Lie, loft, lenght, offset…

Lie is the angle that grips the club shaft from the bottom of the club head or in the ideal case with alignment at address between the shaft and the sole. The standard angle ranges from 70° and 73°. The criteria is set by the total height of the body, the way the putter is held and the position of the shaft on the club head (putters with a shaft inserted near the top centre should have a flatter shaft angle than putters with shafts inserted in the heel in order to maintain the same position by hand and eye above the ball). In case your lie is smaller than you require (you will position your putter on its toe), you will tend to angle your putters under the hole, if you position your putter on its heel (you need a steeper lie angle), you will measure it in the basic position above the hole. On the other hand, you will also come across excellent players on the green who will position their putter very steeply on its heel (62°-66° lie) but putt with great success. So other quantities enter the game such as the way to measure, the line of the putting stroke, but mostly routine and endless training.

Loft is the angle that grips the face of the hitting area with the shaft, or in the ideal case with alignment at address between the hitting area and the sole. The loft helps you to “put a spin” on the ball immediately after hitting it so it does not merely move along the base. The standard loft ranges from 2° and 4°. In order to put the ball into motion the 2° is theoretically adequate, but because you have to work with the so-called effective loft, i.e. the hitting area angle at the moment of the hitting stroke, the optimum position for most players is 3°-4°. Should your ball “jump” at the start of the stroke (with an approx. 2.5m long putt), your loft is probably too high, or your hands are clearly behind the ball at the moment of the stroke. If you feel the ball does no roll adequately, your effective loft is probably too low.

Length of the putter is measured from the end of the grip to the base of the putter in an extended shaft line. It is not only the height of the body that affects the optimum size, but mainly the way you hold the club. In purely statistical terms, more than 80% of players are most successful with a 33” long putter, but you must consider that the same 80% of players would get severe backache after completing a round of golf playing with a 33” putter. The standard length is considered to be 34”-35”. The change of the shaft length also affects the change in the swing weight and total feeling of the putter weight. This means that a putter with a shorter shaft for maintaining the same feeling of balance should have a heavier head and vice versa.

Offset means the position of the shaft (by the hand) to the face of the hitting area at the point of the connection of the shaft to the club head. This is usually expressed by the ratio to the width of the shaft, i.e. for example the figure ½ means moving the shaft by one half of the shaft width (approx. 5 mm). The optimum setting is based usually only on the personal preferences of the player. Golfers who tend to raise the ball when putting above all profit from a greater offset (with the position of the hand in the alignment at address before the ball).

Bounce means the angle of the bottom curve of the club. This ranges from 0° to 2° for putters. The bounce is to make sure that you “do not strike” the sole of the back part of the putter when making your stroke. A great bounce causes the putter “to open” with alignment at address. The basic criterion of Tour players is: the putter must not close :-)

Sweet spot is the ideal point on the club face for hitting the ball. The “sweet spot” is the projection of the club’s centre of gravity (CG) on the hitting area when the centre of balance of the club face must also be considered. If you do not hit the ball with the sweet spot, you direct the putter out of the “balanced position” and the result will probably be to send the ball in a different than the intended direction. The general rule is that clubs with a greater moment of inertia (MOI) have a greater range (width) of the applied sweet spot and are more actable for beginner players.