Counter Weighting

This is a summary from Tom Wishon’s article “IMPROVE YOUR PUTTING CONSISTENCY WITH COUNTER WEIGHTING”.

This article can be found in full on his website www.wishon.com



“One of the most dramatic putting improvement tools within custom fitting has proven to be the use of a heavy weight inserted into the grip end of the putter shaft. This is a putter fitting technique called ‘COUNTER WEIGHTING’.

How does putter counter weighting work and what golfers will benefit?

Golfers who putt well have a high level of fine motor control skill. That means they have the neuromuscular ability to move and control objects with their hands at slower speeds in a consistent, repeating and very precise manner. For those of us who do not have fine motor control, by putting a substantial amount of weight in the grip end of the putter shaft, the much heavier weight brought about by the presence of the counterweight is felt directly in our hands and the hands and arms are better able to move in a more consistent, repeating manner.



Golfers who have proven to improve their putting with a counterweight all have one or more of the following putting habits:

  • Tendency to both pull and push putts offline.

  • A higher-than-average incidence of off centre hit putts.

  • Inconsistency with distance control – some putts short and some putts long.

  • The path of the putter back and through the ball can be jerky, not very smooth and rhythmic.



The most commonly used putter counterweights are the 60g, 80g and 100g weights, with the 80g and 100g counterweights being the most commonly used by most golfers for the putter. There is no question the chance of improved putting performance with a heavy counterweight in the putter is very high.

From speaking with clubmakers who offer this fitting service to their golfers and from our own work with golfers, we estimate the putting improvement rate for counterweights to be in the area of 75%, or three out of every four golfers that putts with a conventional putter and putting stroke.”

Tom Wishon.

 

What I do.

 

TourLock® Pro+ and Opti-Vibe.

At Custom Clubs we use both the TourLock® Pro+ and Opti-Vibe counterweights.

Here are just a few of the benefits from optimising your putter with TourLock® technologies:

  • Smooths out the putting stroke.

  • Raises the balance point of the club.

  • Slows down the putting stroke.

  • Gives you more club head awareness.

  • Gives you more club head control.

 

  • Increases the Moment of Inertia (MOI).

  • Widens the sweet spot, decreases deflection.

  • Gives the club a solid feel and more stability.

  • Can alter stroke path to help correct tendencies.

TourLock® Pro+

tourlockpro.jpg

Opti-Vibe

optivibe.jpg
 

Optimal Weight Ready

The starting point is to install two counterweights and then install the grip:

  1. 50 gram Opti-Vibe counterweight @ 4 inches into the shaft.

  2. 12 gram Opti-Vibe counterweight (or TourLock Pro+) at the top of the shaft.

Now the club will be "Optimal Weight Ready” (OWR) allowing the fine tuning of the club by incremental adjustments of the lower internal weight.

The benefit is in the ability to alter the feel and performance of the club where more or less weight can be dynamically altered for both internal weight and counterweight installed inside the shaft to best suit the individual.

This fine tunes the optimal performance of a club while at the same time creating a better sense of awareness of a sound repeatable stroke.