Putters: art or science? The minds that make the most important club in the bag mull one of golf's eternal mysteries

Golf Digest, Dec, 2002 by Mike Stachura

Which half of the human brain do putters come from? Is it the visual, intuitive right side, which makes things that look good, or the deeply analytical, logical left side, which makes things that work? In short, is putter design art or science? Today, with special $400,000 milling machines, infrared lasers and high-speed cameras that take 5 million frames per second, putter designers may seem a lot closer to Einstein than Michelangelo, their designs closer to the Space Shuttle than the Pieta. However, even those with the whitest lab coats realize there is a curious romanticism about putters. What makes one putter design work for one person and not another is a mystery no scientist has discovered. But they're working on it.

It was not all that long ago that one curious inventor began tinkering with putter designs to find a more efficient, forgiving type of putter. One day, doodling on the inside sleeve of an album cover, he drew up what in some circles was called "the plumber's nightmare." Today, the Anser, like many of Karsten Solheim's putter designs, is the most imitated in the game.

We posed the art-or-science question to some of the best putter designers. Their not-so-simple answers are as much poetry as physics. All of them remember what British Open champion Harry Vardon said a century ago: "Whether it is a plain gun-metal instrument, a crooked necked affair or the latest American invention, it is all the same; if it suits the man who uses it, then it is the best putter in the world."

DAVID MILLS
Designer, T.P. Mills Workshop
Mizuno Golf

"The great putter designs were scientifically functional, meaning the sweet spot or center of gravity was located correctly on the face, and they had correct balance, meaning things like the flange width and the hosel length complemented the putter. Dad still likes to tell me, 'You can design the best putter in the world. That's science. But if you can't sell it, it's not worth a dime. That's art.' Golf putters are a lot like clothes. The truly functional designs that also are nice looking always find their way back into style."

T.P. Mills Workshop III
$249
www.mizunousa.com
800-333-7888

BRIAN POND
Chief Technology Officer
Never Compromise

"Frankly, it's 100 percent of both art and science. By art I mean incorporating tradition and the subtle design features that make a putter work psychologically. The most successful products are the ones that pay close attention to both art and science. We actually go at it from both directions at different times. At any given time we have both factors going simultaneously, and sometimes they come together perfectly so the technology works with the design. That's the idea. It's a complicated product to work on, but that's the allure of it."

TDP 4.2
$190
www.nevercompromise.com
800-615-3850

JOHN K. SOLHEIM
Vice President of Engineering
Ping Golf

"At the root of our putters is the science. Art's kind of a touchy-feely thing, and it comes in and out of style. But what we've done is made the science become the art. The Anser putter started out as a scientific way to raise the inertia of a putter, and it's now turned into a piece of art. If you make something scientifically superior but ugly, if it works, then everybody is going to want to use it. And a year from now that's going to be the best-looking putter you've ever seen."

Ping Anser Specify
$175
www.pinggolf.com
800-4PINGFIT

DICK HELMSTETTER
Chief of New Products
Callaway Golf

"If somebody is going to make a new putter designed to putt better, there's probably a good bit of science in it. If somebody is just going to make the 9,000th copy of a Ping Anser, but wants it to look really good, then there's a good bit of art in that. To improve the mechanical efficiency of the putter or control things like rebound speed, you have to get very technical. Of course, whether you're going to sell it ends up coming down to 'Does it look good?' Now, how do you engineer art? You hire artists. I'm serious."

Odyssey White Hot 2-Ball
$215
www.callawaygolf.com
800-228-2767

BOB BETTINARDI
President
Bettinardi Golf

"Science comes in with the weighting and the lie and the loft and the aspects of the shaft and the grip, but the first thing is the aesthetics. Because if it looks good, your brain is going to tell your body that it looks good, and you're going to say,

`I can make putts all day long with this.' You can't let the technology get in the way. It's still got to look good to the eye. Of course, if it looks good, but it feels like a brick, then no one is going to want to putt with it."

BBX-80
$200
www.bettinardigolf.com
708-802-7400

SEAN TOULON
Vice President, Global Product and Creation
TaylorMade Golf

"If you take the proven shapes, whether you machine it or cast it, you're pretty much going to get the same performance. But you've got to do something pretty dramatic if you want to change the launch conditions, and that's where science comes in. For instance, we worked very hard on weight displacement so we could get a sort of high-launch, low-spin phenomenon in a putter like we do in a driver. We took the art of these beautiful shapes that were developed years ago and added technology to help these putters perform differently."