Company Profile: Ricky Johnson Custom Putters

Set Another Place at the Putter Table

Of all the niches in the golf equipment world, putter making may be the most accessible. It makes sense really. The classic putter is but sculpted metal, whereas other clubs can become permeated with multi-material madness. A man with a design, some drive, and a mill, has a chance to put something of his own making in front of the putter buying consumer.

We all know that being new isn’t necessarily a stigma for a young putter company. Just ask Carbon Putters about how they did in last year’s Most Wanted Blade competition with their “new” Ringo 1/4. Sometimes new can be game-changing.

Today, we are going to take a look at Ricky Johnson Custom Putters. If you don’t cruise Twitter and Instagram looking for sweet putter photos, and you should, then you may not be familiar with Mr. Johnson’s work. Don’t feel bad though, we are going to take care of that oversight.

First, we are going to run through a little Q&A with Mr. Johnson, and then, I’ve got a bit of custom metal to share with you.

Closer Look: Ricky Johnson Five-O-Six Tour

Specifications

• Model: Five-O-Six Tour
• Material: 303 Stainless Steel
• Head Weight: 350g
• Finish: Polished
• Toe Hang: 3/4
• Face: GameFace Milling
• Length Tested: 34.5″
• Price: $415.00

Looks

Ricky Johnson has done an excellent job of taking the classic Anser blueprint and tweaking it to make something with original character.

My initial visual thought was clean. I think that is the best way to describe my overall impression of the putter. There is a level of precision that is right up there with the best that I have seen. I know that we have a computer to thank for much of the milling precision – and the milling is precise – but it’s the computer’s job to cut what the designer tells it to cut. It still takes vision.

I love the shape of the bumpers on this putter. They are smooth and flowing, yet sharp and crisp at the same time. That dichotomous nature permeates the putter. It’s quite blocky, but at the same time round and smooth. There are sharp angles on the neck, but the neck itself bends fluidly. The curving bumpers become quite linear at address, again marrying the curve and the corner.

All in all, it works quite nicely for my eye.

Should the polished metal look not be your cup or tea, there is also a black version available, but you will pay more for that finish. I did experience some glare with this one when the sun was over head.

Feel

My favorite part of testing a putter is hitting a ball with it for the first time. The materials and the visual geometry set the expectation stage for that first strike, but often times that impact is surprising.

With the 303 stainless steel, I expected a firm response from the putter, and it was there, but this putter really doesn’t feel like your traditional stainless Anser variant. I believe that there are two main things contributing to the unique feel of this putter: the lack of cavity, and the face milling.

The lack of a cavity places a whole bunch of metal behind the ball at impact. Because of this, you don’t get a firm, trampoline-like impact off of the face. Instead, this bulk plows through the ball. Now that may sound harsh, but it’s actually much smoother, and softer than I expected.

Migrate from the center of the Five-0-Six Tour, and you will feel the difference. Heel and toe shots are very dull and clunky compared to those in the middle. We will address the results of those off-center shots in a moment, but know that impact feedback will let you know immediately where you hit the ball on the face. Spend some time with this and you may actually figure out how to hit that center spot over and over. That’s my goal.

The GameFace milling also plays a role in softening up the impact feel, as deep face milling tends to do. The real story with the GameFace though is performance, and we will get to that shortly as well.

Alignment

By now many of you know that my personal preference for alignment lines is no alignment lines. I dabble in lines and dots, but I tend to return to the naked in the end.

If you check out the putters in Ricky Johnson’s corral, you will see that all of them feature the dot and line alignment system. Since this is obviously a consistent design element in Mr. Johnson’s putters, I went with it, curious about what impact it would have on my aiming.

For a while, it was a nightmare. Not because there was anything wrong with the line and dot, but because I had it in my head that there was some secret angle that I needed to put the putter head at to get the magic alignment coordination between dot and line. Remember, I frequently roll naked. Dots and lines confuse me.

After having the epiphany that the dot and the line are always lined up if I address it correctly, the mental roadblock went away, and I found that the combo was actually pretty helpful. The dot is really just an extension of the line. Since it is up near the ball, the overall impression for me is that it was very easy to get the ball and the putter centered together.

It’s an interesting system, and for some, the alignment duality may be just what is needed to hit the target line, and hopefully the cup. Add a dot to your current putter’s topline and check it out for yourself. Odds are you’ll see the difference at address, and you may even like it.

My only alignment concern comes from the bumpers that I like so much. Not having the two levels of the bumpers finish at the same spot is a bit distracting. Sometimes it’s nice to have the even bumper edges as an additional, yet subtle, alignment tool.

Playability

You are going to have to wait for this year’s Most Wanted Putter test to get a true gauge of the Five-O-Six Tour’s performance. I know that sounds like me passing the buck, but the overall accuracy of a test cohort is a better way to measure performance than just yours truly rolling balls solo. We will hold final performance judgement until then.

However, I’m still going to mention a couple of things that I found notable when rolling the rock. Hey, that’s what I’m here for.

First and foremost, this face is hot! Sure, most of the time “hot face” is a driver descriptor, but Ricky Johnson has really found a way construct the face so that it really gets the ball moving. I’m going to go out on a limb and give that roll promotion credit to the grooves.

I wish I had a high-speed camera. You know, like the one Nike used when the first showcased the roll of their then-new Method line. The tag line there was that the grooves, and polymer, got the ball rolling faster. That means less slides, hops, or skids, and thus should producing a more accurate roll.

As I said, I wish that I had a fancy, fast-shutter video system, because I believe that the GameFace gets the ball rolling incredibly fast. Like before you even hit the ball fast. There is zero chaos after impact, just roll. Sure, maybe it’s just my pure putting stroke, but I know my stroke, and thus I’m going with the grooves.

Getting back to the heel and toe hits, distance loss off of the heel and toe is minimal, and the ball tracks dead straight. It got to the point where I tried to cut across the ball to hit curving shots, but the ball just wants to roll straight forward.

I’m sure that some of you are going to blast shots past the hole when you first roll this putter. I know I did. But once I got the feel for it, it was actually pretty nice to know that it didn’t take as much to get the ball to the hole.

Welcome to the Corral Mr. Johnson

I mentioned earlier that the putter market seems to be the market where space exists for new companies to enter the golf equipment game because making a putter seems like it’s easier than making a driver. However, while entering the putter game may be “easy”, surviving and profiting is a whole different challenge.

The $325-$515 price range for a Ricky Johnson custom putter puts them right in the big leagues, battling the big names. Personally, I really like what Ricky has done. There are a whole bunch of unique features with this Five-O-Six Tour that separate it from the other putters out there. But is that enough to survive, and take some of the coin from the big putter players? That I can’t tell you. I’ve got to watch and see just like everyone else.

I will say though that Mr. Johnson makes a fine putter. The quality is top shelf, it’s unique enough to peacock to your friends, and it has some real tech that may actually help us putt better. That seems like a recipe for success to me.

Find out more at Ricky Johnson Custom Putters site HERE