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Interesting study on putter grooves


CougarRed

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From the folks at Cleveland, presented in 2018 at a conference in Australia:Variable Face Milling to Normalize Putter Ball Speed and Maximize Forgiveness

First they show that deeper grooves spaced tightly (smaller pitch) produce less ball speed than shallower grooves spaced wider.

Then they compare two mallets, one with no grooves and one with variable grooves deep/tightly spaced around the sweet spot, and shallow/wider on the toe and heel. The putter without grooves shows a parbolic pattern (blue dots) where toe and heel hits progressively go shorter as the strike occurs further from the sweetspot. The putter with variable milling shows a much more linear pattern of consistent rollout no matter the strike position.

screenshot-2020-06-26-07-30-43.png

An independent study of putter grooves from Taylormade, Odyssey, Ping, Evnroll, Bettinardi and Cleveland seem to confirm these findings:

"Cleveland’s Optimized Face Milling delivered the most consistent ball speeds of all the putters (just 0.1mph difference between all putts hit, most were 0.3mph)." TESTED: Do putter face grooves actually make a difference?

 

 

 

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That's interesting and I'm sure the difference in grooves dose normalize distance when you do a test like this.

However in practice there are some issues that come up. One thing it does is cause putts across the face to feel and sound very different. And putts from the sweetspot feel muted, and they don't roll as far as you would think if you're used to a normal putter face. This is shown in your graph, the effect mostly comes from dialing back the putts hit from the middle. I think this is why pros haven't exactly gravitated to these putters. Even companies like PING who have the TR grooves available across multiple lines have a huge number of their staff requesting plain smooth faces.

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Same concept with evnroll and the old ping TR models. Only issue I have is if you're playing on slow greens... Uphill putts really need to be hammered. I think it takes a while to adjust to variable groove putters compared to ones that have no grooves or a face that does other things, like micro hinge.

In the picture above if therl hole was at 0,2.4 and a person went right from the straight face to the milled, he's missing almost every putt.. at least the ones he middles go in on flat face.

Instead of looking at a dispersion circle, I'd be more interested to see shot gained 18 data from various distances.

 

 

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Whenever these grooved face discussions come up, I'm left wondering how much people are actually missing the sweet spot. In other words, just how much are the variable grooves actually coming into play?

For example, here's a look at my impact pattern from a putter fitting I had at Club Champion over the winter. I'm your pretty typical mid-handicapper amateur, and putting is neither a strong nor weak spot in my game. I figure this would be reasonably relatable for anyone at my skill level:

image.png

If I'm reading that correctly, SAM considers the "Impact Spot" (or sweet spot, I guess), to be about 3mm wide from either direction of the dead center of the putter. It looks like my worst putt was 4.42mm to the heel of the center of the putter (or the impact spot?)

Based on Cleveland's graph, would any of my putts have even been impacted by their groove technology? It doesn't really look like it. At least not from a strokes gained perspective.

Callaway Rogue ST Max 10.5 deg.

Callaway Rogue ST Max 3L

Srixon ZX 3 hybrid

Ping S55 irons

Ping Glide 3.0 54 & 60 deg.

Bettinardi BB-1W

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I think he's looking at the graph as basically a top-down view of the hole. So if you placed the hole at "2.4" on the y-axis and "0" on the x-axis, that big clump of balls at "2.5"/"0" on the left chart would have been "made" putts. I don't think that's quite what is being measured or pictured in the graph, though.

Callaway Rogue ST Max 10.5 deg.

Callaway Rogue ST Max 3L

Srixon ZX 3 hybrid

Ping S55 irons

Ping Glide 3.0 54 & 60 deg.

Bettinardi BB-1W

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I think he's just saying that if you're used to a smooth face putter and you bring the grooves into play you may initially leave lots of putts short that otherwise would have gone in. I seem to recall Poulter having this exact problem when he tried the Evnroll. Then he walked off the 18th green and handed it to a fan.

I also agree with MaineMariner, looking especially at putts that are 20mm from the sweetspot just isn't very relevant. It's cool for the data but the majority of golfers are not missing their putter sweet spot by an inch.

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Let's assume in the experiment that the velocity of the putter face at impact was held constant. The key point then is the red putter has much better distance control compared to the blue putter.

