How Important Is Putting and Putter Fitting? A recent email exchange helped to remind me how important putting and putter fitting are to the performance and enjoyment of all golfers. I was fortunate to get to meet Glen Coombe – The Putting Doctor – for the first time at the AGCP Roundtable in October 2010. His web site is http://puttingdoctor.net. And when I attended the PGA Equipment Show a few weeks ago I again spent some time with Glen, he was demonstrating the use of the SAM PuttLab system – http://www.golfaf.com/sam-putlab/.
A few weeks ago, I asked him if he would prepare a small writeup on Putting for my March 2012 Game Improvement Golf Newsletter. In the course of corresponding with me he sent me the following information on how important Putting was to the results from recent tour events….
"It is time for the golfing world to start paying appropriate attention to the putter and putting. Just look at last week on three tours.
PGA Tour
Charlie Wi shots himself out of contention on the first hole.
Tiger Woods misses from close range and backs up all day.
Phil …. makes putts from downtown Carmel and wins!
Champions Tour
Peter Senior leaves both his chip and his putt short to keep a playoff alive
Cory makes clutch putt to win!
LPGA Tour
Putting stats the last two days have each and every LPGA player with 30 putts total.
Winner Jessica Korda wins in a 5 way playoff with a birdie putt!
Putting, if you can't do anything else you have to be able to putt!"
Wow, thanks Glen! And THEN there were the results this weekend, where Phil and Keegan drain putts to get into the playoff and Bill Haas makes a bomb to win the tournament.
Personally, I cannot think of a good round of golf that I have played where I also did not sink a number of important putts. And yet the stats show that only 25% of golfers have been truly fit for their putters. As Glen notes, we all need to pay more attention to putting – and in my view to getting players fit with the right putter.
The Fit Is IT!!
Tony