Your 'A' Game — With Jeff Gotham, director of instruction for the Leadbetter Golf Academy at Cateechee
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Cateechee's golf course
Have you ever felt like your putter was intentionally fighting with you? No matter how pleasantly you speak to it or how kindly you handle it, your putter is battling to NOT make any putts for you.
An interesting fact is these sets of circumstances may not be too far from the truth of battle. Your putter may be saying you just don’t fit together.
The greatest number of golf shots played during a round are executed with a putter. Wouldn’t it make sense, that of all the clubs in your bag, the one that should fit you the best is your putter? Many golfers have not considered or even heard of a putter fitting. Many think the simple task of rolling a golf ball along the ground should not require a fitted club. This would be incorrect.
I recently took the opportunity to show a dear friend my new Odyssey Stroke Lab Putter Fitting tool. It’s about the size of two iPads and takes about 6,600 little pictures of your putter during a series of five putts. It tells us how much your putter face rotated on the backstroke, how much it rotated at impact, where you struck the ball on the putter face, and the directional path. My friend, a low handicap golfer, was astounded at how much information we collected. He was also amazed to learn his putter was not really the best selection for his stroke style. After processing the data, we began testing putters. He ended up with a putter he would not have ordinarily selected. However, he now has a putter used with confidence.
If you and your putter have “fallen out of love” or it just doesn’t perform the way you expected, maybe it’s time for a fitting. After all, you spend more time with your putter than any other club during your round. You should at least like each other.
Happy Golfing!