By John Strege

Alignment aids are an important consideration in putters and adjustability is the order of the day in golf equipment. A new putter company, Brex Golf, has addressed both issues with the introduction of its first putter, the BG-1.

Brex Golf offers a complete package, which includes three hosel choices (with shafts) -- straight, offset and face-balanced -- that require only an Allen wrench to change. The consumer has the option of keeping all three or testing them, keeping the one they prefer and selling the other two back to the company.

"The modular design made sense, to be able to build the putter exactly the way you like it," Brett Burdick, the founder of the company, said. "Try them all and keep the one you like."

The alignment aid comes in a half-pipe that is exactly the width of the ball and comes with a center line. When the golfer's eyes are directly over the ball, the line appears straight. If they aren't over the ball, the center line appears curved.

"It's really natural, very intuitive," Burdick said. "It gets your eyes over the ball."

The putter head is CNC milled from 303 stainless steel, while the half-pipe is milled aluminum.

Burdick is an electrical engineer by trade, with an affinity for art. "Art's always been a big part of what I've done," he said. "So I've naturally been into design. Probably 20, 25 years ago, I designed a putter, had it machined and contacted some manufacturers."

He never actually showed it to manufacturers, he said, from a concern that his design might be appropriated without his receiving compensation for it.

"I've always just had that idea for a putter in the back of my head," he said. "Just in the last last couple years, I said I want to do what I want to do, be in a business with something I'm passionate about."

For now, the putter is available only at the website, at $299 for one with a single hosel, and $475 for the complete package with the option of selling back two of the hosels. It also has a return policy that allows trying the putter. "We will refund the full amount if the putter is returned in new and unused condition within 30 days," the policy states.

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The demand for belly putters caused by the number of PGA Tour players winning with them has created a dilemma: One size does not fit all.

Of course, the same holds for regular putters, too, but the disparity in ideal length is substantially greater in a belly putter. Ping has cleverly addressed this issue with its introduction of an adjustable putter shaft on its Nome 405 putter.

The length of the putter can be adjusted telescopically from 37 1/2 to 46 1/2 inches. Standard length for a belly putter has been 42 inches. In addition, three different bends are available to accomodate straight, slight arc and strong arc putting strokes in accordance with Ping's Fit for Stroke putter-fitting system.

The length of the putter can be adjusted with a tool that "threads into a locking ring on the shaft," the company said. The ring is loosened with the tool, enabling the shaft to slide to the required length.

Two different materials are used on the shaft: steel on its lower portion and graphite beneath the standard Winn AVS 21-inch belly grip. The lie of the putter can be adjusted plus or minus two degrees from standard.

The Nome 405 with the adjustable shaft will be available May 1 and will retail for $320.

-- John Strege

Norm Alberigo, the head pro at Agawam Hunt in Rumford, R.I., is 48, has been tinkering with clubs for more than half his life, and in the process has developed ideas about putters that run counter to conventional wisdom.

Shafts generally were too long, the heads too light, their center of gravity too low, he concluded. It also occurred to him after fitting more than 1,500 putters that the offsets and lie angles of off-the-shelf putters were wildly off.

So he took to designing his own, the upshot of which is the new P2G2 TopStrike putter line being introduced.

"The idea evolved over 30 years in the trenches, watching people try to play golf and trying to help them," he said. He reduced the loft in the P2G2 putters to 2 1/2 degrees, increased their weight to about 400 grams to add stability on shorter putts, and raised the center of gravity and moved it forward.

The latter idea was for the purpose of transferring energy straight to the ball's equator, thus reducing skidding, hopping and sidespin, enabling the ball to start rolling virtually immediately.

Alberigo has tested the putters with local players, including Champions Tour player Dana Quigley, who, during the off-season (and before his son Devon was involved in a devastating automobile accident) shot a 60 at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, using a P2G2, Alberigo said. When the PGA Tour moves to Florida, the company will have a representative there introducing the putters to PGA Tour players.

For now, the putters are available only through the P2G2 website. Three models are offered, each in regular, belly or long and ranging in price from $250 to $295.

-- John Strege

Ken Flanigan, 45, is a former firefighter who was making putters as a hobby. Now he has begun making them as an occupation and has a new limited edition series that pays homage to his old profession and commemorates the 10th anniversiy of 9/11.

His company is called FlaniganBilt and his limited edition series is called the FireFighter 343, the number commemorating the 343 firefighters lost on 9/11. Only 343 putters will be available and for each putter sold $100 will be donated to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

"I was a firefighter in a small town here [Newbury, Ohio] for the last 10 years," he said. "I miss it. I miss the guys. Every time I hear the truck go by, I want to be there with them. I wanted to honor them and help the families, too."

Flanigan hand mills his putters from 1030 carbon steel. "I'm a huge carbon fan," he said. "Nothing has the feel of carbon."

When he began making putters as a hobby a few decades ago, he was grinding them by feel. "I didn't know what I was doing," he said. "I came to learn that you've really got to pay attention to center of gravity. Get that right and you can really improve people's putting. You look at some of the footage of Lee Trevino putting with that old [Wilson] 8813 you could see him lining it up a half-inch off the sight line, because he knew exactly where the center of gravity was. If I burn or etch a sight line into my putters it's going to be exactly on the center of gravity."

Flanigan's other offerings, still in the prototype stage, are classic designs on which he has attempted to improve the feel. The FB1 is a Ping Anser-type putter. The FB2 was patterned after "Arnold Palmer's personal 1963 Wilson Design by putter, Jerry Heard's personal 1964 Wilson 8802 and Lee Trevino's personal 1965 Wilson 8813 putter," Flanigan's website states.

-- John Strege

How much do you love your father? Enough to spend $3,000 for a new putter for him for Father's Day? Probably not.

It's called the Golden Putter, hand-crafted by a German company, Barth & Sons ("the Refinement Company," as it calls itself), that surely doesn't intend to sell a lot of these at 2,195 Euros ($3,184.85, according to the exhange rate on Thursday). The putterhead, shaft and personalized inlays are either hard-gold-plated or platinized and the putter comes with an elegant cherrywood case.

For those who do splurge, it will likely be the most attractive club in your bag, at least until it starts missing putts.

-- John Strege

Everyone seems to enjoy personalizing their equipment, even tour pros. Rickie Fowler, for instance, played college golf at Oklahoma State and is an ardent supporter of its teams. Fowler uses Oklahoma State's color, orange, as the paint fill on his irons.

Jeff Sheets and his partner Roy Tousley decided to take the popularity of personalization to another level with a new putter line design.

The result is The Tradition Putters, their clubheads made from pewter and personalized with medallions that provide a visual representation of your choosing, including college logos. The hand-crafted medallions are mounted into the body of the putter.

Why pewter?

"Pewter allows us to more artistic with the putter," Sheets, a veteran club designer, said. "We can do so much more with intricate art work. If you look at the medallions you can see the detail, all the way down to animal fur. It allows a great deal of pesonalization."

Of course, a putter is all about performance. "As a putter it works fantastic," Sheets said. "That's because of a couple different elements, one the face technology. Two sets of parallel lines criss-cross right in the impact center. It's more off an inverted waffle effect that produces very good friction on the ball."

That and slightly less loft is said to diminish the ball's skid, allowing it to begin rolling sooner. The Tradition is a traditional mallet design, "with a high momentum of inertia," Sheets said. "That aspect in its own right produces a solid, good-feeling performance."

As for the personalizations, the medallions available cover a wide spectrum, from a military series that features the logos of the five branches (Marine Corps, Navy, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard),to a collegiate series, a wildlife series and an Americana series, among others.

-- John Strege