So this weekend was the weekend of the putter! lol Saturday I went to PGA Superstore to play on their putting green and just try random putters myself.. I had never been to one of their stores and oh my goodness was it fun! I didn't leave with a putter but I did leave with a bunch of golf clothes.
Then yesterday I went to my fitting appointment at Golf Galaxy, also left without a putter but with more clothes. Sensing a theme here?
Anyway, amazingly out of walls of putters at each store, there were maybe 5 female specific putters.. not that I didn't try the men's putters as well, but the issue was that those putters are all 2+ inches too long for me. I at least got to play with the women's in 32 and 33 inches and found that 32 is definitely my length. Nothing to really do with my 5'4" height, but that I have really long arms for said height. The fitter yesterday also confirmed that 32 inches was my ideal, but had only one 32 inch club there for me to play with. Can I just say, if you are unsure of you correct putter length, even just this is a worthwhile exercise. I always grip down on my putter, and had to do so on all of the longer putters I tried, but the 32 inch felt AMAZING not so have all of that grip above my hands. It changed my comfort level IMMEDIATELY. The 32 inch putters feel like an extension of my arms, the 34 inchers absolutely do not. It was completely different control than just gripping down.
I was shown a bunch of data on my putting stroke at my fitting that basically specifies what attributes are ideal for me in a putter. A couple being that I would do well with a mallet over a blade and that I should have 30-45 degrees of toe hang. I have a little bit of an arc to my stroke, so the toe hang is supposed to help ensure you get the face back to square before impact versus face balanced putters that are more for straight back and forth putters. The kicker there is that one of my favorite women's clubs doesn't have the option to have toe hang and is only available as face balanced. I putt really well with it though.. it is the Odyssey White Hot OG 2-ball. So part of me is like, is this data more important that the fitter is giving me, or the actual feel and experience I had? The next club I liked, Taylormade Spider GTX also women specific, doesn't come standard with toe hang but I also did well with that face balanced version in store. However, I can order it custom to have a different hosel which will apparently give me the toe hang I need. Kind of annoying that I'd have to order it custom to do that and therefore don't get to try it in that configuration before buying either, plus there is a 4-5 week leadtime for this.. Another great option, and the one my fitter liked because it had the toe hang was the men's Odyssey White Hot Versa 12S. I may have actually putted the best with this one as I was quite consistently straight for the 10 foot putts we were working with and had way more distance control than usual. It felt really good. I sunk a lot of balls, and sometimes it felt like the ball had a magnet being drawn to the hole lol, it was very forgiving as even if I felt I'd mishit it the ball didn't go that far off target. And given the fact that I was using a club 2 inches too long for me, a correct size in it could be really exciting. The kicker with this one is it doesn't come in my 32 inch size at all.. yes they can cut it down, but I am a little wary of that because the shaft is some ratio of graphite and steel with different lengths of each in the bottom versus the upper part of the shaft for balancing.. so how do you cut that down and keep the appropriate balance? They make what I think is the same stroke lab shaft in a women's specific version (ie proper shorter length for those material length ratios as well) for the women's 2 ball club putter I mentioned above, but can I customize it with that shaft from Odyssey? No.. Or at least I don't believe so, I did send Odyssey a question about it today. Wouldn't it suck to buy this club and cut it down only to find that this throws off the intended weight distribution in the shaft and it doesn't feel the same??
So next steps are getting fitted by my instructor because I want to see what he gets for data. I trust him more than a stranger in Golf Galaxy, especially because he didn't seem to think highly of their services, and I want to see how his recommendations compare. My frustration so far is mostly the lack of female specific equipment here given the fact that the male putters don't come in my size for the most part. Why are two of the most popular female putters only available in face balanced also?? Many of the men's clubs are available in every possible configuration you can pick from as standard options with the same head. Frustrating. The stores also don't seem to stock many of the women's putters that do exist. At the PGA Superstore the entire large putting green was surrounded by 4 walls of putters.. and there were almost no women specific ones. Have others found this problem when shopping for a new putter?
And of course I will be obsessing about this until I find a new putter, now that I know how much better a correctly sized putter feels! I love this summertime golf distraction!
