club will increase because the bulk of the mass is distributed down the head end then.
04:27Conversely if you get a very heavy grip you can start to lose the feel of the putter head because
04:32it feels lighter from a swing weight point of view because there's more mass at the butt end.
04:36It's really important you get this right for the feel that you want and again a good custom fitter
04:41will be able to guide you through that process. Before we get on to the next mistake if I can ask
04:46you if you're enjoying this video please hit the like button, subscribe to the channel so you can
04:50see all of the upcoming videos and comment down below have you ever made any big mistakes when
04:54buying a putter? One of the most underthought about areas of the putter is the shaft. We've
05:02all spent ages procrastinating over which style, flex, weight, bend point of driver shaft we need
05:08but I'd wager that many of you out there have never even considered the shaft in your putter.
05:13Well companies over the last few years have put a lot more research into this area
05:17particularly someone like Odyssey with their Stroke Lab 90 shaft. This is a very lightweight
05:22steel shaft that features 20 to 30 grams of counterweighting depending on what weight of
05:27head it's going into. There's graphite shafts available, there's different flexes and different
05:32profiles all the way through putting and as the vessel that carries the impact feel all the way up
05:38here to your hands it's one of the biggest influences on feel and it's a real opportunity
05:43to fine-tune that. So make sure you have a real think about what shaft is going to work best in
05:48the putter that you select. Another thing that people overlook when selecting a putter is the
05:56multitude of styles available now and I don't just mean the different types of heads I mean
06:01styles of putting. Switch on any PGA Tour Golf and for everyone you see putting with a normal
06:07length putter right below left you'll see at least as many people using some more unconventional
06:12methods such as broom handle, arm lock or even this cruiser model here that I've got from Odyssey.
06:17So this is the cruiser number seven and what's different about this? Well for starters it's longer
06:23so standard putters tend to come in around the 34 inch mark, this is 38 inches and this introduces a
06:29bit of counterbalance. It's heavier than a standard putter in all places, the grip's heavier, the head's
06:35heavier and the shaft's heavier here so most of the Odyssey range has the Stroke Lab 90, this has 140
06:41gram version and the idea with this cruiser putter is the weight distribution where it's put around
06:47the putter it helps the putter swing really freely and uninhibited it's almost like it's
06:52swinging itself and it's done a really good job for the likes of Ricky Fowler and Wyndham Clark
06:56over the last couple of years and when I think of the effect the broom handle and things like that
07:01have had on the careers of people like Will Zalatorris and Lucas Glover I think if you're not
07:06considering one of these more unconventional styles you might be doing yourself a disservice.
07:11And finally the biggest thing I see that people don't pay enough attention to
07:14is alignment. You can have the most glorious putting stroke owned over hours of practice
07:19but if you can't point your putter at the intended target then you're not going to hold many putts
07:24and the important part about getting your putter aligned correctly is selecting the correct
07:28alignment cue and what do I mean by alignment cue or alignment aid? Well take this Odyssey 2 ball
07:35for example. This is one of the most blatantly clear alignment aids you can get in golf and it's
07:40really stood the test of time. We've got these two balls here that you simply line the third ball up
07:45with to show you the intended start direction and get your face square. On this model they've gone
07:51a step further and they put the tour line through it as well for those you see a little bit more in
07:55straight lines. Now Odyssey offer a multitude of alignment cues from small lines in the front
08:02of alignment cues from small lines in the flange of a putter to lines on the leading edge and some
08:08models with no alignment aids whatsoever and it's important they do that because we all see square
08:13very differently. What I can line up well you might really struggle with and vice versa. But
08:19how do you figure out what alignment cue is going to work best for you? Well the most accurate way
08:24and this is the answer to a lot of the problems the most avoidable problems that we've mentioned
08:28in this video is to go for a putter fitting. Now a good fitter will try you out with a number of
08:33different models with all sorts of different alignment cues and use a laser to accurately
08:37figure out what you're aiming the best and what you're aiming most consistently. But once again
08:42if that's out of your reach you can use your friends to help you with that. Simply just getting
08:46someone to crouch down behind you you're telling them where you think you're aiming the putter
08:50blade and they can give you the feedback as to where you actually are aiming it or if you don't
08:54trust them make sure they use a phone so you can prove it. That's another really good way to make
08:59sure you've got an alignment aid that is accurately aiming that putter blade for you.
09:04Right I hope that's helped. Avoid those mistakes and go and hold some putts!