Center shafted putters

[ShimmyCocoBop]

I agree with all who said that if a putter makes putts for you, that's the right putter for you!

That being said, here is a brief "center-shafted putter" theory by Putting Guru, Geoff Mangum:

Center Shafted vs. Heel Shafted: Why should you use a center-shafted model????

The key word here is "tastes." A taste is a habit. The Chinese eat dog meat. Some folks in South America eat bug larvae. Some folks in southeast Asia eat monkey brains. 

Historically, putters were usually heel-shafted, mostly because other clubs are heel-shafted and also because the Brits (R&A) banned center-shafted putters for about 50 years. The humorous thing is that center-shafted putters now have such success in the market, that even some designers who previously swore never to make a center-shafted putter have jumped on the bandwagon after abandoning all self-respect and principle. 

If you use a heel-shafted putter, the tool will teach you the "habit" of success with it, or else you will discard it. So if you keep the heel-shafted putter, its inherent physics has trained you into a habit. The habit consists partially of habitual patterns of perception and partially of patterns of movement and feelings. For example, a heel-shafted putter looks and feels a bit more like swinging a bat around your stance, with certain implications for how you perceive the stroke and ball impact, and how you expect things to look and feel in the movement. The instincts rely upon these habits.

If you use a center-shafted putter, the tool will teach you the "habit" of success with it, or else you will discard it. A center-shafted putter swings more vertically up thru a ball, unlike a baseball-style swing with a heel-shafted putter sideways thru a ball. This implies a different set of visual and kinesthetic "habits" in using the center-shafted putter.

You can use a heel-shafted putter with the same habits appropriate to a center-shafted putter if you add a trick or two, and vice versa. (Many if not most belly/long putters are center-shafted, yet swung around the stance more like a bat than a pendulum.) The bottom-line question is which is better, and what is required for you to unlearn inappropriate habits and to learn new, appropriate habits if you switch?

In my view, the center-shafted putter is better in general than heel-shafted putters, because heel-shafted putters have physics in them that promote action of the putter separate and apart from what the golfer is deliberately intending. In particular, the typical hoseling and balancing of a heel-shafted putter promotes so-called "toe flow." This is an EXTRA opening of the putter going back that may or may not be matched coming forward. The physics of "toe-flow" is the added inertia in the stroke of the toe about the axis of the hosel. This physics opens the toe going back, and tends to KEEP the toe open coming thru impact. This doesn't make a lot of sense.

The golfer who gets trained by his heel-shafted putter has to learn how to manipulate the physics of the putter correctly. This obviously can be accomplished over time -- witness Ben Crenshaw. But why engage in a battle that is not compelled? Just don't get a heel-shafted putter. The center-shafted, face-balanced (or reality balanced) putter doesn't have these same tendencies from physics. Then the golfer's task in getting trained by the tool is a little easier and simpler.

Heel-shafted putters are an historical accident that some people seek to justify with a bogus rationale. What the physics really does is make the putter designer an unwitting partner in every stroke: you do this and the designer adds that. I prefer to putt alone.

So when you switch from heel-shafted to center-shafted, you get a slight unburdening, but you are temporarily stuck with old heel-shafted habits. It takes a while to learn the new "look and feel" of the center-shafted putter, and thus "acquire the taste" for the tool.

A compromise is a putter with the actual hoseling towards the heel, but for which the shaft AIMS at the center. These putters are face balanced, and appear to be heel-shafted, but are really center-shafted with heel-hoseling. This would be a good transition putter, allowing you to ease into the tool's training of you without a lot of contrast with old habits.

Keep your tastes -- just get rid of unhelpful physics.

[proffire]

My first Center shafted putter was a Rife Two Bar. Used it for several years then when Evnroll came up with their putters I tried an ER 3 blade as they did not have any mallets at the time.  Used it for awhile until the ER7 Center shaft Mallet was introduced. Been using it ever since and love it.  Have replaced the original grip with an Evnroll Gravity grip which is great.

[Eltrain41]

Great topic. I've been using a CS putter for 20 years so it's really all I've known. I must have received one back then, or ordered one without knowing but I'm just very comfortable w/ that style and didn't really know about center shaft until recently when I started researching putters. As of a few years ago, I assumed I was in the minority but didn't care, felt natural to me. I went with a Never Compromise back around 2005, with the heaviest weight inserts, and that heavy putter head really helped me w/ speed and lag putts. It's been beat up a bit so last year at a large golf store, I spotted a Cleveland HB Soft 10.5 like others have mentioned here. Center shaft, can scoop the ball up behind putter head, milled face, and it was like $150 brand new. I just searched for it and found it here for $90! So now I have (2) CS mallet putters and that's kind of all I know. I have been considering an expensive brand like SC or Evnroll but will take my time. Putting is such a feel aspect of golf, that the CS has always suited my eye and gotten the ball started on the correct line. I have heard CS come up more and more so this post was interesting and maybe I'm no longer in the 5% of putters with a center shaft, maybe it's increased to 15%+ ?? 

[g.mac]

I have used the same center shafted putter(Tiger Shark Greenspeed VS-5) for 25 years or so, and find it easier to square up to the intended line. Works for me. Actually got a putting lesson from Lindsey Weaver several years ago and YES, Virginia, there is an arc in the proper putting stroke.