Bobbers

I don't think I have much choice...

I did give it a thorough test and as I said in my final review, I felt as though I let the putter down. It's a work of art and has worked for some of you guys, I'm just sorry the Runner and I didn't click. Regardless, it was a great opportunity to take a disciplined approach to truly evaluate a golf product. I learned a LOT from the experience.

I think I'm a softer face guy for whatever reason. I'm back on the hunt for the holy grail of putters, dammit.

I've finally gotten the tenth round with the Runner completed and my final review is appended to the original post.

I've actually had a fitting for an Edel EAS putter, the generation prior to this years modular offering. What I found was that, and I'll try to be as clear as possible here, was that moving the alignment "line" from the front/topline of the putter to more "back" or away from the absolute face, straightened out my alignment pretty significantly. I apologize for not being able to describe the vision elements/processing that was rectified by moving the alignment line, all I know it that it worked. Fast forward to the Runner alignment aid. It's 3D, it sits "up" on the frontline of the putter and, for me at least, it worked well. Might be the three dimensional versus the two dimensional aspect of a paint fill line, again I have no idea. But my historical miss wasn't an issue with the Runner. Hope that helps rather than adds to any confusion.

Ok, final round with the Runner before my overall report. Yesterday, the opposite of Sunday. Sunny, temps in the upper 50's to low 60's. Still a bit breezy but only 10-15 mph instead of the 20+ mph on Sunday. Different course with greens possessing a LOT more slope and contour than Sunday. Sort of stuck in a rut (not complaining, mind you, just trying to characterize the overall performance/impressions of this putter). Yup, you guessed it, 17 putts on the front and 16 putts on the back for 33 total. Greens were slow, pretty typical for this time of year in southeastern Wisconsin, which once again required a lot more concentration to achieve any degree of success. Ok, time to summarize, see you on the first page of the thread in a bit. Thanks to those of you who've followed our testing and review, I know I appreciate knowing the work that goes into this is of value to the membership.

The first of my final two rounds before I do my overall review. Sunday, a round that allowed me to imagine what golf might have been like for Noah... Two inches of downpour Saturday evening, Sunday dawned clear but, as usual for this time of year, in the 40's and breezy. Greens were slow as in molasses in January. Which required a longer takeaway while putting. Harder to do with my Runner as it already favors a longer backstroke. Had to concentrate, really concentrate not to start trying to "whack" the ball on the green. Long story short, another round of 16 putts on the front and 16 on the back. No three putts...yay! But a lot of work to get around the greens nonetheless. To summarize the putting round, "consistent but there's still something..."

Yeah, that's sort of like a television show where they "tease" something significant and then cut to a commercial...

Long lag putts, for me anyway, have a tendency to miss right pretty consistently and it's not my inability to pick a line. I'm convinced that a forceful stroke causes a bit of shaft deflection that contributes to the putter head "fanning" a bit open due to the deflection. Perhaps that's just me.

Yes, the ARE confidence inspiring. And I can use all the confidence I can get...heh heh.

I'd planned to play Sunday. Temperatures at tee time were 26 degrees, 15 mph winds and the course was closed to play for several hours until the frost was off the greens and we were forced to cancel. Did play yesterday. One of those Open Championship rounds where temperatures were in the upper 40's but the winds were a steady 20 mph with gusts to 30+ mph. A daunting day to say the least. First things first. NO THREE PUTTS. Sixteen putts on the front nine, sixteen putts on the back nine. Lag putting: Best example was a 40 footer that ended up six inches from the hole. The course we played has a LOT of undulation on the greens, it's one of the "signatures" of the course. I've played this course several times and this is equal to the best I've ever putted it. Wind velocities were such that while I normally chip from more than 2 feet off the green I used the Runner several times from up to 6 feet off the green just to keep the wind out of the playing equation. Shot 48 on the front nine and 47 on the back. Given the weather challenges I couldn't wait to get the ball near or on the green, it was the closest to feeling "normal" that we could get. Even at that you had to, seriously, take wind direction into consideration when choosing your putting line. And speaking of "line", the Runner continues to excel at holding the line. I've acclimated to the weight and feel to the point that yesterday I felt I was being successful on the greens because of the putter. Our forecast is for rain pretty steadily from this afternoon until next Monday when I hope to get out again. As always I'm happy to try and answer any questions.

My putter has a KBS putter shaft, 120 grams, looks good and performs even better. I get no sense of bend or deflection on even the longest putts. It's a quality component as are the rest of the elements of the putter.

I tend to deloft a bit and with my straight back/straight through putting stroke I find I don't end up low on the face very often so that's a tough one for me to answer. I can say that a) this putter gives the user a lot of feedback and b) it likes to hold the line you've chosen regardless of point of impact. The feel and sound of off center strikes is clearly heard and definitely felt immediately. Some loss of distance is the "penalty"; the further off center the impact the greater the distance loss.

I'm going to say distance loss on off center hits, those where I deliberately centered the ball on the heel or the toe resulted in a distance loss of 15-20%. But given the width of the face those were my effort to grossly mishit, not something I'd expect pretty much anyone to do unless they had some sort of spasm during their putting stroke. The more common misses cost perhaps 8-10% distance loss but the mass of the head kept the ball on whatever line I'd chosen.

Added advantage (for some) is that the width of the Runner putter face is very game improvement oriented, it's wide with a decent sized "center spot". I hope that makes sense...