GolfSpy MPR

Just got in today. Brought the ExPutt (and three excited children) up to my office at the church this afternoon. After a bit of work to do the setup, we got it up and running, and I'm really looking forward to using it for this test.

Just got my remote fitting reply: L.A.B. recommends a stock 69° lie angle for me, which doesn't totally shock me. Size-wise, I'm more or less the stock American male (likely lighter than average, but that's not a major factor in putter fitting).

Spent a chunk of the morning reviewing the forum reviews of the ExPutt. Quite interested to see how the software has changed in the four years since that test was done.

For course vlog content, the Bryan Bros are my guys. But here's the problem: if I'm in a course vlog video, that seems to entail that I'm playing golf while people are filming it for public consumption. And that doesn't seem like a good idea for me or for the viewing public. So I'm going for a video lesson with Mark Crossfield. I'll learn something, he'll edit it so that his audience learns things, and that's going to be a bigger win.

It appears that L.A.B. recently had a bit of a technology hiccup with their remote fitting system, not just for us testers. Several of us received emails asking for us to re-submit our fitting videos. No sweat: computers happen. In better news: Today is the day I'm receiving my ExPutt. Looking forward to setting it up, playing and learning about it, and deciding how best to use it to compare the L.A.B. to my Edel and Evnroll.

Interesting timing for us testers on this MGS blog article: https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/first-look/should-you-switch-to-a-counterbalanced-putter/ I know that, unless the fitter at L.A.B. actively disuades me, my intention right now is to go counterbalanced. The Edel I'm using is, I suspect, at the extreme of weighting. I do not have (unfortunately) have a swing weight scale, but just compare these numbers of two of my putters, both 34": Edel EAS 4.0, Garsen Quad Tour grip: about 585g, balance point at least a foot up from the putter head Stock Odyssey 2-Ball Ten, Stroke Lab, Odyssey oversized grip: about 540g, balance point about 7" from the putter head The Edel, compared to a lot of off-the-rack putters, feels like a sledgehammer. I don't know exactly the spec, but it has a large weight in the butt end of the shaft. For my part, I like it a lot. I have spent time using an Enroll Midlock ER11v, which I also have liked a great deal. But my hope is that, if I end up with a counterbalanced L.A.B. (at 37"), it will combine the best of both my Edel and the Evnroll Midlock.

Maybe? But possibly in a way that (at least now) I hope could be helpful. One of the things I've worked at the past couple of years is my brain state playing golf, especially when putting. Among my many golf gadgets is a device called a FocusBand; it is a strap you wrap around your head, and it's measuring brainwave frequency. Current research suggests that for a lot of athletic tasks, better performance typically coincides with low frequency brainwaves. For most of us, that means shutting down the noisy brain activity about technique, etc., when standing over a shot, especially a putt. What FocusBand recommends is (in part), looking up at the hole while holding in your mind a picture of your ball and putter at address, then looking down at your putter while holding the image of the hole location in your mind. This image-focus tends to get the brain into the right wavelengths. So all that to say: for my part, I've actually found it easier to hold the image of a putter in my mind when the putter is memorable. For example, the iconic 2-Ball is very easy to hold in mind. I'm actually hoping the DF3 works to my advantage in this regard.

Ooh. I'll definitely be interested in this. I'd go for either two or three lines on the leading edge to align the putt and one tiny line on the back flange to trigger my takeaway.

Got my intro up: https://forum.mygolfspy.com/topic/64035-testers-announced-lab-df3-putters/?do=findComment&comment=1051655 I may or may not be hitting refresh on my Gmail account a dozen dozen times per day right now, waiting (im)patiently for my online fitting reply from L.A.B.

My dream putter, at least today: L.A.B.'s torque balancing MLA's alignment aid Evnroll's face grooves Toulon's (Small Batch) aesthetics One of the über-stable shafts (not sure if they do anything, but if we're dreaming, let's throw it in) Garsen Quad grip

The short answer: no one is likely to overtake him until he falls back to the pack. The level he's playing at right now is about a once-every-20-years-or-so peak; the odds of another guy on any tour raising his game to the level that Scottie is at at the same time Scottie is there are ridiculously tiny. Consider the gap between Scottie and everyone else in just about every ranking system. Data Golf: TUGR: OWGR: The first two systems are more interesting to me, and both include golfers from multiple tours. In both of the SG measurements, Scottie is approaching a stroke-per-round advantage over the second-ranked golfer (in both measurements, currently Xander). He is more than a stroke per round better than Rory, in third place. Scottie is on a heater, for sure. And he's on a heater while still having a glaring liability in his game, with his substandard putting: All heaters come to an end, and in golf, they seem to be able to come more suddenly and without warning than other sports. But for now: no one is catching Scottie until he cools off.

Well, I certainly do now. And forevermore. Thank you, I think?

This is very subject to change after my I hear back from L.A.B., but right now, my plan is to go counterbalanced at 37", with the heavy headweight. I currently use (and enjoy) the Garsen Quad grip on my Edel, so I'm planning use the 17" Garsen Quad Tour option on the DF3. My clubs and bag setup tends to be black and red, so I'm going with the red head and black shaft; leaning towards the TPT version. My Edel was fitted with the two alignment lines on the base of the putter (clean top line); L.A.B. doesn't offer anything exactly parallel to that. I'm likely either to go with two on the top line (as pictured here), or the version with three lines through the first two sections and a single line on the very back.

Right now, I'm inclined to go with the same alignment you have on this DF3 for the MGS test. Can I ask: 1) what was your reason for choosing this pattern and 2) what are your early impressions of it?

Intro will be up shortly, but I'm looking forward to having an interesting angle on this. My current putter was also an MGS review: the Edel EAS. Should be fascinating to compare two giants of the torque-balanced putting world.