If the hole was at 2.4m, then if the red putter had ~5% more velocity then all putts would have been made. In order for the shortest blue putts to be made, then velocity would need to be increased ~10% and at that point perhaps some of the center hit putts would bounce out of the hole since the ball went too fast.One could argue from this that the blue putter is actually superiour to the red putter, since one could purposely hit the ball off the toe on fast/downhill putts to gain more precision (provided directionallity was not effected).

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Another interesting study from the guys at Cleveland:exploration of center of gravity moment of inertia and launch direction for putters

They took a 360g adjustable head putter and compared:

An MOI configurarion of 4000 where all the weight (i.e. center of gravity) was forward;An MOI configuration of 4800 where a lot of the weight was pushed back (pushing the center of gravity back away from the face).

screenshot-2020-06-30-06-24-43.png

They studied mishits of 15mm from center face. Almost 0.6"

They found that first configuration, with the lower MOI and the CG forward, produced straighter mishits. Average launch angle from square reduction was almost half.

screenshot-2020-06-30-07-01-23.png

 

This is the technical basis for their new Frontline models. In addition to bringing the CG forward with their heel/toe tungsten face inserts to improve accuracy across the face, the hitting area features the SOFT face groove technology referenced above to equalize distances across the face.

screenshot-2020-06-30-06-59-26.png

Gift ideas?  Products I have tested.

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This is exactly what I think about variable grooves. I am a very average putter who will still miss a 4 footer like everyone else. I use impact tape on the face for feedback, and it shows that I have a very tight impact pattern even with my lack of skill. My wife is a non-golfer who has a putter to plink around on our putting green for fun. She has a pretty tight impact pattern when measured with impact tape.

I can get behind the forward roll tech of an insert, but variable face milling is a gimmick.

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Going from my Circa ‘62 Scotty into an Evnroll was a huge adjustment. I putted like crap for a while because the face felt dead compared to the Scotty.

After I got used to the feel my putting improved a lot and I consider the Evnroll to be the best golf club I’ve ever purchased.

G400 LST - TPT proto
TM M3 - Rogue Silver 110MSI 70S
21* Fourteen Type 7 Driving Iron - HZRDUS Black 6.5 105g
4 - PW Mizuno MP 18 MMC - SteelFiber FC115
50, 54, 60 RC Dual Bite - SteelFiber i125
Evnroll ER5
Snell MTB Black

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Even though I put little value in MyGulfSpy studies, for some reason Evnroll didn't crush it in testing this year like they've done in the past. I have an ER5 myself but like you... I just couldn't get speed control down, but also I just... don't like how it sounds. It has a kind of "ting" to it which really doesn't leave me wanting to come back for more. I reaaaallly want an ER1.2 but I know they'll probably never do it in LH.

If I could ever find a used SIK Flo, I would definitely try one of those out. On almost every putter fitting I've had... from 10ft and in I usually strike the middle, but I struggle more with vertical contact on the face, with a tendency to hit it high on the face.

 

 

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Just goes to show “to each his own”

I like the sound :)

one guy at my club has a sik and it looks pretty cool. It’s like a Bryson armlock prototype. Man those are expensive

G400 LST - TPT proto
TM M3 - Rogue Silver 110MSI 70S
21* Fourteen Type 7 Driving Iron - HZRDUS Black 6.5 105g
4 - PW Mizuno MP 18 MMC - SteelFiber FC115
50, 54, 60 RC Dual Bite - SteelFiber i125
Evnroll ER5
Snell MTB Black

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Way to much science for me. I aim it correctly, put a good stroke on it and sometimes it goes in the hole.

Titleist TSR2 GD UB 6S
TEE CB5 4 wood Fubuki Tour
Srixon ZX7 5-pw Nippon Modus 120
Miura custom raw 50 54, 56 Nippon WV 125

David Mills SG Dale Pencil flowneck
David Mills Custom torched Heritage SS flow neck
David Mills Custom Carbon flow neck Hertitage V2 with Nitride finish
David Mills Carbon Ming V3 pencil flow neck
Byron Rincon DH89

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As a younger golfer I used a Zing with the TR face. Off center strikes were common since I was a young, dumb kid and I remember off center hits rolling out pretty well. Since moving to milled putters I go back to the old Ping from time to time and it just feels way too soft. Even with a dead center strike, you have to hammer the ball.

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