Zen and the Art of Putter Fitting

Written by: John Barba

“A flute with no holes is not a flute” -Zen Philosopher Matsuo Bashō 1671,

“A donut with no hole is a danish” -Bashō disciple Ty Webb, 1980

Here’s an existential query neither philosopher ever tried to tackle:

What is a putter?

David Edel, founder, owner and guiding spirit of the Austin, Texas-based Edel Golf has an answer satisfying to both the soul and the mind.

“A putter is a motion system and an alignment system,” says Edel. “Everyone should figure out first what type of putter they can aim correctly, and then figure out the motion. Those are the two criteria everyone should evaluate a putter on.”

Edel has spent over 20 years developing putters and putter-fitting systems, first for the Henry-Griffitts Company and then on his own. He may very well be the only person in the golf industry combining a deep knowledge of manufacturing and machining with golf swing bio-mechanics and an understanding of how the brain interprets what the eyes see and the hands feel.

And as a true-blue American maverick, he’s not afraid to tell you what he thinks, too.

AIM AND DELIVER

What would you say to a putter fitting system that offers 100 different possible combinations? Pretty elaborate, huh?

Edel’s Traditional putter line, with different heads, hosels, lofts, lies, lengths and weights has over 300 million possible combinations.

Why 300 million? Edel says having the right tools in the toolbox allows him to build the right tool for his customer.

“If the only tool you have is hammer, you tend to treat everything like a nail,” he says. “Everything comes back to the face angle of the putter, and where the face angle points is where the ball goes. So you have to understand what’s causing the face to do what it does, what’s causing the path to compensate for the face, and what’s causing the illusional bias.”

Whoa, they’ve never brought this up on the putting green at Dick’s.

An Edel putter fitting begins with a black 3’ x 2’ screen. At the base of the screen is a puck-like object (representing the hole) with an attached laser pointer. The laser is pointing at a golf ball six feet away. They then put a small mirror on the face of your putter and offer a very simple directive:

Square it up.

Where the laser’s reflection winds up speaks volumes about how your mind interprets what your eyes see when it comes to the putter head. That green dot is the ultimate judge.

Ideally the reflection should be dead center, a few inches over the puck. Too high or too low, too left or too right isn’t the player’s fault or the putter’s fault. It may just be a bad marriage.

“Loft makes a huge difference in putters. If you see too much loft you try to take it away,” says Edel. “If you don’t see enough you try to create it with your stroke. We can tell through the fitting if the loft is correct.

“If we put lower loft in there and a person aims it even higher, that means they’re trying to ‘see’ the loft. So we add loft to the putter face and next thing you know they’re not trying to ‘see’ it, the actual loft drops and they aim it better.”

PERCEPTION, REALITY & HEAD SHAPES

In the Edel fitting model, if you tend to miss right, you may be gaming a putter that, when actually aimed square, looks closed to you (assuming you’re a right handed player). To compensate, you either open the putter face so it appears square to your eye, or you compensate with your stroke. Either way, the ball ends up right of the hole instead of at the bottom of it.

The theory is head shape, combined with offset, hosel style and even aiming lines can change your perception of square, and by extension, of aim.

“Perception and reality have to be both the same. We’re not trying to change your perception,” says Edel. “We’re changing the tool you’re using. So if you aim something right, we’re not fighting right. We’re fighting the fact that it looks closed, which forces you to open it up. Or if you aim left, we’re fighting the perception that the putter looks open, forcing you to close it.

“So if we put something in your hand that looks hooky, and you’re a left-aimer, you’re gonna go ‘well that looks hooked, so I’m gonna open it up,’ and you wind up aiming straight. We haven’t changed your perception. We don’t go in there and tell you what to do. You use your own process to figure it out.”

LINES, DOTS & RIDING BAREBACK

“Manufacturers would be better off putting no lines on their putters,” says Edel. “Generally speaking, no line is better than wrong lines.”

Have you ever given much thought to all those aiming lines or dots they put on putter heads? We call them aiming lines, but do they help your aim, or hinder it? At Edel, the standard answer is “it depends.”

“The meat and potatoes of putter fitting are head shape, hosel shape, lie, loft and length,” says Edel. “Lines and dots are like fine-tuning knobs on old radios.”

