Putter Shape and its Effects on Aim Bias

[SnowmanShanks]

[SnowmanShanks]

blue side. level.

red side. slightly breaking right left right left up down up down

[SnowmanShanks]

6 minutes ago, SnowmanShanks said:

 

On 12/22/2020 at 11:24 PM, MattUtah said:

Did you test CoG backwards vs more forwards? 
 

I would be especially interested in how this fares in mallets with similar MOI. One example being the Odyssey Marxman vs Ten (or TM Spider). Ten/Spider is back CoG, Marxman is much more forward and they have nearly equal MOI numbers I think.  Feels like the back CoG closes much slower and I wonder how detrimental that becomes over a certain range. Something to consider. Lots of companies trying to push CoG more forward now like Frontline, Spider FCG and Bettinardi 6.0. 
 

Cool test! 

FWD COG is far better

 

it's a difficult calculation.

I will hopefully post my physics formulas later.

 

bit every mm backwards increased the Moi but centre face misses contributed to more hook or slice spin and effectively less over spin under most conditions.

 

I will absolutely never use a mallet for this reason without at least some sort of groove tech. I will post my advanced findings tomorrow

[SnowmanShanks]

On 12/25/2020 at 5:53 AM, jomatty said:

What type putter would you suggest for someone with cross dominant eyes (right handed left eye dominant) with a tendency to leave the face open?  I recently got something to measure face angle at impact and I was amazed at how open I fanned the putter in the backstroke and that I almost always had the face open at impact.  I’ve been working on it but it is a struggle to consistently have my face angle at impact less than 1 degree open and it will jump very high on poor strokes.  Amazing that a stroke that appears to stay closed can actually be opening 4-5 degrees...

any advice on putters or otherwise is appreciated.  Right now I’m alternating between a spider x and a Toulon Las Vegas h7 (slant neck).  
I use a line on the ball and now use the line on the putter in conjunction with it to try to start the putter square, as I was starting with the face closed without even realizing it.
Merry Christmas and Thank You for the time it took to put this great thread together!

plumbers neck absolutely.  with as much offset you can find

[SnowmanShanks]

3 hours ago, VA golfer said:

so based on my current putter center shafted modern bullseye full toe hang stainless steel finish.

It looks like most of your info you have provided most of the associated tendencies cancel each other out.

Zero offset=slice side

Flat back=hook side

Short distance front to back=hook side

Flange line=slice side

Unfinished=hook side

Maybe since alot of these cancel each other out I don't feel as if I am steering my putter anymore. This is the first putter that I have owned that I don't feel as if I am steering it during the stroke.

Prior to buying this putter I was always fighting a left side miss. Which is funny because almost every putter I played before was a mallet with long sight lines which should have me aiming slice side. Maybe in my mind i was correcting the aim in my stroke. I also think with the full toe hang it fits my stroke better since most of the other putters were faced balanced or minimal toe hang. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your data. It should help alot of trial and error without doing a putter fitting. 

there's a reason why you don't play anyone for money when they use a bullseye putter

[Honeybadger]

@SnowmanShanks What type of putter would you suggest for someone who is left eye dominant (RH), tends to aim right, pull the ball and putts cross handed? 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Honeybadger

[jomatty]

7 hours ago, SnowmanShanks said:

plumbers neck absolutely.  with as much offset you can find

I’ve wondered about going this route.  Most seem to say that cross dominant folks need as little offset as possible, but a plumbers neck does look very square to me.  

[shanx]

18 hours ago, SnowmanShanks said:

plumbers neck absolutely.  with as much offset you can find

 

Hmmmm....I recently sold off all my Anser styled putters (except for my old, crusty Anser). But I am also "cross dominant" with a tendency to miss right..

 

Looks like the old rusty Anser is going back in the bag!

[Hokie2k5]

This is a great thread - regarding alignment lines on putters....

 

You say top lines generally are a hook bias and slice bias for a flange line - When you say hook bias does that mean you'd aim left (for a right handed golfer) or does that mean you aim right to accompany a hook?

 

I struggle with alignment - I've always been a flange line guy but typically I aim left (I'm a righty) so I'm trying to find something that helps me aim a little bit more on line.  I'm typically use an Anser/Newport 2 with a plumbers neck so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated if there's a different style neck or bias I should be leaning towards.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Hokie2k5

[SnowmanShanks]

10 minutes ago, Hokie2k5 said:

This is a great thread - regarding alignment lines on putters....

