What is toe hang?

There’s a lot of information about your golf clubs that can be hard to understand. Even with something as seemingly simple as your putter. Thankfully things like putter toe hang are rather easy to explain. How toe hang is measured and how it harms or supports your putting stroke are important things to understand because these variables can help you understand how to purchase a new putter or potentially how to adjust your game to the putter that you currently have. With some help from our friends at Edel Golf and their new Array Putter line, we’ll dive in and help define toe hang and how you can measure your putter on your own.

MEASURING TOE HANG

Toe hang is the degree at which the toe of your putter will hang when allowed to free float. This is typically done in-person by allowing the shaft of the putter to rest in your palms, or by putting the putter on a table and letting the head hang off the side. When you do this, you’ll be able to see the toe of the putter drop. The more the toe drops the more toe hang the putter has. Some companies will measure this in degrees, and others will measure it in varying terms. Something like slight, moderate, and severe.

Face-Balanced Putters

You may notice that your putter has no hang, or that the face of the putter is pointing straight up. If you draw your imaginary intersection line again, the intersection point goes right through the middle of the face. This creates what is called a face-balanced putter, or a putter with no toe hang, like the Odyssey White Hot OG #7 CH. Traditionally face-balanced properties have been reserved for mallet shapes, but recently there has been a surge in face-balanced blade options, like the Toulon Chicago. There are also lots of mallet shapes available, like the Odyssey White Hot OG #7 Lineup, that have options available with varying toe hangs.

We have a full page dedicated to how toe hang affects your putting stroke which we suggest you read here, but the general idea is that the more arc you have in your putting stroke the more toe hang you will want in your putter to support that stroke arc instead of fighting against it. By matching up these two characteristics of your stroke, you’ll be able to square the putter up at impact more consistently leading to more putts made.

Anything outside of those bounds will end up fighting against your putting stroke and could be the reason you can’t seem to drop those putts in. If you’re playing too much toe hang you’ll notice that the face is going to be open at impact and you’re going to be pushing lots of putts. If you’re playing something that doesn’t have enough toe hang you’ll notice that you’re pulling lots of putts off your intended start line.

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!