The thought of spending nearly $1500 for custom-fit putter can cause quite the sticker shock.
After all, despite being the club players hit the most number of shots with in a round, putters are rarely a club players get fit for.
But a putter fitting can actually be one of the most valuable ways of quickly improving your game. Fully Equipped co-host and Fairway Jockey President Wadeh Maroun recently visited Ping’s PLD Custom putter lab to get custom fit himself and see what it was all about.
To start, Wadeh and Ping Master Putter Fitter Alex Webb started with a putter that was similar to the 36-inch model Wadeh came in with. They also started DS72 mid-mallet head shape that was specifically designed for Viktor Hovland.
After a round of testing, Wadeh received a +1.0 putting handicap from the iPing App putting system but Webb pointed out a couple of things that he liked after switching to the first model.
“Your natural tendencies are your natural tendencies,” Webb said. “One thing I do like with this is we did get a little more consistent with shaft lean. If there are two things in iPing that are kind of most important to me, it’s always going to be impact angle and it’s always going to be shaft lean.
“If we can marry those two together, then you should start a lot of putts on your intended line.”
From there, the next putter they tried changed a couple of things. They went with a shorter, more standard length shaft, but with a heavier weight to recreate the feel of a longer putter. Webb also wanted to try a head with toe hang, just to see what Wadeh would do with it.
After the next session, Wadeh was up to a +3.5 putting handicap and saw huge improvements with consistency. But they weren’t down as Webb wanted to improve the lie angle at impact so they went with a shorter putter again.
This time, they went with a Piper H head shape with a plumbers neck to keep Wadeh’s preferred mid-mallet shape, but increase the toe flow in the head and complement the rotation in his stroke.
This ended up being the head Wadeh and Webb settled on for the final build.
“The Piper H has your traditional Anser-style hosel, which gives us a little bit of toe hang which I think is great for your stroke,” Webb said.
Wadeh was happy that the final head ended up being one similar to what he was already using, but the hosel shape changed.
“I can’t wait to chuck it in the bag and see how it goes and see if I can get from that 3 [handicap] to a scratch golfer,” Wadeh said.
ant to overhaul your bag for 2024? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.