New Putter Report

A new putter has joined the bag of implements.  Thank you, mom!

It's an Evnroll ER8, which is a mallet style with the asymmetric grooves that the Evnroll putters are known for.

I used it at the the local muni for the first time out and I was pleased, but there was no real magic there.  But then I took it to Wente the other day. 

Wente has bent grass greens.  Bent grass is found on a lot of the high end courses and if you listen closely to a TV golf telecast, they will mention the grain frequently if this type of grass is in play.

The grass grows to the side and not up.  It usually is "bent" towards the west in the northern hemisphere.  In Wente's case, this is toward Veterans park.  One can say that all putts break towards the park.  If you've not been on these greens they are very hard to read as gravity seems to take a secondary position to the alignment of the grain.  Putts seem to break up hill on occasion.  It is very difficult to trust this.  Your mind says one think and your emotions and the trust you've placed in Sir Isaac Newton, says another.   Typically the greens will have a very fast direction where gravity and grain align, and then a very, very slow direction when you are fighting both grain and gravity. 

On Tuesday, I gather my gear, trust the rains will not fall, and head over.  When the round was in the books I had all of 27 putts.  This was, I am sure, a record at Wente for me.  Now, to report honestly, I must admit that a lot of my one putts were due to my chipping.  And on this occasion, I was chipping like Phil Mickelson on a good day.  I'd chip and the other players would just knock the ball back.  That probably account for 4 or 5 of the nine one putts. 

When I assess a round in re putting, I feel good if I've not missed any of the putts I should have made.  We are talking from three or four feet in.   I have no expectation of making the longer ones -- and the pros' statistics that they don't make a lot of them either.  Ever watch Rory on a bad day?  It can be scary what he can't do with a putter.

I'll drop in a short description of the Evnroll putters and their unique grooves.  The striking area is not very wide, maybe an inch and one half.  The grooves are designed to impact the ball more solidly as you move away from the center.  All other putters, even those with grooves, have the center point, aka sweet spot, as the most solid strike.  Or the most efficient area that will create the longest putt with the best direction. 

If you don't hit a conventional putter in the sweet spot, the ball will either move left or right and will travel a shorter distance.  Guerin Rife is the designer of the putters.  He  did something about this hit/miss of the sweet spot.  His grooves cause a ball that is struck off of the sweet spot to travel as far as one properly struck.  He also measured a bunch of professional putters and found that the best ones will hit the sweet spot about two times out of seven.  The grooves also will angle a bad hit back towards the aim line. 

Before we call this the magic machine, we must realize that you have to do an awful lot correctly before the grooves come into play.  You can't pull it, push it, not hit it hard enough, nor too hard, and then we have to consider reading the green.  But it does seem to remove some of the errors and besides the putters are nice to look at!

The putters are not cheap and I saw one at Golf Mart that was marked down.  I played with it for a half hour and couldn't make up my mind.  I finally decided to let it go.  I continued to regret that decision as the weeks ran by.  But I was back at Golf Mart the other day and there it was again, but now in the used rack.  I asked for more discount and they took another $20 off the price and so it followed me home.

I have another round tomorrow at the local course.  The greens have been soaked and not in their usual condition.  We shall see what tomorrow brings.