Putting Lesson VS Putter Fitting

Putters are vast, from the grips, to the shaft weight, putter head, etc. It's almost overwhelming as I try putters at the store, as I feel the winning combination won't be stock.

I understand when it comes to a Putting Fitting they go by your putting stroke, hence the various putter heads and builds. And a putting lesson will help figure out the flaws of one's putting stroke/mechanics.

I was curious to know your guys' experiences from either a putting lesson or fitting, if not both. I myself have had neither, but would be kicking myself to know I'm practicing with the wrong putter. On the other side I go back to the archer vs bow argument. Anyways, just curious to know your guys' experiences and thoughts on the topic.

I got a putting lesson from Stan Utley. He bent my putter to make it a bit flat and added a bit of loft to it. Still using that putter. A lesson and a fitting rolled into one.

Steve

The easy answer is both.

But if you are thinking either/or, my answer would depend on what your putting is like now.

If you are putting it 40+ times per round and miss all over the place (way short, way long, way left, and way right), I would say lesson would be better.

If you're somewhere in the 30s and have a repeatable stroke with dominant misses, I would say fitting.

Fitting with out even a question.  Biggest thing I learned from my fitting is that with my old putter my aim was way off. Shape, lie, neck, lines on the putter all affect on how you aim your putt. if you are not aiming at the correct spot, how will a perfect stroke help you?

Logically you want the right putter before you move forward with putting lessons BUT you cant pick the right putter if you dont know what putting technique you prefer lol

Could definitely be confusing for a new player that doesnt know what technique to use... I'd say go for one of the combo platters that does a lesson and fitting together

I've done both and the fitting was very useful but the lesson really helped a lot... but it wasn't about the stroke. Almost purely about green reading and approaching putting from a mental POV... How to aim, etc.

A good fitting will be a lesson in of itself.

I had a putter fitting for the first time this off-season and the results were eye-opening. While I assume an actual putting lesson would probably be useful, to me the Samlab info has been invaluable and has given me several setup and alignment tweaks to work on heading into this season.

When I was at a place many years ago to get some iron shafts figured out they decided to show me the custom putter fitting area - and I thought it was a very nice gesture, but still sales was the motive. Used my putter and a couple of theirs and all we determined was that my aim (that day apparently) was dead on no mater what I picked up and maybe or maybe not would benefit from different loft. It was kind of fun, but all it did was convince me that my length and lie angle were great for my setup and I've carried that through with other putters (couldn't keep one that worked forever, lol) - so a nice benefit.

I had a fitting on Sam Puttlab 18 months or so ago. Was interesting to me that I got pretty much the same results with a face balanced Taylor Made Spider as I did with my old Scotty Newport, which of course has toe hang. There is a theory that these two different styles are for two different types of stroke. I didn't see any difference in performance. I think you can putt with anything. Best putting instruction I have had in a long time is in a book called 'The Lost Art of Putting'.

From that interview with the Independent. . .

“One thing I’ve found is that my putting has never matched up to the rest of my game. I’ve been wooden and technical on this side, and free-flowing on the other,” McIlroy says.

So how did a three-hour meeting with Faxon help?

“Well, two hours were just chatting and having a coffee,” he explains. “Then we went out to the putting green for an hour. It was really windy and I said to him, ‘Jeez, if it was this windy I probably wouldn’t practice my putting.’ He said, ‘Do you not putt when it’s windy? Do you not play on days like this?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’

“He’s very intuitive. He says, ‘From outside looking in, it looks like you’re a feel player. Would you like to have that in your putting? You just have to know what to work on – bring your putter, a sand wedge and a 5-wood.’

“So we went onto the putting green and he got me to putt from eight feet. I hit three putts with the putter and holed one of them, three with the sand wedge and holed two of them, and I holed three in a row with the 5-wood.”

“He [Faxon] says, ‘I wanted to prove something to you. A lot of putting nowadays is very technical and mechanical – you have to have the right length putter with the right lie and the right loft. That thing (the 5-wood) has 19 degrees (loft) and is about 10 inches too long and you’ve just holed three in a row. That’s what you need to get back to. It needs to be instinctive.’ And it was such a massive flip. We had that one session on Monday afternoon and I went to Bay Hill and had the best putting week of my career.”

The best putter fitting I've had to date came with a putting lesson with David Orr.

I really don't think you can be an effective putting coach if you don't know how to fit for a putter and vice versa. Both are too important to improving putting. If you fix your technique but have a badly fit putter, then your mechanics will go to hell.

There are Tour players that have poorly fitted putters for their stroke. Some putt really well, most do not.

But, I would check out Bruce Rearick, David Orr, Phil Kenyon and Preston Combs when it comes to putter fitting. It's not a coincidence that they know a lot about putting as well.

RH

I've never had a putting fitting on a machine, but I did take two putting lessons from an old instructor. If I had just gone for the fitting sure they could have mangled my putter to fit my terrible grip, posture, and setup, and I suppose that would have helped to a point, but just like a full swing, if you're not in the ball park you're going to be fit to a bad swing.

For example, my putting grip was so far in the fingers that there was no way you could bend my putter flat enough for what I needed. Setting a proper grip fixed that in one shot, and rolled the ball better.