When looking for a new putter, many golfers tend to focus, like Fully Equipped co-host Johnny Wunder, on strike and alignment.
“I look at putters like if I can aim it and I can hit it out of the middle,” Wunder said on this week’s episode.
But is that enough?
On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, Wunder posed that question to PGA Tour putting coach and GOLF contributor Stephen Sweeney. Sweeney responded that there’s a bit more to it for most accomplished golfers.
“I think once you get below, certainly in a single figure handicaps, you’re definitely leaving some meat on the bone there,” he said.
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Sweeney explained that he often tells people who ask him about getting a new putter that the real keys are making putts inside of eight feet and speed control from 30 to 70 feet.
“If a PGA Tour pro makes 25-footers at a 12 percent clip rate, if a consumer only makes, or a regular golfer only makes 2 percent of their 25-footers, they’re only 10% worse than a tour pro,” Sweeney said. “I mean, there’s no other area of the game that you’d say, ‘Hey, I’m only 10 percent worse than a tour pro, right?’ But you could be legitimately — from 4 to 8 feet, — you could be 40-50 percent worse than a tour pro.”
His point is that pros make so few of their 25-footers; looking at how many 25-footers you can make with a new putter is irrelevant.
What really matters is making short putts and not three-putting long ones.
“And on distance putting, you could be 70-80 percent worse than a tour pro on your proximity,” he continued. “So that mid-range level of putting is not that important to the average golfer, but… 3 to 8 feet and then outside 30, you need something sure, you can aim, you can start online, you can hit out of the center, but there’s definitely a weight component there for the speed putting, that I think the average consumer with a 7-handicap, they don’t match that up fully to take full advantage of what they’re investing in.”
So the next time you’re looking for a new putter, don’t go trying to make 10-20 footers. Make sure you can make the shorter ones and your speed control is good on the long ones.
For more from Wunder, Sweeney and co-host Jake Morrow, listen to the full episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped here, or watch it below.