 

You say top lines generally are a hook bias and slice bias for a flange line - When you say hook bias does that mean you'd aim left (for a right handed golfer) or does that mean you aim right to accompany a hook?

 

I struggle with alignment - I've always been a flange line guy but typically I aim left (I'm a righty) so I'm trying to find something that helps me aim a little bit more on line.  I'm typically use an Anser/Newport 2 with a plumbers neck so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated if there's a different style neck or bias I should be leaning towards.

not what i had said, i think what you mean is your static aim will be biased on one vs the other, the way you deliver the putter is independent from aim 

[SnowmanShanks]

file:///C:/Users/pelus/Downloads/proceedings-49-00002%20(1).pdf

 

one study

[SnowmanShanks]

sry, here it is

proceedings-49-00002 (3).pdf

[SnowmanShanks]

On 5/20/2021 at 4:42 AM, jomatty said:

I’ve wondered about going this route.  Most seem to say that cross dominant folks need as little offset as possible, but a plumbers neck does look very square to me.  

i am personally cross dominate and i also struggle with the release, and spin metrics, the more offset i have, the better the roll is, the more the ball tracks to the hook side, but my static aim is much better

[pfw19]

This is a good one too.  I struggle with right aim.  I find everything the OP said to be true, minus the site line data.  I find flange line helps me (personally) aim left and topline gives me aim bias right.  I think the article below is good.  Edel knows how shapes, offset and lines can help aim.  Even if his putter tech is outdated as some say, his ability to fit for aim is widely considered world class. 

 

https://jeffcoston.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Golf-Magazine-Edel-Putters.pdf

 

[TimBuma]

I recently went to a putter fitting and these were my best numbers with a LAB B.2 putter. Not sold on the putter and was curious if you saw anything in these numbers. I’m right handed and right eye dominant. My tendency is to miss short putts to the right. I was putting with

an Evnroll ER8 previous to this and have the numbers from that putter on SAM as well if those are helpful.

Edited June 8, 2021 by littletimbo182

[MattM97]

@SnowmanShanksI want to come putt in your backyard. 

 

As for me and aiming I've found the best shapes are straight lines and squared off edges, they can be softened or even rounded bumpers but the leading and trailing edge have to be a straight line. Offset half shaft or less and I can putt that thing lights out. 

[hammergolf]

On 5/21/2021 at 8:42 PM, pfw19 said:

This is a good one too.  I struggle with right aim.  I find everything the OP said to be true, minus the site line data.  I find flange line helps me (personally) aim left and topline gives me aim bias right.  I think the article below is good.  Edel knows how shapes, offset and lines can help aim.  Even if his putter tech is outdated as some say, his ability to fit for aim is widely considered world class. 

 

https://jeffcoston.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Golf-Magazine-Edel-Putters.pdf

 

Crazy how our eyes are different. I struggle with aiming right also, but find a line on the top line of the putter helps me aim better than one on the flange.

[TimBuma]

Any thoughts on the new Cobra putters and the DLT tech?

[KodakkuSensei]

On 6/12/2021 at 5:23 AM, littletimbo182 said:

Any thoughts on the new Cobra putters and the DLT tech?

Not sure about the 3D design but they do look fancy to me. I am using SIK putter so I am quite familiar with the DLT tech and it does give you a more consistent roll. I feel like with this lower price range, cobra is able to let a lot more people to get a taste of the DLT without cutting a hole in their wallet is quite a good idea, and the 3D design is a nice cherry on top.

[iNeedMoreGolf]

What about putter length... my miss is slice side... specially with short putts... i find that a longer putter 35in.. stands me up more and squares me up on the shorter ones.. i had a odyssey og 7s i just returned because it cost me at least for putts which i could have shot into the 70s... now obviously its not all the putters fault but i felt so uncomfortable specially after the first 3 rounds with it i thought i was in love... the last 3 were a nightmare. Also... short slant or double bend... could the short slant be aiding this miss right?

