I’m developing a number of theories about this… First, for me, “deadly from seven feet” means that I am demonstrably reducing the probability of missing a seven foot putt by using this putter. I’ve been testing this along the way by referencing my old putter. I’ve come to the following conclusions:
- The Sentio putter puts a number of features into my hands that I would not have pursued, and consequently would have continued to miss out on in my choice of putter. These include:
a) hosel - I would not have selected a plumber’s neck design unless forced upon me; this turns out to be a premature judgement in hindsight.
b) offset - same as a). I was simply prejudiced for no good reason.
c) weight - I would have NEVER spent hundreds of dollars on a putter that didn’t offer me both hefty weight AND the option to further dick around with the distribution.
For a) and b), all I gotta say is, “It is what it is…”. But I’d like to drill down on item c) in more detail here.
The Sentio is by far the lightest putter I have ever tried putting with. I’m talking like factor of two here. Between the sheer non-weight of the head, and the “soft” touch introduced by the use of a polymer sandwich design isolating the putting contact surface from the rest of the head, I find myself having to work to overhit a seven foot putt; I’ve been sinking seven foot putts at the same rate that I normally hit a five foot putt - if that doesn’t instill a full bottle of confidence in my game, then I don’t know what will. So basically what I’m saying is that I can’t in any meaningful way ascribe this immediate increase in putting accuracy to an injected polymer sandwich design, much less the choice of “soft” versus “firm” polymer. I CAN perhaps more meaningfully ascribe these results to completely different characteristics of conventional putter design than I would have ever been otherwise inclined to experiment with.
Sidebar: I’m awaiting the arrival of my new The Open 150th Commemorative Putter from the R&A Shoppe. Their putter design is almost identical to my new Sentio’s, except for the polymer-in-the-head feature. It’s also a light blade, unweighted design with a nearly identical offset-and-hosel, so maybe this is the new trend in putters that I seem to have missed. Either way, I find it encouraging that a good putter design managed to find me, and at a time I was willing to experiment.
BUT… I haven’t managed to recalibrate my swing (or more likely, my sense of touch) to using the Sentio on longer putts (I mean, like fourty feet and out); I’m really acclimated to doing the Pendulum with a heavy piece of steel and guiding the ball onto a desired path. With the Sentio (and most likely any other light blade design of this type) I’m having to “push” the ball as much as “strike” the ball, and it’s not proving to be an easy process.
I’ve thought about this “short-vs-long” dilemma for years now, and I know what the solution is. Regrettably, the “short putt” to an engineering solution violates USGA “adjustability”. But I would LOVE to be able to walk onto the green with a weighted mallet putter, take my sixty foot stroke, and then pull the weighted mallet part off, revealing an unweighted blade putter for my short putt into the cup. My weighted mallet extension would be magnetically attachable/detachable, and add about heft x2 to the head. I might even have multiple weighted mallet extensions, each one weighted differently for different uses, including off-green cuts.
