If football is a game of inches, what do you call golf?
Research shows that sound has more to do with feel than feel itself. By far it's the No. 1 source of feedback. I can give you three identical-looking putters with varying face thicknesses so they impart different sounds, and after testing them there's a 99 percent chance you'll tell me one of them is clearly the best in terms of feel. If I gave you a set of earplugs, had you hit putts and then asked which was the putter you loved so much, you wouldn't have a clue.
There's athleticism in putting. There's touch and feel, of course, but where it comes into play is in the ability to adapt. Tiger came to the studio one day. He wasn't happy with his putting. He found his shoulders were aligned a little left of the target, which caused him to take his putter back outside the line or with the face open and then steer it through impact. He couldn't release the putter, or he'd pull the putt to the left. He squared up his shoulders, which is a big adjustment to make. Tiger's first putt after the change missed. The rest were perfect. One putt was all it took for Tiger to adapt to a huge change in his technique. He might be the best athlete I've ever worked with, and I've worked with a lot.
What's the next breakthrough in putters and what we know about putting itself? I'm on the verge of something that will show the player exactly what should happen during the ideal putting stroke, along with clear direction on whether you're achieving it. Is it a putter? A training aid? An analyzing device? I won't elaborate, except to say that it will alter the future of putting and markedly improve the ability of golfers as a whole.
I have a studio, but I don't have an office within the studio. If I need to use the phone, I pick up one in the room I'm in. If I need to write, there's always a desk nearby. When we moved into this studio in 2004, I somehow was given a desk and chair, and it freaked me out. I got rid of them the same day. The worst place for me to be is sitting down anywhere.
Fixing something as basic as your posture has a big trickle-down effect. Watch Ernie Els closely when he comes back from the injury that put him out for the better part of the past year. After coming to the studio he started standing taller. That meant he needed a longer putter, a 36-inch model instead of 35 inches. By switching to a longer shaft, we had to take some weight out of the clubhead to keep the swingweight from being six points higher. For Ernie it feels like the same putter.
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