PUTTER OFFSET AND YOUR AIM

Putter offset is a very easy piece of your putter to understand and it’s one of the primary factors in how you’re able to aim the putter. It’s particularly important to understand if you’re a player who has a consistent miss considering your start line on putts. Believe it or not, something as simple as changing the amount of offset that your putter has without changing any other variables can make the difference between you lipping out a putt to win the match on the last hole, and dropping that putt in the heart of the hole. With some help from our friends at Edel Golf and their new Array Putter line, we’ll break down everything you need to know about understanding putter offset and how it affects your aim.

As a general rule of thumb, the more offset you add to a putter the more that putter is naturally going to aim left. Most of this is actually visual guidance rather than a physical change to the putter. This means that somebody with a tendency to push their putts will benefit from an increased amount of offset, while somebody that has a tendency to pull their putts will benefit from a decreased amount of offset. If you’re somebody who normally pushes your putts, you probably feel as though you are aiming straight and you see your putts fall on that startline which re-enforces to you visually that you are doing a good job starting the putts online and you’re wondering why you have a constant miss to the right side of the hole (for a right-handed golfer). The trick here is that you’re not actually pushing the putt, but rather you’re aiming to the push side to begin with, which may be caused by playing a putter with not enough offset. Increasing the amount of offset allows the putter to appear to start more to the push side.

There is also a technical benefit to adding more offset for golfers that often push the ball, and that’s that it works in the same way offset does on something like an iron head, by allowing the putter head more time to close during the putting stroke. For somebody who finds themselves pushing their putts, this small amount of time allowing the putter head to close helps to shift the startline of the ball back to the left; which in this case is actually now the true centerline of the putt.

Thanks to our friends at Edel Golf for sending us their new line of Array Putters and Breakthrough Golf Technology for providing the Stability putter shafts you see used to help demonstrate. Click either logo above for more information on the equipment used or to purchase your own!