Which putter should I get?

My mom an dad want to buy me a new putter and driver because I got "commended" (missed one or no questions at all ) on all four of my T.A.K.S. tests ( Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills). Which putter and driver do you guys recommend (no custom-fitting) for them to buy me?

Congrats on the test. Study hard, that way, when you get to be my age you will be making tons of $$$$. Don't let anyone kid you, life is easier when you have lots of green stuff. Might not be best advice ever, but heck, its true!

For anyone to recommend a driver, we would need to know a heck more about you....swing speed, common shot shape (slice, hook, fade, draw, high, low, etc etc etc), how you start down from the top (aggressive vs. smooth transition), just to name a few.

If your parents are going to spend solid money on you, I would go get fitted.

As for putters, they are more feel IMO. Go try a bunch out. Don't think higher price means better OR better performance. There are SO many putters out there.

Congrats again!

__________________
What's in my bag....
Cleveland VP 2 Blade Putter
Ping Tour Wedges, 54 & 60
TaylorMade rac LT2, 4i thru PW
Tour Edge Exotics Iron-Wood 21* 3i - Aldila NV 90 Stiff Shaft
Ping G5 18* 5 Wood - ProLaunch Blue 75 Stiff Shaft
Ping G5 15* 3 Wood - Aldila NV 75 Stiff Shaft
Cleveland HiBore XL 9.5* - Fujikura Fit-On Red Stiff Shaft

No custom fitting?

I recommend you save your money.



If you're in Texas, you're in the home state of Golfsmith. Surely there must be a PCS'er who can hook you up with fitted gear for the same money your parents are about to spend on off-the-rack stuff.

That said, I'd still buy a mentor sports putter. Those things are gold. Talk with Chin, tell him about your putting stroke, and he'll hook you up.

Not knowing anything about anything (28 handicap) won't stop me offering my opinion

Putting is hugely personal, and there aren't really any rights and wrongs - try loads, even ones that seem wacky to you, and choose the one that fits your hands. It's not that easy to buy a 'bad' one - it's not like it takes the impact force of most other clubs. What's most important is that it feels comfortable to you.

Remember that you can always think about making your choice, then searching/waiting for one of that model to come up on Ebay, particularly with the better known brands.

__________________
~_~_~_~_~
Personal bests 2007;
Best 18: 78 (+12)
Best 9: 37 (+4)
Best Stableford: 45 pts
Best total putts: 28
Best total length sunk putts (ft): 54

Club tourney history this year: Captain's Day - 1st; Club foursomes - 2nd; Dimex Stableford - 2nd; Club Championship - 13/28 gross, joint 5/28 nett; Ferebee Shield - 2nd; Sept Medal 2nd; Autumn Stableford - 1st

Fixed it for ya.

I can't recommend a driver, other than to say you would be better off with a fitting, and then go with the fitting recommendation. That, or look at a 12* two wood/driver.

As for a putter there are two or three things you need to look at. One is to be comfortable with your final choice, as far as looks, and feel are concerned. Two would be to try out quite a few putters, while looking for the one that gives you the straightest ball track regardless of where you strike the ball on the putter face. Hit balls off the toe, off the heel, and dead center of the putter face. The putter that hits the ball the straightest off these three putter face areas is the one you want. Don't be surprised when you find that putter, it's cost will be less than fifty, or sixty dollars. Third thing is to get fitted for a putter if you can't find a good one to suit your needs. GJS

Lowpost - Touche! Good call. I stand corrected

Thanks RandomHero1090. Well, I've had a slice for the past year but now I have a draw AND a slice. For trajectory wise, I usually hit it high. I would like to hit it a little lower because I've noticed that my ball goes farther when I hit it lower. When I said no custom fitting, I meant the best club out there. I'm talking about how they rank to other clubs and which one is the best.

Gohan,

Well done on the test.

I like the ping or white hot putters. For me look is important too.

As for the driver I like the Titliest.

The next thing your folks should spend money on, are the wedges.

If you have a very inconsistent flight (slice and draw) I would go with one of the new drivers with the high MOI. Maybe the Callaway FTi or the Nike Sumo 2. Those are the ones with a lot of publicity anyway. I haven't hit either one to though.

Assuming your path is OK, it sounds like you're opening the face on the way back, and either a) forgetting to close it again [slice] or b) remembering to close it, and doing so quite actively [draw/hook].

If you're noticing a distance increase with a lower trajectory, you may want to try less loft, but be careful - less loft means less spin. Too little loft and you'll lose distance again.

You have much to learn, young Gohan. Sadly, there is no 'best club', or every golfer on the planet would play it. The 'best club' is the one that is fitted to you. Tiger Woods has been playing properly fit clubs his entire golfing life. Yes, really. The late Earl Woods gave an interview where he talked about how he always made sure that Tigers' clubs fit, even from age 2 (or 3).

Once in a while, you find a head/shaft combination that really cooks. If you're wise, you'll keep that club. If you're not, you'll sell it, looking for the next great thing.

You'll learn your equipment preferences. In this day and age, we have shaft profiling to help fit golfers. It looks at how the shaft bends as a whole (versus just getting a butt frequency meaning - essentially useless). We have different sized heads, different face angles, offset or no offset...

Personally, I feel I play best with 1° closed, 12° loft, and ~ 400cc's for head specs. No offset (I'd rather take 2° closed over offset). Shafts for me work best when they're of average weight (~65g), tip stiff and butt medium. Overall length no more than 44.5" (any shorter and I need to get the swingweight back up)

Now, which driver is that? None on the modern market. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to walk into any golf shop and buy one. First, there aren't many heads under 440cc's. Second, there aren't many heads at 12°. Third, you can't trust an OEM shaft flex. So how do I find this driver that I've ID'd as better for me?

