Welcome to I Tried It, a GOLF.com series about golf items — apparel, gear, accessories, etc. — that we’ve recently taken out for a spin. We’re here to give our honest, no-frills takes on the latest and greatest golf or golf-adjacent items. So, scroll down to read about what we love about golf’s newest (or new to us) products.
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One thing I haven’t been able to master for my own golf game has been the conventional length zero torque putter.
I’ve never considered myself a bad putter, but I’ve also never really thought of it as a strength, either. So when L.A.B. Golf’s OZ.1i putter came out, a zero torque putter that didn’t look like a spaceship and had a similar milled feel to what I’m used to, I thought I should give it a shot.
That lasted just a few holes as, like my colleague Johnny Wunder has described, I couldn’t hit the hole from 10 feet. With most zero-torque putters, not just the L.A.B. models, I pick them up and almost instantly get a case of the pulls.
But when L.A.B. released a sweeper configuration of the OZ.1i, I jumped at the opportunity to try it out.
Why the eagerness? I’ve never before used a sweeper, broomstick, long putter or whatever you want to call it, but every time I walk into my local PGA Tour Superstore, I always like to grab the long putters they have and try them out. Each time I walk away, thinking there was something to the method.
Secondly, I figure that if I try a sweeper, it will have no impact on my conventional putting. Unlike a counterbalance configuration, which is a different feel of the same stroke, a sweeper putter is a completely different setup, stance and stroke. I should be able to go back and forth between the styles with little feel adjustments.
Thirdly, clearly we’ve seen how the style has resurrected Lucas Glover’s career and Adam Scott has continued to be relevant using a long putter nearly 10 years after the anchor ban.
Getting fit for a L.A.B. Golf Sweeper
L.A.B. Golf makes the process for getting fit for a sweeper (what they call a long putter), pretty simple and you can do it online.
You simply record videos both down the line (behind your target line) and face on (from in front of you), taking strokes with your driver (i.e. your longest club) and send them to one of L.A.B.’s fitters and they will spec you out a putter.
There are two different styles of using a broomstick putter. The first is a slightly shorter putter where you get more bent over and point your lead elbow at the target. Adam Scott uses this method.
The other is like Berhnard Langer, who stands more upright, uses a longer 48″ putter and drives the stroke more with his trail arm than his shoulders.
I initially thought I would use Langer’s method as that felt the most natural with the lighter driver. Nevertheless, I was spec’d for a 46″ putter at a 79.5˚ lie, the highest allowed.
My first ‘aha’ moment with a broomstick
When I first received the putter, I initially thought it was too short, despite the fact that I’m not all that tall and most broomsticks aren’t much longer than 46″.
I quickly realized that, because of the additional weight compared to my driver, I would actually end up putting like Scott, more bent over and driving with the shoulders and the putter spec’d for me was very comfortable for that.
Is a broomstick putter right for you? Here’s what you need to know
Moving the sweeper is very different than moving a conventional putter just because of the sheer weight. Not only is the shaft much longer, heavier, and has a heavier grip, but also the head is significantly heavier too.
Because of that, it took me some time to properly find the right setup to produce a repeatable stroke that got the ball rolling end over end. My results on my putting mat and outside under a string weren’t great.
But something interesting happened when I took the putter on the course for the first time. After the first couple of holes, I made almost everything I looked at. I was playing in a media day scramble at Seaview’s Bay course in New Jersey ahead of the Shoprite LPGA Classic, and while I would put second in my threesome, I made a 10-footer on our fifth hole, a downhill breaking 20-footer on our eighth hole, a 30-footer for eagle on our 13th.
Sure, I got to see the line on every putt, which certainly helped and there were a couple of strokes I would have classified as “weird,” but the fact that I made multiple putts from distance caught my attention.
I didn’t keep the broomstick in the bag, but kept it in my living room, rolling putts constantly with it, trying to get the feel.
Then I took it out again this weekend and posted a 72, my best round in months after starting the year on a constant train of 78s and 79s.
Where I stand on the broomstick
L.A.B. Golf OZ.1i Putter
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