How To Choose A New Putter (Part II)

Once you have learned how strong your putting stroke arc is and decided on a style of putter to suit, you can then begin the process of choosing a putter with aesthetics that are the best suited for your eye.  

Many of the putters available today offer the golfer a wealth of options to help with aligning correctly. In theory, aiming at your target should be an easy task, but any golfer that has played this magnificent sport for a while knows that nothing could be further from the truth. One of the most famous mallet putters ever created was the Odyssey 2-Ball putter. It featured 2 true sized golf balls behind the face, essentially giving the golfer a line of golf balls that helped to better indicate where they were aiming. For many of the average golfers, having some form of alignment aid like this will improve your putting simply by improving your aim.

I’m sure you will have seen professional golfers taking lots of time on the greens aligning a line on their ball when they replace it after marking. This is so that it points at where they want the ball to start, and when used in conjunction with a putter that has an extended line running back from the face. This can be an extremely effective method of improving your aim.  

Of course, there are many golfers out there that find these alignment aids distracting, and they just prefer a simple putter head that has either a small line or dot on the top edge. Putting is a hugely personal part of the game and there is no right or wrong when choosing how your putter looks. Other things to consider when buying a putter are length and grip size. Most putters are available in 33”, 34” and 35” and as with the way a putter looks length is more down to personal preference than fixed rules. Taller people will naturally gravitate towards the longer putters whilst shorter people will often choose the shorter length, but it doesn’t have to be this way. 34” long is now considered the industry standard.  

The oversized or jumbo putter grip has become increasingly popular over the last decade as they are known to reduce hand action in the stroke. They now come in many sizes as aftermarket choices. When buying a putter there are usually only two choices, standard and oversized. Oversized is a strong choice here as the extra thickness is not over done and will benefit most players.