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Conforms with USGA Rules
US Patent Pending
The Forgiving Face Putter is a revolutionary golf putter face design that compensates for the major problems that interfere with successful putting; mal-alignment and mis-directed putter head path.
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The Forgiving Putter Face
Notice the vertical radius and the grooves perpendicular to the tangent of the curve. |
Although there are many factors in putting, the common denominator is how the putter face is presented to the ball at impact. If the direction is off, it is unlikely, no matter how perfect other aspects of the stroke might be, the ball will go in the direction of the face. Theoretically and practically, the three important factors determining the direction and to some extent how the ball will roll are related to the position of the putter face at and through impact.
1. The putter should face the target in the horizontal plane; not right or left. The following illustration was documented with use of the SAM PuttLab, an ultrasound tracking machine (www.scienceandmotion.com). This PGA player was almost perfect on 5 successive putts in direction and consistency. Not easily achieve by pros and certainly not amateurs.
2. The face should have the same dynamic loft as the static loft intended by the manufacturer. It is important that the putter at impact is consistently in the same vertical plane each time. The following illustration shows the player consistently adds 3 degrees of loft, thereby converting the 4 degree intended loft to 7 degrees at impact.
3. The putter path should be directed toward the target.
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This illustration shows the path of the putter head seen from above. The dotted line represents the back stroke and the solid line the forward path. Notice the path is virtually straight on all 5 putts. This is a remarkable feat not always seen in PGA tour players and rarely if ever in amateurs. |
Face Angle: Few golfers, PGA tour players included, can achieve perfect direction of the putter face every time. Many professionals line up with the putter directed outside the target and therefore often do not return the putter face on target. Amateurs are worse.
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Notice that the average is "good" but the consistency is bad. Consistency is important criteria in golf. The linear bars show the wide spread of the various putts, the computed average is misleading. |
It is possible to make the ball go in the hole with faulty technique, but not consistently. For instance, the golfer may strike the ball with the putter blade open to the target combined with a compensatory putter path from outside to in and make the ball find the hole. This requires the putt to be "cut" resulting in a side spin on the ball so it will track towards the hole and not along the direction of the putter path. The same stroke with the putter face square would take the ball to the left of the hole for a right handed player.
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Notice the putter path has loop in back stroke transition and is mis-directed to the left 6.1 degrees. There would have to be a compensatory opening of the face to get the ball rolling to the intended target. |
Dynamic Face Loft: Few golfers, including PGA tour players can achieve psychomotor perfection in putting. This is especially evident in the often overlooked face angle at impact in the vertical plane. The traditional putter has a loft of 3 or 4 degrees. It is anticipated that the putter face would strike the ball with the intended loft so as to lift the ball out of its resting place on the grass. Golfers typically change the face angle with their putting stroke. Some, including PGA tour players close the face down by delofting and/or others increase the face angle by adding loft at the time of impact. Some Tour players consistently change the putter shaft angle at impact as much as 7 degrees of deloft and others adding 5 degrees loft. That means the dynamic loft of the 3 degree putter in one player's hands hits the ball with a negative 4 degrees into the ground. The other player consistently adds the 5 degrees so it is like putting with an 8 degree driver getting it air borne.
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This player was forward pressing or delofting over 6 degrees on each putt. The consistency was good, but the only way this stroke could keep from hitting the ball into the ground would be to use a putter with a 9 degree loft. |
Lack of Consistency: An analysis of data collected over the past 3 years from over 100 PGA tour players and half as many amateur friends showed that 11% of tour players changed the loft 2 or more degrees in each of 5 ultrasound measured putts. 35% of the amateurs did the same. This means one time it is less loft and the next time much more. It is important to know that these observations were made in a controlled environment. All putts were 10 feet and straight. Testing has not been done on longer putts or putts of varied length or breaking putts. It might be anticipated that the factors occurring during play may result in increased variability. It is not known how shaft angles vary in competition or play.
Putter Path: Few PGA tour players have a perfect putter path to the target and almost no amateurs have a perfect putter path.
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This is an exaggerated example of cutting a putt path by a right handed golfer. |
The compensatory open putter face would be required to get the ball tracking on line as illustrated below where the player had open face at impact and worse add address.
The Forgiving Face's design compensates for the golfer's inability to consistently have perfect alignment and putter path. The face design includes a vertical radius as opposed to the traditional flat face. The face loft is 2 degrees as opposed to the typical 3-4 degrees. There are conventional USGA conforming series of grooves that importantly are placed perpendicular to the tangent of the face radius.
Therefore, in the vertical plane, the Forgiving Face makes the same presentation to the ball whether delofted or loft was added. The impact geometry is the same independent of the vertical shaft angle at impact. The place of impact on the face may vary up or down, but the impact geometry is uniform.
[impact geometry]
The other problem is the resultant path of the putter. As mentioned above the typical player's putter path is not perfect, often going from outside to in. The putter path is rarely directed away from the player.
The conventional flat face putter when striking a ball results in a circular impact geometry as illustrated below.
This illustration was created by spraying the putter face with "Face On" temporary paint. The mark on the 3 degree putter face is above and the corresponding mark on the ball is below.
This is in contrast to that produced by the Forgiving Face which is similar to that produced by leading edge of a wedge. The impact geometry is horizontal, not round in nature and has less surface area.
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Impact Geometry of Wedge and Ball |
The vertical radius with the horizontal grooves or ridges results in the impact geometry being horizontal in nature. It is as though the golfer impacted the ball with the front end of a sand wedge as is often done even by PGA players as a club alternative for balls up against the longer grass on the fringe of the green as shown above. It is also likened to a ball bladed with a 5 iron. The ball goes low and straight.
The impact of the Forgiving Face ridges results in a mark on the face and the corresponding mark on the ball proving the minimal surface area of contact and the horizontal orientation of the impact.
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Notice the horizontal nature of the impact geometry on the putter face. |
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Notice the horizontal nature of the impact geometry on the ball. |
Thus we have the scientific explanation for the difference in putter face performance of the Forgiving Face Putter.
Contact Us
to ask about availability.
Lanny L. Johnson, M.D.
www.PrescriptionGolf.com
July 15, 2007
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