mrbojumbles

Pimp My Putter Speed Demon

Post by: Reece Lightning

// October 14th, 2010 // Experience, Quirky

I used to be a good putter. Well, that’s what I told myself up until about a month ago before I popped in to see the good folk at Dimple Golf. Sam Sullivan, owner of Dimple, told me to stop by their Auckland office/warehouse in Penrose with my flat stick. Sam promised he’d ‘sort me out’ and that I’d be rolling the potato like a magician in no time – this was an opportunity to good to turn down for anyone looking to sink more putts.

Armed with a six-inch Subway chicken fillet and big hopes of turning my putting woes around by the time it was eaten, Sam got to work with my putter. He started by giving me a good run down of the different styles of putters and how the generally work and fit with different putting styles and players. I’ve always liked the blade style putter, I don’t know why, perhaps I’ve always wanted to be able to roll the spud like Phil Mickelson – don’t we all? Anyhow, I’m not using a traditional blade these days, it’s a blade shape with a cavity back style – I like it, but Sam said I could like it even more!

Sam got me to stand over the ball in a correct position with good posture and from here he measured me up. He had some handy tools perfect for the job to find things like lie angle and the correct length of shaft I required etc. A quick jot down of some numbers and he was ready to pimp my putter. As it turned out, all I really needed done was a shortening of my putter to get the my eyes directly over the ball when I was standing with ‘correct posture’. For others, Sam might take it a step further and bend the putters lie and loft angle etc. Apparently the remedy for me was just simply a cheeky three quarters of an inch removed from from my shaft and a new grip, well… plus a few tips from Sam and assistant Fraser Wilkin (a promising amateur out of Auckland Golf Club), and I was dropping bombs from all corners of their make shift office putting green (hardly bombs, but I was feeling good about a few simple changes to technique and equipment).

Now a month or so on my putting has turned around dramatically. It’s amazing what a simple spruce up like this can do for you game, but I’ll be honest, much of the improvement also comes down to a change in attitude (see first sentence of this piece). I no longer believe ‘I used to be a good putter’ or that I cant putt. As we all know, 90% of golf (or more) is played between the three inches between your ears. I am a good putter, I can bin this putt, I can get up and down. Cheesy as it may sound – these types of phrases are my new mantras. Take the time to get your putter correctly fitted to you, it will instill you with a new found confidence to go out there and sink monsters and confidently slot those curly six footers in one after the other!