Straight back straight through putting stroke

[t_har7]

What types of putters are best for this stroke?

Can anyone tell me some putters that best fit this type of stroke?

[pitbull808]

Most people say center shafted/ face balanced putters. Personally, I do the straight back straight through or PIL/pure in line but have never found a CS putter I liked nor putted well with for long term results.

[codylowrygolf]

anything face balanced. Helps keep the blade sq. longer. A good example would be most mallets... espically the 2 ball stuff like the SRT. A short putter is good too. It all depends on what your arm lenght is and how tall you are, but i would say if you are somewhere around 5'9" about a 32-33 in putter. 6feet tall about 33-34 inches. The important thing is that your arms hang directly under your shoulders.This allows you to rock your shoulders and help the putter go straight back and through.

[Diesel]

ideally you want a face balanced putter, which centershafted ones normally are...

 

i'd also add that a "nice" bend in the arms is best for the straight through stroke... locked arms lead to tension, which is killer in the putting stroke...

[t_har7]

Would the heel shafted Red X or the Circa 62 No. 5 be good choices?

[Diesel]

neither one of them are going to be face balanced...

 

the centershafted Red X would suffice...

[t_har7]

What are some good face balanced putters besides the 2 ball and the Red X center shaft?

[Geo]

neither one of them are going to be face balanced...

 

the centershafted Red X would suffice...

 

The Red X is most certainly face balanced, and I'd bet that the #5 is as well.

 

edit: Disregard ALL of what I said. I usually know 1/2 of the story. Now off to find myself a hole in the ground. ;)

[RobotDoctor]

What are some good face balanced putters besides the 2 ball and the Red X center shaft?

 

Other than a Cameron face balanced putter, try one of MacGregor's Bobby Grace putters. Bobby makes very nice putters.

[choeppner]

You can go with the CS putters along the lines of the Newport CS Prototype, the red X2. You can also use the SD #5 LB not the MB. Then you have the Long Slants, Or most any Long Neck. Basically you need either a Face balanced putter, or as close to face balanced.

 

-CHRIS-

[gticlay]

So I must be a straight back and through type - over the years I have learned:

1. I need a short putter - 33" or so

2. Mallet usually work for me

3. Stuff like JAT's with completely heel shafted heads don't work for me at all.

[choeppner]

Those criteria alone wouldn't make it a definate. You have to look at a couple of factors. When using a heel toe weighted putter, where do you normally miss. If you are a straight back straight thru, the tendancy would be for the ball to go right as on the gated stroke the face opens slightly on the back stroke reverts to square at impact and closes a little on the forward stroke. What type of Mallet ro you use. If ou find the balace point of your putter and rest it on 1 finger where is the slubface pointed. Where do you like the position of the hosel on your putters? Do you prefer a heel shafted mallet or a cented shafted mallet? Lot of different factors in deciding which method you use.

 

-CHRIS-

[gticlay]

Those criteria alone wouldn't make it a definate. You have to look at a couple of factors. When using a heel toe weighted putter, where do you normally miss. If you are a straight back straight thru, the tendancy would be for the ball to go right as on the gated stroke the face opens slightly on the back stroke reverts to square at impact and closes a little on the forward stroke. What type of Mallet ro you use. If ou find the balace point of your putter and rest it on 1 finger where is the slubface pointed. Where do you like the position of the hosel on your putters? Do you prefer a heel shafted mallet or a cented shafted mallet? Lot of different factors in deciding which method you use.

 

-CHRIS-

 

Almost always a slight push to the right - I currently used a regular old 33" RedX putter. Another killer putter for my stroke was the Cameron Studio #5 (the big heel shafted thing - like a JAT but not not the extreme heel shafted and what I call a 'ghost' centershaft). I think the RedX is a 'ghost' centershaft too isn't it?

[t_har7]

So are the only cameron face balanced putters center shafted, and I see most guys on tour using newport

style putters does mean that most pros use gated strokes?

[choeppner]

Not just CS putters are Face Blanced. You also have the Long Slants, Long Bend, And Long Neck Models.

 

-CHRIS-

[Boonie]

Heel shafted putters that are face balanced generally have a double bend hosel like a regulation 2-ball. But as Choep said their are long and slant neck face-balanced putters also.

 

Examples of the double bend are: SC Catalina 1 and 2, Odyssey Dual Force Rossie 2, TM Monza and Mezza Monza, Yes Tiffany etc.

[ifixclubs]

check out the new ctr putter from whitlam golf/gauge designs u.s.a. http://whitlamgolf.com/

[tanj]

C'mon some guys are saying that the Red X is not face balanced while the Red X2 is. Now the best way to test it is if you balance the putter by it's shaft on your finger and the face is parallel to the ground, then it is face balanced.

 

Having said that, the Odyssey CS 'Zing' like putter, although CS, is NOT face balanced. The Futura, is but in a strange way. In general, putters are normally face balanced because the axis of the shaft when extrapolated to the face intersects the middle of the face. The Futura is only balanced because of how Scotty balanced it with weight as he said on his site somewhere.

