Author’s Note:
The views stated in this blog are my own and should not reflect on your personal preference for a putter design. If you are that impressionable and tend to listen to everything everyone says about your golf game and your choice of clubs, you must already have a garage full of cast-off golf equipment and hardly need to bid on the Scotty Cameron putter I have posted on Ebay.
Furthermore, I do not intend for my comments to endorse any one club maker over another or to alienate any particular club manufacturer. Since no big golf conglomerate is currently breaking my door down to capitalize on my blogging achievements as their next route to marketing success, I think I am safe in posting the following comments.
If you want some really good insight into club design, I suggest you consult Golf Digest’s yearly Equipment Hotlist.
I have a thing about how my golf equipment looks. I’ve never liked the look of thick, bulbous irons. It took me years before I even attempted to swing an over-sized driver. They just looked like gourds on a stick to me, and I could only imagine that one would burst apart on contact like a shattered pumpkin on Halloween. It was love at first sight when I set eyes on a bronze wedge; I ogled it as if it was a sculpted, sun-tanned god. Traditional “wood” woods make me nostalgic and teary eyed in the presence of their beauty. I am a sucker for tradition.
I have played golf for a little over thirteen years and have owned just two putters. My first was a very heavy and extremely traditional Ping Anser. I loved it, right down to the lovely ‘ping’ it made as I struck the ball toward the hole. Alas, not all love affairs are made to last and when my putting went south a few years ago I needed a change. I considered experimenting with a mallet or a blade but, sticking with the the devil I knew over the devil I didn’t know, I ended up with another nearly identical Ping, albeit with the “advanced design” of a soft insert. I’d love to say “why mess with success,” but I must remember why it was that I was actually buying a new putter in the first place…
First impressions stick with me. Once I have it in my head that something looks a certain way, you’re hard pressed to convince me otherwise. Yes, I can honestly say I can’t stand comfortably over a golf club of certain design.
Of course it can be argued that form follows function but, MOI aside, I just can’t imagine what the club designers were thinking when they came up with some of the putters on the market today.
Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
By the Chinese calendar, 2007 was the Year of the Pig. Apparently many women mistook this for the Year of the Pink. My good friend has a pink push cart, a pink cart bag, a pink shafted driver and pink outfits to match. I dare say, they look good on her. I am not sure how she missed the opportunity to purchase the pink Pinfire Eagle putter to complete the ensemble. Personally, I have enough trouble getting the ball to the hole. I don’t think a dainty, pink putter would generate a lot of confidence, but that’s just me.