I find a clubmaker/clubfitter. S/he gets me a head handpicked to 1° closed and 12° loft at ~ 400cc's. S/he finds me a shaft that fits the profile.

If you're going to go the 'off the rack route', then my best advice is to make sure you go home with the combo you demoed that performed well. It's still no guarantee it'll be the bomb every day (as your swing changes a bit every day) but it does guarantee that it's the club for you. As a clubmaker, I can tell you that I can get a club close to the demo that you hit, but I cannot duplicate it. And any clubmaker that says s/he can is lying.

__________________
True Length Technology Fitter - www.truelengthtechnology.com
It's live! - www.ShipShapeClubs.com
PCS Class 'A' Clubfitter

A new highlight: Golfing the home course on Christmas Day.

I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

Okay this is what I meant...
1. feel: Is it:1. great, 2. okay, 3. bad
2. sound: Is it: 1. okay, 2. a bit loud, 3. golfers think you're shooting at them from the tee box
3. forgiveness: Is it: 1. great, 2. okay and flies a little off-line, 3. horrible
etc...

I want to know the what each club is like. So from personal experiences, which would you prefer?

I'm not sure you've totally taken on board what LowPost said. His argument - as someone who's forgotten more about clubs than most of us will ever know - suggests that your criteria there are completely personal and therefore useless. What works for me will not work for you and vice versa.

All you can do is get out there, borrow clubs from everyone, and see what works for you.

There is no 'best' club.

Thanks bulldog :blush: but I'm just a small fish in the clubmaking world - there are plenty of guys who know way, way more than I do.

Gohan, bulldog has reiterated the main thing: It may not work for you, because it works for me. The internet axiom is YMMV - your mileage may vary.

That said, I will try and help you with a very tough assignment.

If you want more feel, work in a softer flex and a higher torque (ie greater than 3.0°). Lower torque feels stiffer/boardier.

If you want reverberation, the Sumo2 is the clankiest, loudest driver I've heard. Titleist drivers tend to make that 'thwack' sound - very muted. What do you like? What have you hit that you like? What have you hit that you didn't like the sound of?

For forgiveness, the higher MOI heads are where it's at, pure and simple. Now, these don't forgive open or shut clubheads, but do forgive heel/toe missses. There are very few driver heads that have a consistent launch angle (read: little to no roll on the face). Wishon drivers with GRT are about the only ones I'm very aware of. Virtually no OEM's offer GRT (graduated roll technology). What does all this mean? This means that when you hit low on the face, the shot is low (due to less loft), and when you hit high on the face, the shot is high (due to more loft). The 'true loft' is somewhere in the middle of the face.

Now, all that said, your final sentence was a request for personal preference. So here goes.

I prefer my driver shaft to be somewhere in the 70-75g range uncut. I prefer mid bend and tip stiff/stable while I don't mind butt soft. Headwise, I prefer something 400cc, and while the sound it makes doesn't matter much to me (although I really do like a muted 'thwack'), a GRT face works well as I'm a little inconsistent with my ball striking. I also prefer my driver shorter than standard (45" being standard).

For my putter, I prefer a mallet to a blade, and I like to swing a sledgehammer (read: the heavier the better). I like my putters at 35" as I stand very upright to putt. Clean sightlines are preferred over anything else. I also like a standard sized grip that's a little squishy.

Now, please let me know if any of my personal preferences help you with your decisions.

I look forward to your answers regarding my other questions.

__________________
True Length Technology Fitter - www.truelengthtechnology.com
It's live! - www.ShipShapeClubs.com
PCS Class 'A' Clubfitter

A new highlight: Golfing the home course on Christmas Day.

I say it too often: If it's golf club shaped, you can play with it.

For the record, I'm a club doctor, not a swing doctor.

I can't speak for preferences of woods, because I took the conscious decision not to play with them on the course I play on, until I had 'mastered' irons, because the rough/trees where I play penalise loose shots so much. At some point I need to come back to it, but initially, that will be on a driving range, not on a course...

Putters..? Well, in general, I have made the absolutely unfathomable decision that I want all my stuff to be Nike - down to balls and bags. Weird? Yes. Limiting myself? Yes, potentially, though I don't see it as any weirder than buying a driver because I like the sound of it, and there are plenty of people out there who do that.

So, mallet style, 35" shaft. I have the Nike OZ T130, and I like the 'centre mounted' shaft - I find it helps with alignment as well as assisting the MOI for off-centre hits. It's worth noting that Dave Pelz notes that high MOI are a ticking bomb, and can cause laziness in even the highest level golfers.

One last thought for you, Gohan. On any given round, you will use the putter 2 to 3 times more often than the driver. Couldn't we make a plausible argument, therefore, that your putter is two to three times more important than your driver, and that you therefore should spend two to three times the amount of time and effort finding your putter, and be prepared to spend two to three times the amount of money on it?

__________________
~_~_~_~_~
Personal bests 2007;
Best 18: 78 (+12)
Best 9: 37 (+4)
Best Stableford: 45 pts
Best total putts: 28
Best total length sunk putts (ft): 54

Club tourney history this year: Captain's Day - 1st; Club foursomes - 2nd; Dimex Stableford - 2nd; Club Championship - 13/28 gross, joint 5/28 nett; Ferebee Shield - 2nd; Sept Medal 2nd; Autumn Stableford - 1st