 

Below, the Yes Tracy is face balanced while the Anser Style Scotty is not.

 

Josh

[gticlay]

C'mon some guys are saying that the Red X is not face balanced while the Red X2 is. Now the best way to test it is if you balance the putter by it's shaft on your finger and the face is parallel to the ground, then it is face balanced.

 

Having said that, the Odyssey CS 'Zing' like putter, although CS, is NOT face balanced. The Futura, is but in a strange way. In general, putters are normally face balanced because the axis of the shaft when extrapolated to the face intersects the middle of the face. The Futura is only balanced because of how Scotty balanced it with weight as he said on his site somewhere.

 

Below, the Yes Tracy is face balanced while the Anser Style Scotty is not.

 

Josh

 

That is exactly what I meant by 'ghost centershaft'. A true centershafted putter does NOT putt the same as a ghost centershaft... true CS is very easy to turn offline with your hands while the ghosts seem to be more stable.

[cbae]

Having said that, the Odyssey CS 'Zing' like putter, although CS, is NOT face balanced. The Futura, is but in a strange way. In general, putters are normally face balanced because the axis of the shaft when extrapolated to the face intersects the middle of the face. The Futura is only balanced because of how Scotty balanced it with weight as he said on his site somewhere.

 

Here is an excerpt from the article that you speak of:

 

Speaking of manipulating the shaft…..We have only been talking about those designs with necks, but I do several different designs with no necks at all and the new Futura is one of them. You may be saying to yourself that I was just saying that quarter toe hang is optimal and now he is talking about the Futura, which is face balanced. The Futura is a face balanced design but I achieve face balance by gravity and not shaft axis. The shaft axis of the putter is short of center and would perform like a quarter toe hang design but it is the heavy stainless horseshoe in the back that creates the face balance. So in fact the Futura is a ¼ hang design with gravity creating the face balance.

 

IMHO, this explanation of the Futura's balance is a bunch of hooey. The truth is, he tried to make the Futura a 1/4 toe hanger, but he did it by trying to use the shaft axis offset that he typically uses in his blade models. His intention failed because he didn't realize that the deep CG position of the head (i.e. how far back from the face it's located) would make it impossible to achieve a 1/4 toe hang using the same shaft axis offset that he uses on something like the Newport. He tries to explain that the Futura was designed to use "gravity" rather than shaft axis position to achieve a face-balance. This is nonsense because gravity ALWAYS determines the balance on ALL heads. But, it's the geometry of the head that dictates how far the face rotates to achieve the final equilibrium position.

 

IMO, this statement tells me that he doesn't truly understand that there are actually TWO dimensions of shaft offset that affect the balance of the face. <gasp> The great Scotty Cameron doesn't understand what determines the balance of a putter face? Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.

 

Note: for the purposes of this discuss, let's call the "horizontal offset" how far the shaft axis is positioned away from the CG of the head with respect to the heel to toe axis and let's call the "vertical offset" how far the shaft axis is positioned away from the CG of the head with respect to the face to back axis.

 

What basically happens when you hold a putter in such a way to determine its balance is that the CG of the head wants to fall directly underneath the shaft axis, and in doing so may cause the face to rotate varying degrees depending on the geometry of the head. In the case of a true face-balanced putter, there is no horizontal offset in the shaft axis, so the face doesn't need to rotate at all for the CG to fall directly below the shaft axis. Simple, right?

 

So what makes a typical blade putter a 45-degree hanger? In the case of a blade putter like the Ping Anser, the horizontal offset is about the same as the vertical offset. Everybody knows that the shaft axis on an Anser-style putter doesn't go through the center of the head, but you also have to remember that that shaft axis extends in front of the face too. The "jog" provided by the plumber's neck hosel gives the shaft axis a vertical offset from the CG that is about the same distance as the horizontal offset from the center of the head. When the horizontal and vertical shaft offset are the same, the face will rotate 45 degrees to achieve the equilibrium position with the CG resting directly below the shaft axis. If there were less "jog" in the plumber's neck, the toe would actually hang more because the horizontal offset would be greater than the vertical offset. In the case of true heel-shafted putter like the Wilson 8802 putter, the horizontal offset is much larger than the vertical offset so the toe hangs much more than a Anser-style putter does.

 

With the Futura, there is a slight amount of horizontal offset (i.e. enough to produce a 1/4 hang if the Futura were shaped like a blade), but the vertical offset is huge, like on most large mallets with deep CGs. So with the Futura, the face still needs to rotate for the CG to fall directly below the shaft axis, but since the vertical offset is so great compared the the horizontal offset, the rotation is only slight and hardly noticeable. But, the reality is that the Futura isn't perfectly face-balanced and it's not even close to being a 1/4 toe hanger. IMO, it simply looks like a half-Word not alloweded job of trying to achieve a face-balance.

 

Edit: I've added some images that may describe what I'm talking about. According to Scotty, the distance X is the same on both putters, so it's the deepness of the CG that makes a blade hang more than the Futura, which is basically a "less-than-perfectly face-balanced" mallet as opoosed to a "perfectly face-balanced" mallet.