Austie Rollinson, Senior Director Putter R&D for Scotty Cameron, sat down recently with Mike Bradley, Senior Marketing Director for Scotty Cameron putters, to talk about his role at the Scotty Cameron Putter Studio.
Austie, talk to us at a high level about putter design and what we do here at the Putter Studio.
Well, it all starts with the player. We really want to focus on making people putt better. And so however we can do that is our utmost goal. Here at the Putter Studio, Paul Vizanko works with the best players in the world who come here to learn about putters and how they can help their game. So, we start there. Our design ideas come from players and what they need to help them perform their best under that highest level of intensity on the PGA Tour or any tour across the world.
So you've been doing this a really long time, 20+ years with another putter brand. You've been with Scotty Cameron for three years. You mentioned the tour. You were out on tour just last week. How do you take the feedback from tour players and work it into our designs?
Well, when I go out on tour, I like to just be a sponge and listen and watch. Our reps out there fit players, work with players, and I help when I can. But I get a lot of inspiration, a lot ideas from that. There is one player. He's not on our staff, but he's been using our putter for a long time. And he saw something on one putter that made him put his hands in a certain position. Just the heel of the putter. The way it looked to him, it caused him to want to lower his hands. He wanted them higher. And so we came up with some ideas of how to, in the design, to kind of make it so the heel looks lower to the ground to get his hands in the right position. A lot of those little kinds of details that these guys are into, the minutia of the design and how it affects their setup, which is going to affect their stroke.
That's just one example of just being out there. Being able to interact with them made me learn about the design features because I had never really heard that before. But he had a very valid point. So, it's great to listen to these guys. Just the things that they're looking at that we may not look at day-to-day in a putter.
We have a variety of shapes and neck/shaft combinations in the line. Talk to us about why we do that, who that is for and how we decide on those combinations?
Well, it's really up to the player, what they're looking for. And there's a lot of factors that go into neck style. So we have mallets. We'll have mid-bends. And now .2 and .5 necks, which gives a different amount of toe hang. But it also gives a different visual to the golfer and how it sets up. And a different eye position.
So you can think of something that's more mid-bend is going to be more eyes over the center of the putter. As it gets more to the heel, your eyes are going to be inside more. So, it's really looking at their eye-line where they see the line of the putt the best. Sometimes that influences how much they want to feel the face during the stroke.
They may have some rotation, their stroke, and having that center of the putter offset from that hosel, shaft axis, if you will, will give it a different feel during the stroke. And so their stroke will be maybe a little more repeatable with that type of toe flow to make them perform their best. So there's a lot of those factors.
Paul works with a lot of players here at the Studio on hand height. Kind of where the putter sits on the ground, where their eyes are and where their hands are is going to influence how that putter sits on the ground. So a lot of it's a geometry problem. It's sometimes a dynamic problem, as well. And sometimes an alignment visual cue as well. So there's a lot of factors go into picking the right hosel/neck style and head for a player.
So we've talked for years about the concept of toe flow and putter design and different necks and shafts for toe hang. What you and Paul talk about a lot is face awareness and the benefits of different degrees of face awareness. Tell us more.
Yes. So as we talked, there's a shaft axis. It's an imaginary line down the center of the shaft. And how that is positioned relative to the center of gravity of the head will give different amounts of toe drop/hang, if you will.
And, and also that offset also affects the dynamics of the putting stroke. So when they bring that putter back in transition at the top of the back swing down, given the angle at which they're sitting and the angle of their back, you're always going to have some arc in the stroke. And sometimes players will accentuate that arc by rotating their forearms a little bit.
When they do that they are opening and closing the face. And that center of gravity offset gives them a little bit of feedback to know where that is. If they add a force, it's going to be harder to rotate or less hard given that offset. And so sometimes you need to have that amount of offset match up with the dynamics of the stroke.
So they know where that face is throughout the stroke. They can feel where that face is. So, you talk about mechanical putters and feel putters. Feel putters are those that are really tuned-in to those dynamics to be able to repeatedly bring that face back to square. And so Paul works with the reps and with players to make sure that they've got that right amount of offset in that CG to shaft to give them the right feel they need to perform their best.
What is face awareness?
Face awareness is the ability of a golfer to feel during their stroke where the face is and, more succinctly, is their ability to bring it back to square at impact. And so a lot of golfers will have some rotation in the stroke, whether from their posture or some forearm rotation during the stroke. That's natural to them.
And so that face awareness is their ability to then know where that face is throughout the stroke and bring it back to square at impact. And so what influences that is, like you said, the toe hang. But it's really that shaft axis offset from where the center of gravity is. And so from a dynamic standpoint, when you hold it it'll have some sort of toe drop.
