10/31/12: I have the privilege of working with PGA Tour Players over the last several years. This week I am at Desert Mountain, AZ just prior to the Schwab Cup Tournament, the last one of the year for the Champions Tour. Many more players are putting the Groove Golf Grip into play this week. Many others have taken the grips to try in the off season.
While working with one player, he said he thinks his putter of 10 years may have an indented face causing some putts seemingly hit the same and in the sweet spot to right and some to the left. He has a putter with an insert. I tested his hypothesis. Holding he putter so the face was to the sky, I placed a small amount of water on the sweet spot. I then slowly tipped the putter face back and forth. Sure enough the water settled in the depression and was captured there, resisting flowing out when moved. He changed putters.
Another learning experience occurred while placing a grooved golf grip on a putter. I do these fittings with the experienced men at the Champion’s Tour fitting trailer. This was a putter with a goose neck bend next to the putter head. We could get the grip aligned to the shaft, but not to the face of the putter. This is the first time I had seen this problem. It turns out the bend in the shaft was such that the putter face remained open, no matter how the grip was adjusted. I went back to the player, explained the problem and got his permission to take the head off and put it back on straight. There is more to putting than meets the eye. Oh yes, another reason why that was the title of the book Howard Twitty and I published early in 2012. www.prescriptiongolf.com/MoreToPutting/aspx.