About 7 weeks ago, I contacted the Gallery to reserve a putter fitting.  They had 2 openings before June so I promptly took the last Saturday appointment in May.  Now, I think I know a good amount about putters, toe flow, etc, and traditionally, I've been a pretty good putter.  It just seemed that lately, I have had a hard time "seeing" the line and decided it was time for a real putter expert to look at what I was doing.  So come Saturday morning, I went to the course to get in a quick 18 and then got ready to go to the Gallery for my fitting.  The Gallery itself is filled with many of the things that Scotty loves including old bicycles, surf boards, limited edition putters, and headcovers - can't forget those exotic headcovers :)  The putter fitting room at the Gallery is a true replica of Scotty's studio - the cameras, turf, lighting, etc. Awesome and a very calming space.

Spencer was my fitter and I can't say enough about how he tailored my experience to me so that I was able to get a number of "aha" moments.  We started off with me answering some questions about my game, my putting, how I see putts, whether I am a feel putter or more of a mechanical putter.  Then we went to work.  He had me hit 20 footers with my gamer.  Since the "turf" rolled so true, it seemed faster than the actual speed of the green.  When he had seen enough, he stopped me and we looked at the video - moment by moment.  He explained the motion of the ball and what caused it, then we looked at the putter and it's motion, and lastly, we looked at my set up and my motion including posture, head, arms, legs.  He made some observations on what was working, and what could be better.  Rather than tell me something was off, he had me look at the moment by moment picture, and I could see that a couple of things were a bit off.  He changed my posture, my shoulders, the length of my putter, made some suggestions and then, we tried it again.  The light bulb went off like blink, blink, blink and with those little changes,I was able to keep the putter level, on the same arc back and through and the stroke itself felt really free.  All I had to do was to vary the amount of pendulum motion to hit shorter or longer putts.  The last thing we did was to look at putter head and neck styles.  i had brought four of my favorite putters with me and we went through each one with the pluses and minuses of each putter.   I made this sound quick, but it was a full two hours.  When you are learning and taking in so much information, time does fly. 

To feel like you are going to be able to make a putt or at least be close every time does wonders for your confidence..  I am going to work on these tips and keep track of my putting stats to see how much better I can get!

I would recommend reserving a putter fitting with Spencer for anyone wanting to understand their putting and how to become a really good putter.