Often overlooked, your putter is arguably the most important club in your bag. The average 20 handicap taxes approximately 36 putts to shoot a score of 90. Your putter is used for about 40% of your shots every round! Despite these stats, most golfers spend the majority of their time and money working on the golf swing, purchasing a new driver or irons and continue to wonder why they do not see a significant improvement when it comes to shooting lower scores.

            As passionate professionals and coaches who want our members and students to enjoy the game of golf as much as possible, we have dedicated a room to help you reduce the number of putts you have per round. We have built a putting studio in the pro shop that provides us the opportunity to; fit you for the best new putter for you, improve the characteristics of your own putter or help you create a plan as to what part of putting you truly need to work on to roll the ball in the hole more often!

Putter Fitting

            There are an astonishing number of different putters and styles available on the market. Blade, mallet, putter weighting, different colors, sight lines, length, lie, loft, grip type and more! All of these things can affect the way you align the putter head, make your stroke, and ultimately roll the golf ball towards your desired target. With so many variations of putters available, how could you ever decide on what putter is truly the best for you? With the introduction of our new Quintic Launch Monitor, we can determine exactly how each putter characteristic influences your stroke and work toward optimizing the right putter for your game. We offer good, better, and best putter fitting options.

          During the ‘good’ putter fitting, we will optimize your current putter for your game as best as we can. After stroking a few putts in the studio, we will learn what simple changes can be made to your current putter so you can make more putts. Sometimes a simple lie, loft or weight adjustment can make a massive difference when it comes to managing your line or speed.

          During the ‘better’ putter fitting, we will have you hit some putts with various putters we offer in the Pro Shop. Based on the results; the professional staff will be able to guide you into the correct putter head and grip style to help you make more putts immediately!

          The ‘best’ putter fitting option will provide you a head to toe custom fit putter made specifically for you. Customizing the head type, sight lines, putter neck and weight, we will be able to get you the absolute best putter for your individual stroke type.

Coaching

            There are 3 things you must get correct every time you hit a putt in order for it to go in (without getting lucky). First you must read the putt correctly, then you must hit it on the intended line with the correct speed. If one of those variables is off, you will miss the putt, regardless of its length. All of this is great to know but do you know the specific reason why you do not make more putts? Let us find out for you. Through some simple testing in the putting studio, we will determine if you can control your starting line and speed control with your putter. If you are efficient at hitting the ball where you want, and the desired speed, but still do not make putts, there is an obvious issue with green reading. Regardless of what your issue is, your coach will provide you with a plan to go improve on your deficiency so you can lower your handicap this season!

          The putter studio will be a great addition to St. Charles’ fitting and coaching programs. We look forward to helping you make more putts in 2020 and shoot the scores you are capable of!

Derrik Goodwin

Associate Professional