Western NY PGA Tip: New tech can help you make putts

Yahoo

23-05-2025

Steve Latimer has gone through his fair share of putters. He can show them to you if you'd like.
From a Scotty Cameron to a Nike Method through a couple of Odyssey models, the Golf Tec Certified Instructor has progressed from new fun thing to new fun thing.
This year is different. In 2025, Latimer thinks he's found the putter to end all putters.
'It was unlike anything I've ever played before.'
The new putter is called a LAB. The acronym stands for Lie Angle Balance. It does pretty much what you would think. A properly fitted LAB putter will lie flat on the ground when the player addresses the ball. It's like a putting cheat code.
'If you have the putter lying perfectly, it wants to swing perfectly,' Latimer says. 'So we tend to get a really nice starting direction.'
When it comes to putters, any flat stick can work. Significant technological advances have come with this part of golf only in the last decade or so and certainly have lagged behind the rest of the bag. These advances won't make putts for you, but they can close down the margin for error.
That is, if you're willing to spend. The base model for a L.A.B. putter runs upward of $400. Add any sort of basic enhancements and it's a $600 spend. That's not a smart play for most weekend hackers.
Latimer understands that (and freely admits a professional discount helped land him a L.A.B.). He has a few much more affordable pieces of putter tech that can help the more thrifty player.
His first suggestion is a bigger, thicker grip. It's a fix that should be well under $50. Bigger grips equal smaller mistakes.
'With a bigger grip, the hand action is absolutely lessened through every stroke,' Latimer says. 'If we have less hand action, then we have a better opportunity to create the line that we're looking for.'
Beyond just a regrip, but well short of top rate tech is a face-balanced putter. That was the type of club in Latimer's bag before the L.A.B.
If you hold an old blade putter parallel to the ground and the let the club drop naturally, the toe should point to the ground. If you do the same with a face balanced putter, the clubface will point directly at the sky.
The toe-weighted blade putters would have a lot more deflection at the clubhead with a mishit. Latimer demonstrates by holding the putter in the air at the grip and tapping the toe or heel of the club. There is a noticeable amount of give and that movement would send a putt off line for anything not struck in the center. Latimer warns that one degree of mistake will send even a 10 or 12 footer sliding by the hole.
A face balanced putter has nearly zero give at the toe or the heel. Even when Latimer tries to tap this style of club, the face stays locked on line.
'When you make contact, even if you mishit it, you tend to have the ball roll where you want to,' Latimer says.
Just because you see a putter that looks new or better or fun, does not mean you should open your wallet for it. Just like with any club in the bag, Latimer says getting fitted is a must before purchasing a new putter.
He tells a story about a golfer who came to him dead set on buying L.A.B. Latimer instead introduced the player to a face-balanced Ping putter with a wide grip. That player got comfortable with the Ping and spent only $250–saving himself more than 300 bucks.
'You might have a preconceived notion of 'I need an Odyssey. I need a Ping. I saw Steve with a L.A.B, I gotta have a L.A.B. It may not be the right thing for you,' Latimer says.
It is the right thing for him and, thanks to the genius of putter technology, Latimer says it's saved him a whole bunch of putts.
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