Shout out to Brandon at Hunting Creek… he’s a new assistant pro, and one of the fitters for Indiana… We had a fun time on the putting green today, and a new Edel has definitely been added to the wish list.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Edel and it’s fitting process… it’s actually fairly interesting. The first thing they do is attach a mirror to your putter, set up a laser lined up at a ball (With a backstop behind the laser) and have you set up to hit a put at the cup size disk holding the laser…
You set up, they remove the ball… and viola! Where you are actually aimed pops up on the backstop behind the ball. From there, they determine if your setup is consistently wrong (always left of target) or inconsistently wrong (left and right on various attempts)… Different head shapes apparently have different impacts on your ability to aim, so they have 5 different heads… I was inconsistent with my aim, so we went with the mallet style I’m currently gaming. Nothing wrong with sticking with whats comfortable!
From there, we played with various neck styles (offset, onset, straight) and alignment aids on the putter (apparently they have less of an impact). For me, I ended up with a straight neck putter, which is not something I’ve ever gamed… I’ve been a bad putter the majority of my life, so getting fit into something totally different did not surprise me. So know we have my aim sorted out, we moved onto weight… (there is probably more shaft length fitting done for others, but I’m 6’4" and play my putter at 36.5, so my only option was the longest shaft at 36 inches…)
Brandon slapped a 10g weight into the heel, and basically said he likes to adjust weight at the hands, and see how consistent he can help me get… My biggest putting problem is I don’t roll the ball consistently… I just never feel comfortable over the ball on the course… I’ve put in a decent amount of reps and used various challenges and games… it’s still a consistent problem.
Edel is unique in they have 2 different weights for the grip… a counterbalance at the top, and a middle weight that is… in the middle… interestingly, they actually have a tool to adjust where it is in the top of the club in 1 inch increments… Brandon basically stuck with between 6-7 inches for my putter… Had we had more time, we probably would have played with this variable a little bit more.
He lined up a string at 15 feet and told me to roll the ball towards it… in an ideal world, I wouldn’t have seen the result, as I was consistently adjusting speed and the goal was to see if I was making a consistent stroke… it’s an interesting challenge, but as we toyed with the weights, I could definitely see a distance on the green and feel a difference in my hands.
Eventually, we hit a winning combination… I don’t remember the specs, he has them for me if I decide to order one (dear wife, please order me one for Christmas)… but I have to say it was a very fun process and definitely unique from anything I’ve done in the fitting world.
My key takeaways:
I need to improve my aim from behind the ball… whether that requires a new putter or just different practice, I’m not sure… but there was a noticeable difference as we changed hosels, so there is definitely something there.
My distance control can be improved, and I think it might be a gear based decision.
Brandon is awesome. I’m trying to get him to join up here… He’s well acquainted with the strategy based golf stuff and he’d be a fun member to have…