[Nels55]

LOL I am putting lights out (for me anyway) at the moment using my stroke lab seven putter with a reverse overlap grip with a round grip run up my lead wrist.  I sure hope this lasts for a while.

Here is a video of my own way of aligning my putting stroke that I made using my Wilson putter a while back:

 

My alignment tested on SAM Putt lab was very good so this works for me.  I wonder if the OP has any experience with alignment training of this or any other sort?  Also would you consider this sort of thing to be inferior to finding a putter that a golfer lines up automatically with no need for such training?  Thanks!

[KodakkuSensei]

Well, I have found out (at least in my case) that if I try to aim using my eye then it's just too unstable and vulnerable to changes and environment. Now I just try to use my putter like any other clubs and aim with my heart. My putter has been good ever since.  

[gmarchese]

  

This research is spot on in my experience, and a great help to putter fitters (what few there are). Over the past 3 years I’ve been dissecting my own approach to putting and putters and have found a lot of similar things. I did this to “own” my own putting stroke and to better diagnose issues when I putt poorly. I’m a lifetime golfer, college player, and still a low handicap player. My barriers to really playing well have always been related to putting. I’ve been a decent putter generally, never great, and sometimes terrible. I’ve been consistently mediocre for some time – I eliminated the really bad days, but really good days are few and far between. I’ve worked with a putter sim (GC Quad and ExPutt) and on actual greens to come to these thoughts, and for me little here is only my perception. It’s based on my own, albeit amateur, data.  Here is what I think I can corroborate:

 

Each putter will require changes to how one has stroked the ball with their previous gamer. I think this is the reason finding “that putter” is so difficult. I also think that’s one of the reasons Anser-style putters are so popular.

 

• Putter weighting and impact dynamics are completely different with each different style putter.
• Anser-style putters have differences in dynamics across manufacturers, but the deviation is not large. If one likes a Scotty Newport, then a Carbon, Ping or Bettinardi Anser will perform similarly all things being equal. Assuming a plumber’s neck here. Minor differences in toe hang make little difference in my experience, but flow neck or no hosel do make impact dynamics different. YMMV.
• High MOI putters tend to feel more solid and stable, but impact dynamics can be crazy. Like the original poster, the farther back the CG the more toe-side misses go haywire. Gear effect in putters is rarely discussed, and they don’t help getting the ball on line. Maybe with a driver, not with a putter
• My experience tells me that one should find a putter that fits their eye, has a comfortable weight, has the right length for setup, and most importantly, allows them to line up to the hole. Then hit at least 1000 putts to work out the putter’s idiosyncrasies. THEN determine if it’ll work long term.
• Static aim IMO has a huge impact to stroke dynamics and when off can create autonomic compensations in stroke. The body will try to fix things to roll the ball straight without one consciously knowing it. Any folks here have out-to-in loops in their strokes? I certainly did and I see it all the time. I believe it’s an auto-compensation to get the ball online.
• Face rotation with relation to path is almost never a good thing. Building a stroke that arcs but where the face is 90* to the path helps, along with correct static aim, will mostly correct autonomic compensations. However, how one’s “feels” to keep the putter square to path are very different from putter to putter. Sometimes you feel like you’re hooding the face on the backswing. Other times you feel like you are rolling the face open to do so. Either way, each putter requires work to figure out the “feels” that make the stroke work.

 

In my journey, I worked with 5 different putter types for the entire 3 years: Anser-style with plumbers’ neck (Scotty and Ping Dale Anser), mid-mallet with plumbers’ neck (Ping Arna and Cleveland), face-balanced mallet (Spyder and Ping Fetch), a face balanced Anser/Mallet hybrid (Bettinardi SS7), and finally a Mizuno M Craft 3.  Not exhaustive in any way, but a decent cross section of putter types I think.

