In the last few years, since I’ve been associated with AimPoint Technologies, I’ve also considered becoming and Edel Putter fitter. Edel Golf and AimPoint have built a partnership around some common goals. AimPoint will teach you where to aim and Edel putters will help you actually aim there. Edel’s goal is to create a putter that you can aim exactly where you think you are. Each putter is hand made and made to order. There is no mass producing, no stock model and no short cuts. Each one is hand stamped at your request and is also premium priced. This year, I have decided to go forward with Edel and become a fitter.

Here’s a little information about David Edel from their website:

“The Edel Story

You might expect that a guy who is devoting his life to creating handmade putters was born a master with the flat stick, too. But ironically, it was his own putting flaws that brought him to where he is today. David Edel is a PGA Professional. He had dreams of making a living playing competitive golf but mediocre putting held him back, so subsequently he began teaching the game. And, over the years studied swing mechanics, philosophy and club fitting with renowned instructors and tournament players, including Ben Doyle, Chuck Cook, and PGA Hall of Fame member Roberto DeVincenzo.

In working with players ranging from top pros to high-handicappers, Edel realized that the best way to make a premium, finely tuned putter is not to mass produce a couple of models and then find someone who likes one of them — but rather to build the putter from scratch specifically for the person who is going to use it. With that as a guide and basic philosophy, he created a custom fitting process that takes into account all the variables of any player’s putting style. The empirical fit-testing data collected at Edel Golf enables the company to have a complete understanding of how to apply the Edel fitting process to “set up” the right putter for any golfer. With this many customized steps means there is no way Edel putters can be mass-produced—and that’s exactly what Edel prefers. Every single putter is one of a kind. To Edel, that’s the difference between a putter manufacturer and an artist. When you see the ‘maker’s mark’ on your Edel putter, you know two things for certain: it was created by David Edel — and built just for you.

The Best In Class

There are just some things in your life that you want to be absolutely perfect —things you won’t cut corners on. These are products of true craftsmanship. It might be a piece of original art, a classic car, or a handcrafted, bench-made putter. Nothing is more important in golf than having the right putter—ask any professional golfer. You use a putter twice as often as any other club; it is the one club that can have the most impact on your game. The driver leads the way, but the putter closes the deal. There is a huge difference between an adequate putter and one that you actually develop a relationship with. The best putter you could possibly own is one that has been created especially for you. The top pros don’t use off-the-shelf putters and neither should you. You deserve a putter that’s been designed and built specifically to match your game, your stroke, the way you see and what feels right for you. And just like the tour professionals who already own Edel putters, now you can have a putter custom-made for you by a true craftsman at Edel Golf.”

There are 4 different lines of putters from the Basic model to the Variable Loft Series. Some come with special site lines, some with removable weights and others with removable faces.

Here’s a description of the fitting process from the Edel Golf website:

“3 Step Fitting Process

The three-step fitting process of finding the right Edel putter begins with a basic but crucial truth: golfers see differently. Each golfer relies on their eyes to set up a putt, and most golfers – even the best players in the world, touring professionals on the PGA Tour – have imperfect visual aim. The following quick and easy steps provides astute golfers with the tools and customization previously available only to touring professionals.

Assessment

The first step is to assess a golfer’s aim. The golfer aims at a small laser projector that looks similar to an actual golf hole. When the ball is removed, the laser beam reflects off a mirrored putter face, then the reflected beam projects onto a black screen positioned vertically behind the projector, showing the difference between the golfer’s aim and the actual target.

Personalization

After the golfer’s aim is determined, the second step is to find the right fit, which the fitter has at their side a unique system of up to 273 million component combinations made up of various putter heads, hosels, offsets, lie angles to find the combination that corrects for the golfer’s natural aim.

Creating the putter

Once the right combination is found, as the final step, Edel inputs that information to hand-mill a custom putter that’s a perfect fit for the golfer. Edel craftsmen use a combination of old-fashioned craftsmanship and modern technology, coupled with the best raw materials in the world, to create a putter that feels right, looks great, and is customized with the golfer’s name or other information stamped into the putter.”

