HI John,

The simple answer to your question(s) is Yes.

Every time you shorten or lengthen a golf club of any variety eg. driver, fairway, iron, wedge or putter, it will affect the club's overall swing-weight and dead weight.

Shortening and lengthening golf clubs also causes a player to adjust his/her posture in order to swing the club so it therefore automatically will lead to the club being swung on a different plane.

I recommend that you be particularly careful when shortening the length of your putter.  It will make the club feel lighter for a start, but more importantly you will lose an amount of feel from having a lighter putter head and this may affect your distance control on longer putts in particular.

Finally there are many different types of putter grips on the market today- lightweight, oversize, jumbo, standard rubber, cord etc and a whole multitude of colours to choose from - each one has it's own distinct purpose.  However keep in mind that there is no right and no wrong as to how a player likes the look and feel of his/her putter.  For even the best players in the game it really comes down to testing all the different putter options that are available in order to find the right mix of head shape, length, preferred grip, even colour.  For some players the search for the 'perfect' putter lasts a lifetime.

Good luck with your search!

-Dave