Phil Mickelson -- You’re the Best!

Your come-from-behind victory at the Colonial last week with a fantastic recovery approach shot on the 18th that went under the first tree and over the second to land within a short putt of the flag you couldn’t even see, puts you in my book as the best golfer on the current tour. So why are you ranked second instead of first especially when the first ranking player is still laid up?

Your driving is superb and your short game is fantastic. It’s your putting that is keeping you from being #1. Sure 25 putts in the last round of the Colonial would seem to indicate superior putting, but don’t be deceived; it is actually your fantastic short game that is keeping your number of putts per round down, not stellar putting performance.

Your less than stellar putting performance is not your fault; it is the fault of your putter and I think you already know this. But your sponsorship deal with Callaway makes you want to keep using an Odyssey Putter even when you know in your heart that it is not working for you.
Why else would you have two different putters in your rotation and feel the need to go to the Callaway Test Center in Carlsbad every couple weeks to work with Odyssey’s putter designer, Ron Hettinger, to try to get things right -- even Odyssey admits on their website that you are never satisfied with your putter.

Phil, there are specific design defects in the Odyssey Putter you are using that are actually causing you to miss putts; and if you used a putter that didn’t have these defects, you would gain a quantum improvement in your putting performance and most likely take the #1 ranking you deserve.

Of course Callaway and your agent, Gaylord, who negotiated the Callaway sponsorship deal for you, are both going to strongly encourage you to stay with an Odyssey Putter and they will be using money and loyalty as their motivators. Of course, money is important especially to a professional, but ultimately performance is even more important. Gaylord is also going to strongly encourage you to stay with their client Pelz who isn’t doing you any good either.
It is real simple in my opinion: When you change your putter from one that hinders your putting performance to another that helps your putting performance, your ranking will improve from second to first. Of course a #1 ranking will greatly improve your sponsorship earnings and potential for attracting even more lucrative sponsorship deals. The only thing that is holding you back is your old putter.

Phil, you don’t know me yet, but I hope to become your second opinion about putters and putting. My name is Duane Engdahl and I am better known in the media as PutterGeek. I hold three utility patents on putter technology, and I am the Managing Partner of Quantum Golf Company, the maker of the new technology Quantum Putter which made its debut at the Fifth World Scientific Congress of Golf in late March of this year.

Your current putter/putting guru, Ron Hettinger, no doubt has good intentions for your putting performance, but he is a putter designer and not a technologist, so he really isn’t qualified to do you much good with your putting performance. He has you using an Odyssey White Hot XG #9 and here is some of what is technologically wrong with this old putter.

1. Your Old Putter is heel shafted. This always causes the putter head to twist open upon impact, thus launching the ball off intended line and with an adverse spin -- obviously, this is bad for precision putting.

2. Your Old Putter has a bent shaft. This always causes the actual shaft to be out of alignment with the virtual power vector of the putter and that results in shaft vibration upon impact – this is annoying and cannot be good for precision putting.

3. Your Old Putter is face balanced. Technically speaking, this means that your old putter is out of balance toward the face. Of course, your old putter is also way out of balance toward the heel (see point #1) and out of balance is bad for precision putting, whether toward the heel or the face; and it is especially bad when it is both.

4. Your Old Putter has insufficient bottom to top dimension. Optimally, the center of gravity of the impacting object (putter head) should impact the center of gravity of the impacted object (ball), but your old putter has a top to bottom dimension which is way insufficient to make this principal of physics happen. This is not good for precision putting because more often than not, your impact will be on the top edge of the putter face instead of on the intended impact pad of face. Of course the top edge of the putter is a hard surface which will launch the ball much farther than you would expect, so your launch power is unpredictable and that is obviously bad for precision putting. And whenever the top edge impacts the ball below its center of gravity, the result will be a lofted ball launch which is even worse for precision putting.

