Welcome to another edition of the Fully Equipped mailbag, sponsored by Cleveland/Srixon Golf, an interactive GOLF.com series in which we field your hard-hitting gear questions.
Should I buy a putter with or without toe hang? – London N., Texas
To make matters easy to understand, let’s first evaluate what toe hang is and why it’s important. When we talk toe hang, what we’re really talking about is a handful of variables—neck style, head shape and ultimately, the amount of weight positioned in the putter head. Specifically, how much or how little weight is in the toe section.
To see your putter’s toe hang, try holding your putter at the center of the balance point on the shaft on your finger and take notice of what direction the toe is pointing. Most blade-style putters have some measure of toe hang, meaning the toe points anywhere from straight down, at a 45-degree angle or somewhere around that.
The more the toe points down, the more toe hang it has. Mallets on the other hand are usually face-balanced, meaning the putter face rests horizontally with the putter face perpendicular to the ground. You can also find face-balanced blade-style putters and even some mallets with toe hang, but for the most part toe hang is predominantly found in blades and face-balancing is more common in mallet designs.
Ok, so what?
Well, the more toe hang a putter has, the more weight the putter has positioned on the putter’s toe side of the sweetspot. This is particularly useful for players who employ an arcing stroke, where the putterhead actually swings open on the backstroke and closes after contact on the forward stroke. The extra weight makes it easier to open and close the face while staying true to the arc you swing the putter on. Which speaking of arc, putters with more toe hang are better suited for strong arcing strokes. Putters with medium or even a light amount of toe hang are best utilized by putting strokes with small arcs.
Face-balanced putters are designed to assist golfers who opt not for an arcing stroke and instead favor a more straight-back and straight-through stroke. Now before we go any further, let’s clear the air a bit here. Because we swing the putter from the side and in a tilted circular motion, every putting stroke will have some amount of arc to it relative to the target line. You could mitigate this with some fancy wrist and arm work, but generally speaking, every stroke has some amount of arc. Face-balanced putters don’t necessarily eliminate the curve, rather what they do is help golfers lessen rotation of the putter face as they swing their putter head square to his/her natural arc.