I’m proud to associate myself with Edel Golf and look forward to helping you with 2 big pieces of the putting puzzle.  They will also be offering wedges designed by JP Harrington which I want to look into as well.  Once my training is complete, I will begin offering fittings and may start to include a fitting into some of my AimPoint Green Reading Clinics as well.

My Spring AimPoint Clinics are starting to get finalized and thought I would share some dates with you.  Listed below are 4 dates and locations spread all over the eastern US and Ontario Canada.

When:      February 24 and 25th, 2011

Where:     Stones River CC, Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Who:        Hosted by Rob McGill

Contact:  Questions can be directed to Rob McGill from his website.

Notes:      Closed to members of the club and for the Middle Tennessee State University Golf Team

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When:      March 27th, 2011

Where:     DeBary Golf and Country Club, DeBary, Florida

Who:        Hosted by Jeff Peterson

Contact:  John Graham at john@johngrahamgolf.com to register

Notes:     Open to the public with a maximum of 24 participants

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When:     May 14th and 15th, 2011

Where:    Location is TBD in Providence, Rhode Island

Who:       Hosted by Dennis Sales

Contact:  John Graham at john@johngrahamgolf.com to register

Notes:     Open to the public

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When:    June 26th, 2011

Where:   Wyndance Golf Club, Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada

Who:      Hosted by Jason Hellman

Contact: Jason Helman at jhelman@clublink.ca to register

Notes:    Open to the public and limited to the first 24 paid entrants.

Hopefully, one these locations will allow you to learn this wonderful system. I will adding additional Spring and early Summer clinics as they are finalized.
Thanks for the support and Make Everything.

JG

One of the tricky things about reading the green is trying to determine to putts true geometry.  What exactly will the putt look like on the ground based on how far I plan to hit it? After I do that, I have to determine where to aim so that geometry, first of all, shows up and secondly, crosses where the center of the hole is.

There’s always been lots of talk about visualizing the putts shape on the ground. Imagine a cup sized track that the ball will roll in is an example of such visualizations you might have heard.  This type of visualization has made popular the idea of aiming at the apex of the putt.  What is the apex of the putt?  The apex of the putt is where the ball is the farthest away from the straight line that connects the ball and the hole.  It is the point that is the highest point of a breaking putt.

Take a look at this picture and tell me if you think aiming at the apex is a good idea.

This picture was taken from this weeks most recent PGA Tour telecast which AimPoint Technologies was working and using its emmy award winning putt prediction program.  I thought it would be fun to share what founder Mark Sweeney wrote regarding this picture:

“Another great example of why Apex putting doesn’t work. The AimPoint of this putt is 40 feet right of the hole, but the Apex is only 7 feet high. I hate to see where this putt would finish if you under-read it by 33 feet.”
The key thing to understand is that gravity is constantly affecting the roll of the ball and how it breaks.  The only time you will ever ‘aim’ at the apex is for a perfectly straight putt.  For all breaking putts, you will always aim in a different place than the apex so as gravity affects the roll of the ball, the track that you visualized will be created.

Please leave a comment below if you still have any questions and please consider sharing this post if you think others may also find it valuable.

One of the big things people notice when exposed to AimPoint Green Reading for the first time is how much higher they have to aim compared to what they used to do.  In fact, if you’ve read some golf magazines and putting books, I’m sure you’ve run across information stating that most people aim too low on breaking putts.  Why does this matter?  Here’s a brief explanation from Mark Sweeney as to why:

“Most people seem to habitually under-read putts, but a quick simulation shows that your second putt will almost always be closer to the hole if you over-read, rather than under-read, the break. An under-read putt is breaking away from the hole and is accelerated more by gravity, but an over-read putt is breaking towards the hole and is hit higher up the slope, so it finishes closer.

The image above shows two putts hit with perfect speed but with incorrect reads.  The under-read putt finishes more than twice the distance from the hole as the over-read putt.  Real life tests have also shown that over-reading a long breaking putt by two feet can result in a putt that misses the high side of the hole by less than a foot, but under-reading it by two feet can result in a putt that finished six-feet low!  So the same error caused an exponentially greater miss when on the low side.  So if in doubt, err on the high side.”

Hopefully, you understand why aiming a little on the higher side from longer distances is a wiser choice.

Please leave any questions or comments below and check out more AimPoint Articles by following the links below.