PGA Professional Ged Walters explains why your putter, your least lofted club, has loft on it.
Some golfers are still surprised that your putter has three or four degrees of loft on it and they generally think that this seems a lot.
The simple answer is that putters have loft because the ball sits in a hole. As much as the putting green is lovely and manicured and nice and tight, gravity is pulling on that golf ball so it creates an indentation. So it’s actually sitting in a depression and the loft on the putter gets the ball out of the depression and rolling.
So it is then a combination of good ball position so that when you do strike the ball with the putter, the putter is travelling fractionally on the up.
And that combined with the loft will get the ball out of the depression and rolling quickly without skidding and bouncing too much and it will get it rolling quicker. This is where the grooved and milled faces come into it because a little bit more friction gets it rolling a little bit quicker.
A player with a forward press will benefit from having a little bit more loft, whereas if a player who doesn’t have that forward press might benefit from having slightly less loft on their putter so it doesn’t lift it too much and then have it hop and bounce as you go through.
Phil Mickelson used to have a big forward press and his putter would have around 7˚ of loft.
Some golfers will have the ball back in the stance so the shaft’s going to be delivered leaning forward. It’s strange, given putting accounts for something like 45 per cent of our shots, that some of us are only just coming around to the fact that it’s really important to get the putter fitted.
I would suggest that, of everyone who buys a putter off the shelf, around 10 per cent would be suited to the golfer so it might be the loft, length, grip or weight that isn’t right.
A lot of people will pick up a Scotty Cameron but some of these are quite light so, if you go to play a course and the greens are slow, it will feel like you’ve got to hit it quite hard. Whereas when you play on quick greens, you can just touch it and it’s lovely.
There are all kinds of aspects to consider when choosing a putter, from the weight in the head and the shaft, length, thickness of the grip or the the actual grip.
It will take a Pro an hour to check all these variables which is such a good use of your time. A lot of golfers will have a lesson and then ask for the teacher to have a look at their putting in the last five minutes.
What we need is five or six hours to look at your putting. It’s a combination of so many things; to analyse your stroke, your tendencies and what types of putts you hit well or badly.
Or it might be to understand what muscles you move to control the putter or how you’re reading then greens and can you read greens? Then there’s the pace to pick your lines on and are you picking your lines based on the speed?
A lot of us have had the same putter for years and we love the look and feel of it and, quite often, you won’t need to change it but, if we were to change one or two things, then we might be able to improve your putting no end.
For example, if you were to create a forward press then you might deliver a better loft to the ball and that helps you to roll it better.’
About Ged Walters
Ged is a Golf Monthly Top 50 coach and one of the leading teachers in the North West. For more tips follow Ged on Instagram – gedwaltersgolf
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Article Link: Why golf putters have loft and how it helps your putting