(And why the putter was designed the way it is)
Over the course of my life playing golf, and my twenty-five years in the golf industry, I realized one almost universal truth: golfers are not very good at putting.
You don’t just have to take my word for it. The average golfer in the U.S. (who maintains a USGA handicap) carries a 14 handicap and takes 35 (!) putts per round.
I also noticed one other curious fact: scattered here and there throughout the country were players using the sidesaddle method for putting and they were always very good.
During the Covid lockdown, I saw a movie called, Seven Days in Utopia. The movie, and book of the same name, feature a style of putting where you “face the hole” and it makes a very good case for why you should adopt this style. I sought out to purchase a putter that would help me test this style and what I found was a smattering of really funky putters. Putters made of odd materials like plexiglass or aluminum, and super-odd shapes and sizes. I could not find a single putter that bore the marks of a standard, modern-day head with all of the benefits that come with it.
All of this got me thinking… Given my background in the golf industry, I could fairly easily design a putter made specifically for facing the hole complete with long alignment lines and a high moment of inertia (MOI) for maximum forgiveness. So that’s exactly what I went about doing.
Knowing full well the stringent USGA rules for both equipment and rules of play, I worked with an experienced club designer to design a putter that was both legal and effective.
Measurement
- Since you get behind the club to look down the line to line up your putt, I felt there would be a big advantage to having the longest, most obvious alignment lines possible. The rule to bear in mind here is that a mallet putter must measure longer from heel to toe than it does from face to trailing edge. This putter head may not look like it conforms to this rule due to the long alignment lines, but it does. Also, a black head with white alignment lines makes the greatest contrast and, therefore, easy to align.
Moment of Inertia
- I wanted maximum forgiveness on off-center hits. Believe it or not, we miss the center of the face quite often, even on putts. So, I wanted to make a head with the highest MOI possible. That means placing weight as far out on the heel and toe and as far back away from the face as possible.
Design
- I felt it was important to make the putter center-shafted and face-balanced. When the path of your stroke is straight back and straight through, like it is with face the hole putting, having a face-balanced putter is important. Toe-heavy putters are better for putting in an arc, which is the main problem with traditional putting anyway. With face the hole, it’s much less likely that you will push or pull a putt.
Weight
- The expert sidesaddle putters I interviewed uniformly said that a somewhat heavy head is crucial for this method. A light head tends to waver on the back stroke creating a myriad of issues. For this putter, I landed on 440 grams being the best weight.
Shaft angle
- Regarding the head, it’s illegal to have a shaft angle of 90 degrees; meaning perpendicular to the ground. The angle must be at least ten degrees off of that, so, 80 degrees it is. Some of the other putters designed for this method are purposely made so that you can tilt the shaft to 90 degrees when using them. That is cheating.
Length
- The last element to consider was putter length. Methods for this style of putting vary, but the best putters I see use the method we suggest: lean a bit forward with your top hand out in front and your elbow tucked to your rib cage. This adheres to the rules of not anchoring your forearm or hand to your body in any way. Then you place your bottom hand on the lower split grip however you feel comfortable. With this in mind, we simply measured people and suggest putter length according to one’s height. Also, by basically standing upright it eliminates back issues that many golfers suffer with that use the traditional method.
I hope this explains both the reason for creating Face The Hole Golf and the design elements that went into the DT31.6 putter. We wanted a putter that not only conforms to the rules of golf but also works. We hope you'll give this new style of putting, and our putter, a try.