It also causes some sort of toe flow. And that amount of flow is basically a force that the golfer's going to have to interact with to know where that face is. And so there's a certain amount of offset that's going to work well with a certain player's dynamics in their stroke. We spend a lot of time trying to find the right hosel and head combination to be able to match that with the player.
And so that's what face awareness is, and that's how we work with players and use hosels and heads to get them the optimum performance to deliver that face to square more consistently.
So if a golfer was considering a Phantom 5 or a Phantom 5.5, for instance—two of our more popular mallets—what guidance would you give the player around which option might be better for them?
Well, there's a lot that goes into that. One is kind of the visual. Do I like the look of that hosel versus a single bent shaft? That's probably number one. Number two is eye position. If they want their eyes over the ball and they see the line best, a Phantom 5 would be best. If having your eyes inside the ball like on a lot of Newport blade-style putters that people grew up with, they're probably used to having their eyes inside the ball. I would say to go to a Phantom 5.5. But if they have a stroke that has some rotation in it, the Phantom 5.5 would be their best option because that's going to give them the most face awareness. Toe flow, face awareness...to be able to know where that face is during the stroke, to be sure that they're going to bring it back to square at impact.
Scotty Cameron, Fine Milled Putters. We only mill putters. What are the benefits of milling and how do we use milling to tune sound and feel?
Well, I'll just start with milling in general. In the past, a lot of putters were forged or cast. It's a very crude process, an ancient process, to kind of form the shapes. And a lot of times you get a lot of inconsistencies. So going from one part to the next, milling is a great way of producing something. But the repeatability of those designs is going to be affected by that process.
You had a lot of hand grinding on the heads to get the cast and scale off of it. So going to machining a putter, you're ensuring that the first putter is going to look the same as the 10th putter and the 100th putter and the 1000th putter because you've got a computer numerical control (CNC) machine that's actually milling it out of a block of steel.
The repeatability and consistency is going to be there. And that's why Scotty has chosen milling, because it's the best way of producing a shape and making sure every one looks as good as the next one. It's also a great way of having a perfectly flat face. Andso seeing where that face is pointed is really important to knowing where that ball is going. You want to make sure that that is flat.
Milling also brings in the fact that you can have different textures on it. Given the different cutters, the speeds and feeds of the machine, to be able to have different textures and having more texture, and that machining is going to give you a softer sound. Having less texture gave me a louder sound.
Scotty has always worked to have different textures. When we work with players here, they're looking for a particular sound. You can do that through the milling, and these guys here at the Studio are really good at adjusting those textures, whether it's a deep mill, mid-mill or flat mill to get different sounds and feels out of that putter face.
How does that deeper texture change the sound? Is it the amount of material in contact with the ball?
It's the amount of material in contact. Yes. When you have a really flat surface, it's like it's like a slab. So you're going to get more sound. The face is going to be touching more of that golf ball.
When you have more of a texture it's going to be less surface area hitting it. So, it's going to be a lot quieter. Because just having less surface contacting the ball during impact. The amount of area that's touching the ball allows you to really tune the sound pretty quickly and pretty accurately.
MOI is a popular topic with larger mallets, particularly, and it's an interesting thing because, you've talked to us about how at a certain point, there can be diminishing returns with chasing an overly high MOI number in putters. Talk to us about your approach to MOI and mallets, and how you balance CG and MOI to make a playable putter player.
So MOI (moment of inertia) is a measure of a putter's resistance to twisting on off-center hits. It's talked a lot about in drivers, and having a lot of MOI is a good thing. In a driver, and a putter, it's helpful as well. Having more mass located away from the center of gravity of the putter is going to make that putter more forgiving. But when you do that, the easiest way to do it is start making it larger. Drivers they used to go from 186cc and now they're up to 466cc.
That's a big difference in volume. With putters you've seen that going from blades to mallets to get that forgiveness, to get that higher end MOI. But when you start making them larger, the center of gravity starts creeping deeper and deeper. And that's going to affect your forgiveness, as well.
The deeper that center of gravity goes, even if the putter rotates just a little bit, the face is going to move quite a bit because it's such a long distance away from the face. And so in designing, I really want to balance the moment of inertia and the depth of that center of gravity to make sure that they're balanced in such a way that it's going to enhance their forgiveness as much as possible. Having high MOI and shallow CG is probably your best combination of forgiveness.
Going to a mallet we were able to get that inertia up. The center of gravity goes a little bit deeper. But then you've got a lot of real estate to put alignment marks, which is going to help the golfer align better. So it's really balancing all of those factors, inertia and center of gravity depth.
