A few months ago, I was asked to prepare a talk to give to a group at the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning (ORICL).  Since I knew a lot of the attendees from my "previous" work life at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), it was a lot of fun to put together and make this presentation.

I hope you will enjoy reading the link below.  It pulls together a lot of information that I have discussed previously in this newsletter.  But I believe there are some things in it that you might not be aware of - that can help you to play your best golf!

    Presentation Slides: The Science Of Golf Club Performance

I did a putter counterweighting fitting for a golfer a few months ago that was very successful.  He was putting with a Winn Jumbo Grip; this grip weighs about 125 grams.  We found a counterweighting option that helped him create great speed control in his stroke - a 50 gram Tour Lock Pro Opti Vibe Weight located 5 inches down the putter shaft.

Well, a few weeks ago he mentioned that he had a new Jumbo grip to put on his putter, and I installed it.  This Jumbo grip, though, weighed about 60 grams - quite a lot less than the previous grip.  The feel of his putter was totally different - and not as good - as with the 126 gram grip on it.

So what do putter grips typically weigh? The weight range for conventional 11-inch long putter grips is between about 55 grams up to about 125 grams.  If a golfer change putter grips and the weight change is more than about 5 to 10 grams, it is highly likely that this weight change will have an affect on the overall feel of his putting stroke and his speed control.

So - here we are at the start of the golfing year, and you are considering having your putter regripped.  What are the takeaways of this story for you?

• If you have a grip on your putter that works for you, and you want to regrip it - STICK With What Works - regrip with exactly the same grip.

• If you are putting with an oversized putter grip and you are successful with it, but you want to change to a different oversized grip - be sure you know the weight of your present putter grip and the new one.  Big weight changes can matter and affect how your putting performance.

• If you want to change to a different style putting grip - say a smaller one to a larger one - at least know what you are changing to.  Find out how much your old grip weighs, and how much the new one weighs. Large weight changes may be as important as putting grip size changes to your putting performance.