Chewing the fat at NCG Towers the other day, one of my colleagues was saying he has 4° of loft on his putter and another colleague was intrigued. Putter loft? It’s a good question, and not all golfers actually know why.
When we buy new drivers, fairway woods or even irons, a key thing people are always eager to find out is what loft is correct for them. The adjustability available in most woods now means manufacturers can alter the lofts to match your specific swing.
But one thing people often forget about is putter loft.
So why is putter loft important?
Loft is needed on a putter because as the ball rests on the green it pushes down slightly into the grass. The loft is therefore needed to lift the ball up and on to the surface for an end-over-end smooth roll.
If you have too little loft on your putter it will drive the ball into the green making it difficult to get it rolling quickly. Too much loft and ball will hop on impact and skid more before rolling out.
Scotty Cameron say the perfect amount of putter loft to use is 3.5° as this is optimum for lifting the ball up and onto the surface for a smooth roll. Whereas Odyssey choose to use 3° of loft on their putters instead – loft that comes set on the putter is called static loft.
Nearly all golfers either add or take away loft at impact due to their stroke tendencies – this is known as dynamic loft.
The graphic below displays data collected on SAM Puttlab. You can see the static putter loft is set at 3°. As the player is pulling their hands back at impact, however, they are adding loft which makes the dynamic loft (below called effective) 5.4°.
Having the correct amount of loft allows you to produce the correct launch angle. You can see on the image, because the loft is too great, it is generating backspin. This is not ideal to say the least – the best putters use topspin to generate a true roll and get the ball to stay on line.
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