And then markings for alignment on the top and even the design of that to help them align the putter. And something that's pleasing to look at. That's another thing that Scotty really looks at. Makes sure that it's a piece of art that's going to give people confidence. But the technology is there to make it super forgiving and super easy to align and sound fantastic.
Our stock putters come in at 3.5 degrees of loft. Talk to us about loft and putters. What does loft do for a player? Why are we at 3.5 degrees? And how does loft affect performance?
In putting, loft is probably one of the features that's changed over the years since since I got into golf back in the 90s. It used to be about 4 or 5 degrees back then.
But agronomy has changed so much. Green speed, the quality of the green surface has changed such that there are a lot smoother grasses, so you don't need as much loft. The ball is sitting on the green and is going to be sitting down in a little depression. You want loft to be able to at impact get that ball up out of that depression and on the surface of the green. Usually, three and a half degrees is pretty good. And you have to factor that. A lot of times players will forward press a little bit. If they forward press a little bit, it'll knock that ball in the ground and it'll hop, which is not good for consistency. You don't know what direction that's going to hop. And as it's hopping, it's not having a consistent skid off the face. So, three and a half degrees really is optimal for most golfers around the world to be able to get that ball out of its depression on the surface, skidding and not bouncing and then getting into pure roll.
And that really helps golfers control their distance as well as controlling that skid, which is going to help them putt better, make more putts, make sure that the ball is going to finish near the hole consistently rather than being short. One time long, the next great.
Is there a recipe or a formula we follow, generally speaking, around size of grip and the intent of a putter design?
Yes, I think Scotty really believes, and I believe too, that you have to have the grip match the head style. And so, for years, Scotty has always put larger grips on mallets and then smaller grips on blades. Mainly from the standpoint that smaller grips are going to be more in the player's fingers rather than palms. And, for golfers that like to maneuver the putter a little bit through their strokes, which mainly blade pair players do, have a smaller pistol sized grip really gives them that maneuverability, a little more feel. For those types of putters to really perform their best, it's going to match really well.
Rather than golfers who use mallets sometimes get a little more mechanical. They want to take the hands out of it so the bigger grips will be more in the palms. And so it'll kind of take the hands out of it, and they'll get more of a simpler shoulder rotation in that stroke. From that standpoint, the size of the grip really influences how the player holds it and the motion of their stroke.
There's a balance issue there, too. Because aren't some of the very large grips also problematic in terms of swing weight and balance on our putters?
There is, and we spent a lot of time looking at the balance of the putter. It's one of the reasons why we're probably one of the only manufacturers that have a different head weight for the different lengths of putters.
So between 33-, 34- and 35-inch putters, it'll go up 10-gram increments. And the weight of that grip really affects the balance of the putter. We've worked with our partners to create grips that are all the same weights. So whether you get a Pistolini or Pistolero or Full Contact, they're all very consistent weights so that we can ensure that the balance of our putters are consistent throughout the line.
One of the unique things about Scotty Cameron putters is we vary the heel and toe weights based on the length of the putter. So if someone buys a 33-, 34- or 35-inch putter, they're getting different weighted heel and toe weights. What's that all about?
It's getting the weight of the putter or the feel of the putter in their hands to be consistent, no matter what length they are using. Scotty came up with this recipe basically by making putters for tour players over the years at different lengths. If you make it an inch shorter, you've got to add some weight to the head to have that same sort of feel in the hands. And for every inch, that's ten grams. You can just do the math and figure that out. Scotty figured it out just through working with players. And so it's amazing that there is that recipe based on what those different players are feeling and that ideal kind of balance that they want in that putter.
There's a certain amount of torque or weight that the player's going to feel in his hands based on the weight and the balance of the putter. And so as you go from 33 to 34 to 35 inches, the length changes and so the distance of the player's hands away from the head is going to change.
You have to add some weight as a putter gets shorter to get that same sort of feel. Scotty figured this out over the years building putters for players at different lengths and weights. He came up with this formula through experimentation. But you can just do the math. For every inch it gets shorter, you're going to have to have add ten grams to that head.
It's really cool to see how Scotty did this through experimentation out in the wild of the PGA Tour. And you can do the math and get the same answer. It's kind of cool when when those two things match up. The overall weight is the same, whether you're 33, 34, 35. It's just a shift of the balance and the way it's going to change a little bit because the amount of shaft that you're losing is not equal to that ten grams.
How does the length of a putter affect a player's performance?