5. Your Old Putter has a soft impact pad. This is detrimental to precision putting and here’s why: When you impact the ball at the margins of the soft impact pad, you will get an unexpected additional amount of power to your impact (the hard surface of the head absorbs almost no impact energy whereas the soft surface of the pad absorbs lots of energy; therefore, when the ball is impacted at the margins of the pad it gets unexpectedly greater launch power than when it is impacted by the soft energy absorbing pad. Your Old Putter makes matters as bad as they can be because it has insufficient bottom to top dimension – you will frequently be impacting the hard top margin instead of the soft pad but other times vice versa. Thus you will never know from putt to putt how much force to put into your stroke. This is incredibly bad for precision putting and in all likelihood the greatest cause of your putts sometimes going long and other times coming up way short.

6. One more thing about your Old Putter’s soft impact pad. Your sponsor, Callaway/Odyssey, say that their impact pad reduces shaft vibration, but nothing could be further from the truth. Any materials engineer worth his degree can tell you that when a soft object impacts with a hard object, the soft object suffers more impact reverberation than the hard object does. So installing a soft pad on a putter head will actually increase impact vibration of the putter – ironically the highly touted pad does exactly the opposite of what it is suppose to do. According the their website, Odyssey says,

“The multi-layer insert technology in the Odyssey White Hot XG 9 Putter was inspired by the latest technological developments in multi-layer golf balls, a blend of two materials with differing levels of firmness. The core of the insert is made of a soft, highly resilient elastomer material that provides rebound quality in order to return energy to the ball and get it rolling. On top of that is a thinner outer striking surface that contains urethane for fine-tuned responsiveness.”

Sadly, that’s all marketing BS!

7. Your Old Putter has a sharp leading edge and excessive front to back dimension. A sharp leading edge can cause green bite which unexpected slows your intuitive stroke at the worst possible time – just before impact. Excessive F/B dimension also causes trailing edge drag which lunges the striking face upward just before impacting, and the excessive area of the sole unnecessarily increases glide friction. All factors these factors at decrease putting precision.

8. Your Old Putter has a 3.5 degree loft angle – A severe positive loft angle such as this guarantees a bouncy backspin launch even when you press forward on the putt. This is very bad for precision putting.

I could go on, but to say more would be like beating a dead horse. By now you should realize how detrimental your old putter is to your putting performance and I hope you are ready to at least think about how a new and better putter would do your game a lot of good.

Please check out the new technology Quantum Putter at www.quantumputters.com – it embodies all the features that will help you make putts and none of the defects that cause you to miss putts. Then the next time you are in Phoenix, give me a call and let’s meet at your home-club, GrayHawk, so I can show you what I am talking about – as they say, it doesn’t hurt to get a second opinion.

About PutterGeek: Duane Engdahl, aka PutterGeek, is the leader in golf putter technology. He is not just another putter designer who creates one putter design after another; instead he is a physicists who holds the following utility patents on golf putter technology: 7374500, 6776727, 7041004. Grant Westthorp of Simpi Golf System says, “PutterGeek is a Genius!” Geoff Mangum who is thought by many to be the world’s foremost authority on putting says of PutterGeek, “He is my new teacher!” George Hibbard, author and golf teacher says, “Nowhere in the Golf Universe is there a better putter designer than Engdahl!” John Hardy, PGA Putting Professional for over 50 years says, “Duane, you are the best on putters and putting!”

About Quantum Golf Company - Quantum Golf is an original golf equipment manufacturer based in Phoenix AZ USA that specializes in making and marketing USGA Conforming Putters for PGA and LPGA Professionals and Avid Armatures. Quantum’s website ranks #1 of 774,000 on Google for key words “putting putters” and also #1 when searching for “USGA Putters”.
About Quantum Putters – Quantum Putters embody all the design features that help golfers make putts and none of the design defects that cause golfers to miss putts. Quantum Putters are designed and made for golf professionals and avid amateurs who want the equipment which performs the best at increasing their accomplishments.