STAND PAT OR GO NEW?
So, did this ol’ Bobby B stick still deserve to be in my bag? Well, yes, but SAM still had other ideas. “It always does tell us a style of putter your stroke fits,” Weizer continued. “It shows more of a mallet style for you, but it’s personal preference.”
Of course I’ve tried many mallets, have more than a few in my collection, and will no doubt go back to one of them or something new one day. But for now it’s Bobby B for me.
“I like the length of the putter, but where you’re setting up, I think you’re a little too hunched over. And that’s why SAM is saying you should have a face-balanced putter with a little bit of toe hang [to keep the face from closing too soon]. You have a little toe hang, so I’m OK with that. But I think it’s just where your eye line was … I’d like you to think about getting a little inside the ball line, which is better for your arcing motion. That will help quite a bit.
“If you’re missing the ball left, a little toe pull, that’s when your eyes are getting too far beyond the ball, leading to a cutting-type motion — like a trap-draw, if you will.”
Finally, how was the ball behaving just after impact? Even with my slight forward press, I was adding loft to the face.
“I see pretty good launch conditions. You’re hitting up on it slightly, and you’ve got a pretty good bit of loft on that putter already, which is OK, but you’re actually adding even more loft at impact. Again, that’s the arcing, open-and-close motion.
“SAM is recommending almost putting you at zero, which would take you into to negative territory, though the motion itself [makes up for it]. We never put anybody at zero; the greens we play are not billiard tables — there’s some texture to them. You still need a little bit of loft to keep the ball rolling up on top. Right now what we’ve got going is a backspin situation, almost like a wedge. Something to think about. I can take a little bit of loft off of your putter. But a little loft is your friend.”
I also tended to strike the ball “a little on the high side” of the face.
“But it’s really spot-on because of that rotating, closing motion coming down and through it. But your lie angle is great — we’re at a 7 degree lie angle, and at point-three degrees toe-up, which is really good. We can’t improve on that; possibly we want to change the loft a little.”
So that’s what Weizer did, tweaking it about two degrees on a machine a few feet away. “It’s not a heckuva lot, but the consistency of the roll will be pretty good. And just be cognizant of getting too far over the ball, and standing a bit taller, letting the arms swing a little.”
Duly noted. Stand up, dang it.