 

• Each putter requires significantly different dynamics to roll it straight. In general, toe hang requires more of an effort to keep the blade from opening in relation to path, and often requires a rolling release. Also, a two-way miss is more pervasive as a result
• Blade-style face-balanced putters for me require more of a right hand release in the stroke to eliminate right misses. But once dialed in they are very accurate (M Craft 3 in this scenario)
• Face-balanced deep mallets feel great and for me are easy to align, but any toe-side miss is like a duck-hook

 

All in all I think the research the original poster shared is terrific and shouldn’t be ignored. All of us who’ve struggled with the flatstick could learn a ton about how putters themselves actually have a ton to do with how we putt, given our individual tendencies. However, one shops for putters, I think the following may help some:

 

• All things equal, buy a putter with the CG as close as possible to the face (amen to the Snowman)
• Toe hang seems to be best at 45* or under to help keep the stroke square to path (Snowman again) 
• Face balanced putters with CG at the face can be very accurate assuming one can aim at the hole at address
• I believe that one needs to hit at least 1000 putts with a particular putter to work out the idiosyncrasies and dial in one’s stroke. Finding a putter that you love after 10 putts or so is likely to disappoint you over time.

The notion that it's the archer, not the bow isn't so clear in my research. It's often both....

 

Putting well is so challenging, but maybe as much attention to putting mechanics and dynamics as one puts into their swing would make us all better putters. Who knows, I’m an eternal optimist. (Also, I’m gaming the Bettinardi SS 7. But the Mizuno is fantastic too. The rest have gone the way of eBay🙂)

 

Greg
 

  

Edited July 4, 2021 by gmarchese

[cadoipi]

On 5/21/2021 at 12:16 PM, SnowmanShanks said:

sry, here it is

proceedings-49-00002 (3).pdf 906.75 kB · 37 downloads

 

Nice work, very convincing that minimizing the depth of the CoG is optimal (given the scale of the footprint of a putter head).  My intuition was the opposite, but as you show I was not taking into account the scale limitations.

 

Similar to you and your coauthors, I was surprised by direction of the asymmetry between heel/toe strikes (with heel strikes being less accurate).  I too had the intuition that if anything the shaft (due to is heel attachment) would make cause heel strikes deviate less. 

 

Any thoughts on if this is experimental error vs model error?

 

Have you tried collecting data from other putters to see if the asymmetry persists?  You could use an actual putters for this, since you are just testing to see if the asymmetry is there, and in particular it would be interesting to test for the asymmetry with a face-balanced center-shafted putter.

 

If it is not experimental, maybe considering the effect of toe hang partially explains the asymmetry?  Configuration A missed left (compared to your model) for both heel and toe strikes and likely has considerable toe hang.  While Configuration B with less toe hang missed left for heel and right for toe.

 

How did you actually experimental measure \phi? At the scale you are working, I imagine measuring displacement from target line ~10'+ from contact is more accurate than trying to actually measure the initial angle near contact. 

 

Given your N=10 and your error bars, I am slightly surprised you actually got a mean of 0* on the nose for center hits.  Is this real or did you normalize the data?

Edited July 29, 2021 by cadoipi

[gunmetal]

On 12/22/2020 at 9:34 PM, Fairway14 said:

David Edel maintains that the Bullseye putter shape is by far the easiest putter to align at address. I agree.

 

He also maintains that a line on the topline helps you aim more right. Which I very much agree with but seems to be contrary to what the OP found. Bringing the eyes higher and more forward means more right side bias. Still a fantastic write up by the OP.

 

Would have loved to hear how grip effected aim bias. Shapes and sizes are a massive influence on aim bias from my experience.

[SnowmanShanks]

5 hours ago, gunmetal said:

 

He also maintains that a line on the topline helps you aim more right. Which I very much agree with but seems to be contrary to what the OP found. Bringing the eyes higher and more forward means more right side bias. Still a fantastic write up by the OP.

 

Would have loved to hear how grip effected aim bias. Shapes and sizes are a massive influence on aim bias from my experience.

Slice side bias. 

Not right.

[gunmetal]

3 hours ago, SnowmanShanks said:

Slice side bias. 

Not right.

 

A Slice goes right. 

 

Not sure if I'm just not understanding you, but a line on the top line will help a golfer who tends to aim left, begin to aim more right. So can a longer putter. 

[Wardonation]

following great thread

[nsxguy]

34 minutes ago, gunmetal said:

 

A Slice goes right. 

 

Not sure if I'm just not understanding you, but a line on the top line will help a golfer who tends to aim left, begin to aim more right. So can a longer putter. 

 

Not for everybody......... 🙃

[Rapidcat]

@SnowmanShanks

 

Fabulous thread, thanks for sharing your research👏

 

Just why this forum is peerless.