For some, one line is enough. Others need two. For some it’s a dot, and for some it’s better to ride bareback. Edel has 35 different combinations, and trial, error and the laser’s reflection hold the keys.

Does it make a difference? Evidence during the fitting provides an emphatic yes. Rob had me square up an old 8802 they had in the shop, which I could do pretty much every time. He then put a single aiming dot at the center of the top line and had me square it up again.

I turned into Scott Norwood – wide right every time.

“That little dot just kicked your ass,” said Edel!

So why do manufacturers put lines and/or dots on their mass-produced putters in the first place?

“Because they think that’s what people think they want,” says Edel. “But it isn’t necessarily what people need.

“Everyone tried to find a one size fits all aiming scenario, but it just doesn’t work.”

IS COUNTERWEIGHTING A FAD?

Despite a growing industry trend toward heavier putter head weights and toward counterweighting, Edel believes most golfers would benefit from lighter putters.

“The weighting of most putters today is off-the-chain too heavy,” he says. “And then they go and add counterweight!

“A lot of these companies aren’t designing. They’re taking existing models and counterweighting them. The putters are way too heavy, and you’re trying to actuate muscles that you want to use for touch and feel.

Edel says there are two types of putting strokes: the radial stroke, where the length of the putt dictates the length of the backstroke (think metronome), and the linear stroke, where the backstroke length is consistent, but the force of the stroke changes. Most golfers, he adds, are hard-wired for a linear stroke.

“If you have a backstroke that’s only so long, do you really want a putter head weighting 370 or 380 grams? It’s hard to accelerate it through that short interval. The tendency is to go short, and then the player says ‘not this time” and they gas it and go long.

“The brain does a better job at peeling away energy than it does adding energy,” Edel adds. “The best putters were the best decelerators – they were able to stop their hands to pull energy out. Palmer, Nicklaus, Crenshaw – they were great decelerators. That’s because they used a lighter putter they could accelerate or back off when they wanted.”

Lots of companies are developing variable weight putters. But according to Edel, changing weight is one thing. Changing where the weight is placed is something completely different.

“By moving the weight farther down the shaft, we give the perception of head weight feel. When we raise the weight, we make the head feel lighter. We juggle those weights so that, in terms of head weight feel and handle feel, there’s a balance you feel in your hands and in your mind that equals your intention when you hit the ball.

“I believe putter head weights need to be a lot lighter than what we’ve been making them, with more weight dispersed throughout the handle for linear players. That’s where your brain wants to feel the weight…where it’s actually pushing. If the weight was all down at the bottom it becomes a wet mop dragging along the ground. The handle can move real easy but the bottom end’s too heavy.

“When you get the right weight it feels like you have plenty of energy and everything seems calm in both directions. When the weighting gets off you feel like you have to help it along.”

MAKING MONEY VS. MAKING PUTTERS

“The first putters I made, I made for people to buy,” admits Edel. “Then I started making putters that people needed.”

A 300-million possibility fitting system (pared down to 20 million for Edel’s new Torque Balanced line) is the centerpiece of Edel’s business. And it’s a business the big companies are keeping an eye on.

“The rest of the industry wants to do what we’re doing,” says Edel. “But they have to figure out a way to do so it that doesn’t tear away their base. They’re obligated by their investors to make money. The investors don’t care about the company; they only care about how much money they’re making.”

Evolution, even copycat evolution, it seems, is being confused with innovation in today’s golf world. Edel says it’s far easier for the bigger companies to let small outfits, like his, do all the grunt work.

“Then all you have to do is change an idea,” he says. “Ideas are not things that you can control, because they transfer so easily. You can’t patent the laws of physics. The challenge is to step away from your own bullshit long enough to see what’s really going on.

“I get ideas from going back and looking at Jeff Ellis’s book, ‘The Club Maker’s Art.’ You can see the ideas the industry professes as being unique and new can be found in a hickory shafted golf club from 1890.

“I don’t necessarily come up with ideas – I’m just part of the total evolution of golf equipment. It’s out there, it’s been done. It’s funny to think that I came up with an idea only to find that some son-of-a-bitch 150 years ago thought of the same thing.”

For more info:

Edel Golf Website
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