Length is important to get that golfer into the proper setup at address. We found here working with players in the Studio that a 70 degree lie angle gets the putter in the proper plane. No matter the length that we work with players here, we see that common 70 degree lie angle consistently.
Whether you're short or tall, you've got to have that right length to be able to get the correct, comfortable posture, arms hanging, gripping that putter at the 70 degree lie angle. And that's how you should set your length of your putter. What we found is 33, 34 and 35 (inches) fits the majority of golfers out there.
The reason we have grips that are ten inches, you can grip up and down a little bit to kind of take that into account. But ideally you'd want to get fit by a PGA professional. They can really get you into the right length of putter, the right setup, to ensure that you've got the right plane to putt your best. That's why length is really important.
What are you excited about with the new Studio Style line?
I'm really excited to see what the player's reaction is to the feel, because we spent a lot of time trying to dial in the feel of these putters to match what specifically tour players are asking us for. And a lot of times that reflects what the public is asking for. Getting a nice, softer sound and using some technology to achieve that with our carbon steel insert and the chain-link face milling technology to really dial-in that certain feel.
But from the reaction from tour players already, I think it's going to be a home run and some of the new shapes that we have in the line are exciting, too. With the new Squareback and Fastbacks, the Fastback has been checking out amazingly well with what's going out to tour from the Putter Studio.
A lot of different Fastback and Fastback 1.5 models are going out. So, I think players really see the alignment benefit to that design, the larger footprint, the improved MOI to be more forgiving and that great feel of the Studio Carbon Steel. Those factors are exciting to me to see how that how the players are going to react to it.
So with the high-contrast alignment on the new Fastback and Squareback models, it's important to note that that's not just cosmetics. That's also multi-material. Can you explain that?
Yeah. So as we've made the Fastback and Squareback larger, we need to use different materials to get the putter head to the ideal weight. And we talked earlier about how the head weight is really important to ensure the proper balance. For the Fastback and Squareback, we had a go to having the stainless steel through or through stainless, but also a lot of aluminum. So the soul played on that. Those putters are aluminum, and then those high contrast pieces on the top are actually aluminum. To remove weight. That helps to enhance that ring weighted design that you see on there.
Move a little bit of that in the front, a little bit in the back to get the inertia up on it. We decided to go with the black to really create that contrast, to have that front blade and back blade, because there's a lot of players that especially these blades, use the leading edge or the trailing edge of the putter to align.
This gives you basically four edges to align, which is going to help them see that putter is square root of their target. And even as they as that putters in motion coming through impact, having that front blade and that rear blade will give that image of that putter staying square all the way through. So, that high definition alignment on there is really going to help players, both that address and all the way through the stroke.
So the new Phantom 5.2 and 7.2 are out. Why do tour players like this combination of plumbing neck and mallet? How is it going to benefit amateur golfers?
The introduction of plumbing necks with blade-style hosels on the mallets has been a thing for a few years now. We've been making a lot for tour and it really helps benefit golfers because the plumbing neck is a very visual hosel. A lot of players grew up using, let's say a Newport, Newport 2 or a putter like that that has that kind of square hosel on it. And whether they know or not, they use that to align.
When we were working with tour players on the initial Phantom line, they liked the feel of the toe flow of the Phantom 5.5 and 7.5. But they missed that visual of the plumbing neck because they grew up playing blade putters. So we started welding a lot of those on to Phantom 5, 5.5 and 7.5 models, and even the Phantom 9, as well.
And it really gives golfers that visual. They're comfortable with having that top line, that plumbing neck to ensure that it's square, and it gives them that face awareness. The toe flow of a plumbing neck is going to help them know where that face is during the stroke, bring it back to square consistently, which is going to help them putt better.
Why an insert on the new Studio Style line?
It really gives us a lot of flexibility to change the sound and feel. Scotty has done it for years with different milling and materials. He has played with different inserts on putters, whether it's aluminum or our Teryllium or even GSS and stainless steel. It's the tech you need when you put an insert into a putter to tune the sound and feel of it.
Having that separate piece with vibration damping layers around it to be able to hold it in there with the screws will change the sound and feel, to make it sound a little softer. It also enables you to really change those materials, to change the sound and feel for tour players. We went with a carbon steel insert on the Studio Style line to really give us good damping properties. It helps to tune the sound and feel, and then gives us the ability to put texture on that insert, to readily change it. To be able to tune the amount of surface area that the ball is going to see. The chain-link pattern on the Studio Carbon Steel insert further brings that sound down.
So inserts really give you a lot of flexibility to change the sound and feel. And in the Studio Style line, we found a great combination of material, texture and damping layers to really get the sound and feel ideal for a lot of players.