Many wouldn’t think twice about getting fit for a new set of clubs if they thought it would help their golf handicaps.  But few—except maybe those players on the Tour, would ever think about getting fit for a putter. Choosing a putter is often an emotional decision while club fitting with its cold calculations is more of rational effort. But thanks to a few innovative companies, getting fit for a putter could become as common for average golfers as taking golf lessons from your local pro.

Why get fitted for a putter? When using a putter that’s not fitted to them, players must make adjustments.  As a result, they compromise their set-up to adapt to the putter.  Once players compromise in their set-up, they’re forced into making compensations during their putting stroke, ultimately resulting in inconsistent and often poor putting, which affects your scores and your golf handicaps.

Below are the names of several companies at the forefront of fitted putters.

KB Golf is among the companies leading the charge when it comes to fitted putters. Founded by Kevin Burns, KB Golf produces putters using stainless steel. They’re designed and milled using computerized state-of-the-art machine centers. Burns realized some years ago that thanks to technology putters could be tailored to a person’s unique characteristics. Golfers can even choose engravings like various alignment aids—a dot, a line, or multiple lines.

KB Golf’s key innovation is an interactive, computerized kiosk golfers use to choose a customized putter. The kiosk features a telescoping grip and a virtual putterhead in 3-D. Consumers select the clubhead and hosel configurations using the monitor. The virtual clubhead on the floor screen instantly reflects the choices made.

Next, consumers grip the floating butt end to address the virtual ball, locking in their ideal lie angle, shaft angle, and head weight.  The kiosk transmits the data via the Internet to KB Golf’s shop, which produces the club to the exact specifications in about an hour—the time it takes to have a golf lesson.

Coutour golf is another company at the vanguard of fitted putters. The company’s name comes from the word “couture.” It stands for custom clothing made to fit perfectly to each individual person.  Todd Sones founded the company. A one-time consultant for Research/Development for Tommy Armour Golf Company, he patented the Tri-Fit Method of fitting putters in 2003.

With Tri-Fit, a player gets into an ideal setup position with the help of a certified fitter.  Then the Tri-Fit device—made from an extendable arm with a grip, a couple of hinges, and a mirror—measures the distance from the hands to the ground and the distance from the point to the ball. Using the Pythagorean theorem, the fitter adds the squares of these numbers to come up with the correct club length, using the hypotenuse of the triangle. You can actually watch the fitting process take place by going to the company’s web site.

Other companies producing custom fitted putters are Ping, which uses a color-coded system to determine lie angle and shaft lengths, and Titleist, which uses a weighting system to better match head weight and shaft length.

Taylormade features housings for circular weights in the heel and toe in its Rossa Spider putters, as does Odyssey in its White Hot Tour line. Ontic produces an adjustable hosel, which moves from flat to upright. This innovation can make fitting a putter last not just the length of a single golf lesson but a lifetime.

Great putting is about fundamentals. These can be learned in golf instruction sessions and from golf tips in books and magazines. Mastering the fundamentals can help lower your golf handicap significantly. But it also helps to have a putter custom fitted to your exact specifications. The idea of going out and buying a putter off the shelf that will magically improve your putting is becoming a thing of the past. The future in putting belongs to those companies that produce fitted putters.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 22nd, 2010 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Golf Help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.