BOMB: So, what did we learn today from our panels of better players, teachers and and geeks, or "ball busters," as they prefer to be called? (I mean, other than the fact that the games of chance in this casino town include the buffet)? I’ll tell you what: The green is no longer the place to say supersize me. That’s right folks, mega-mallet putters are no longer all the rage.

Today's session showed in many instances the preference was for manageable over sizable. And companies have responded with many offerings that no longer draw comparisons to potato mashers or branding irons. Not one putter that made the money round here in Mesquite was equivalent in size to Ping's beefy Doc 17 or the startling in size Odyssey Tri-Ball SRT. Sure, in may cases the large heads provide a lot of benefit in terms of stability, but if a guy can’t pull the trigger on a three-footer when he looks down at it, it simply doesn't matter.

In short, wedge grooves might not be the only thing being rolled back. Manufacturers seem to have downsized the putter of their own accord as well. After all, there is such a thing as taking things too far. Speaking of which, what time are we meeting at the buffet in the morning?

GOUGE: You're not bashful when it comes to the all-you-can eat mandate, so we'll line up at the trough at 7 a.m. But I get what you're saying. While drivers are still trending toward the Hoover upright, circa 1967 look, putters are getting smarter without getting bigger.

The shapes are still intriguing, like the weirdly successful Odyssey White Hot XG #7 (the one with the fangs), which will get an upgrade in '08 with a milled, tungsten-weighted version as part of the Black Series i line (there's a new White Hot Tour insert on these models). But the pie plate sized putter has dropped off the radar and no one seems interested in locating the black box. Stability, or what the eggheads call moment of inertia, is not all that great if you don't feel like taking the club back. That's what Ping engineers discovered, and it's why they'll have two versions of the nifty but relatively unobtrusive Craz-E putter upcoming in the next month or so, one that's part of the I-Series and a steel-faced version under the Karsten Series moniker. Even the more wild shapes (look for something called the Spider in the TaylorMade Rossa AGSI line) fit in a more compact frame these days. The challenge is to make the space more efficient, and that includes making the golfer want to use it to roll putts. That's why it's not necessarily the size of Nike's new oversized mallet (the IC 2020) that's most interesting, it's how the use of colors could improve the golfer's focus. The goal is to get the golfer honed in on the target, sort of like the effect that tub of cheesy eggs has on you every morning.