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Putting a golf ball is the dark art of sports. There are otherwise great golfers who can’t putt a bit. Sometimes, a world-class putter will suddenly and completely lose the ability to sink even the shortest gimme. There are the dreaded “yips,” where a golfer’s mind renders their body unable to make a smooth stroke, resulting in an almost stabbing motion. Putting tries men’s souls (and women’s).
Part of the lore of putting is the putter itself. Hand a golfer a mallet-shaped putter and he might make everything in sight. Switch him to a blade style and the magic might disappear. But maybe it’s not superstition or magic. Maybe different styles of putters work for golfers because they actually help the golfer aim better.
That’s the philosophy of David Edel, a putter-maker in Liberty Hill, Texas. He’s got a simple way of helping golfers find the right putter for them, so elegant that you wonder why no one thought of it before.
Edel or one of his fitters sets up a golfer with a ball, and asks them to line up a 6-foot putt. On the face of the putter, they attach a mirror, and instead of a regulation cup, there’s a laser beam shining back toward the putter. When the golfer thinks they’re aimed directly at the cup, the fitter removes the ball, so the laser beam hits the mirror.
A perfectly aimed club face would reflect the beam straight back to where it’s coming from. But that’s rarely the case. You see, most golfers aim to one side of the hole or the other, even when they think they are perfectly aligned.
That’s where the putter itself comes in. Edel has found that some construction and designs bias the aim in one direction. For instance, adding offset to a putter head will tend to aim most people more to the left. Conversely, the more circular the putter’s trailing edge, the more that some golfers will aim to the right.
Once you know which way your aim is biased, you can begin to construct your putter to account for it. For example, when I went through a fitting with Edel dealer David Balbi, I consistently aimed to the right of the cup with my blade-style putter. Using Edel’s system of interchangeable heads, hosels and shafts, Babbi changed the offset of the putter and put just one alignment line on the back of the putter.
Suddenly, when I did the laser test, I was straight at the hole every time. And the results have translated to the course. Since getting the Edel putter, my average number of putts has dropped by four per round, which is a huge improvement for a middling player like me.
Of course, there is still a lot more to deal with to make a putt — you have to read the break correctly and get the speed right. But knowing that I’m actually aiming the ball where I think I am has made a big difference to me and shows that there’s more to putting than psychology and superstition.
Want to learn how to putt? Check out our How To wiki page for tips and tricks.

Image: Mark McClusky /Wired

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