Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

There are several different types of putters out on the market but basically they boil down to either the blade putters or mallet putters. And we are going to have to look at the pros for cons for both and whether you should play with the mallet or blade. So first of all looking a bladed putter; a bladed putter would have this type of head it’s quite thin and narrow. It’s just very straight along the head there is not really a lot of shape in it. It’s a narrow as you are looking down at the top if and it’s just a very basic contradiction looking putter.

A mallet putter tends to have more of this look to it. So as much more curve around the back the head is a lot wider so it’s still very straight and flat on the face but now as you look down at the top of this putter it looks a lot wider is much more of a curve looks much more like a semi circle so that’s a mallet type putter.

Now as to which you should use really depends on the putting stroke you have. A mallet type putter because it’s wider on the head here, there is more weight around the outside it has more perimeter weighting. So that means that the head is a lot more stable and the face will stay a lot squarer to where you’ve initially aimed it. Now this type of putter would see a straight back and straight through stroke because it won’t really rotate it won’t really move a lot.

A bladed putter because it doesn’t have that width on the top, can rotate a lot more. So if you have more of an arching stroke a bladed putter would be much better for you because an arching stroke would see you rotate the putter inside the target line and as that happens, the face also needs to rotate so that it remains a 90 degree angle to the line that you are swinging along.

So a mallet would be very difficult to use if you’ve got an arching stroke that would suit the straight back straight through whereas the bladed putter suits the arching method of swinging the putter it won’t suit the straight back straight through so much. So you really need to work out what type of stroke you have and the best way to that you could do this with the chalk liner with a string line.

You could push two tee packs into the ground and then just have a piece of string linked between them. We’ve just set that up here with a line of pollen to range basket you could do this as well. And what you want to do is just set yourself up so the putter head is underneath that line fit shoulder with the pack balls in the centre a nice long dangling arms and then just swing the putter back in through.

And just notice if the putter had stays directly under that line if it does stay directly under the line you have the straight back straight through style of putting or if it curves to the inside of the line on the back swing and on the follow through you have the arching style. But really much this the swing style that you have to the putter head and also the other tip I would give you is well between the blade and the mallet is pick a putter that you feel really comfortable with so that when you look down on it you do feel you are going to be out to hole puts with it. But that really comparing a blade and a put to– and a mallet putter so have a look at the stroke that you have and then pick the putter head style to match that stroke.