Golf - Are ZERO Torque Putters Worth The Money

I wanted to take a look at ZeroTorque putters, so I reached out to my partners at PXG and said can I go along and have a fitting and do some testing with their ZeroTorque range. So this is one of the ZeroTorque putters for me, the best value ZeroTorque putter on the market, very traditional looking putter as well, very solid feel. And if you carry on watching the video you'll get an idea to see why I chose this as my new putter in the bag. So check out the video to look at all the things we looked at including angle of approach, path, roll, face control, feel, length, grip type to see why I chose this one to be in my bag. Most normal putters are either toe hang or face balanced, so face balanced would be there and toe hang would be there. So because ZeroTorque is the shaft projected slightly above the centre of gravity, so the face doesn't want to twist during the stroke. So most people are going to get that benefit because that face isn't going to be twisting or want to twist more in the backstroke. It's not for everybody, but most people need a little bit of help keeping that face a little bit more stable in the backstroke. So that's why lots of people go into ZeroTorque, but the benefit of that is you can now select a head design that suits your eye a lot more, as opposed to going, oh I need to play a certain style of putter because I need a certain neck shape or I need a certain head style. With this we can swap the grips, we've got three ZeroTorque grips. So we've got the slant pistol mid, which is the slightly thicker pistol shape. We've got the pistol, so the normal slant pistol grip, and then we've also got the just plain slant, which is a lot more squarer. So grips and everything like that we can discuss as we go along, but is there any head shapes initially that catch your eye that you're used to? That one, that one, and those left-handed. Those are the two that would initially, the other ones look a bit too big a mallet. This one I picked up the other day, didn't I, and I thought this one sat really nicely. So my first instinct would be this one, but I also quite like that one as well. So for me it would be about the performance of either one of those two. But again, if something else performs better, I'm very much swayed by performance and numbers rather than the visuals. The visuals help. Obviously when I'm over a putt it looks nice, it's going to help. I like the fact that the grip design, if you like shaft and grip design, give you that slight forward lean. I like all my players to have not so much a press forward lean, but start with the hands more forward to get that less loft of contact, to get that higher percentage roll, less skid. That's very much something I coach in putting, very much looking at one degree of loft delivery impacts. So this obviously encourages that and helps. And also from a mechanics point of view, if the hands are more preset for the start, it helps create a very nice subtle wrist hinge, which then leads to the right biomechanics of the shoulders and the wrists in the back swing for me. Most players I look at with a putt in their hands are too far, either level or behind the golf ball at address. And you get this kind of laggy kind of look at the back swing. And then what happens is the right hand overtakes too much on the way down. So the more we can get it kind of preset there, and again, block and rock, basically as Howell Swash used to say, the better. How does that initially look behind the ball? I like it. I like the way it looks visually. I like the way it feels. It feels very stable, solid off the clubface. Kind of a slightly soft feel off the clubface in terms of the insert. That's that pyramid insert help in there. If that was a full face, if there was no pyramid pattern in there, that would feel a lot firmer off the face. But by putting the pyramid pattern in, it actually reduces the harshness of that feel. Alongside behind the face, you've got all the polymer within this body, this front body of the club. That's actually hollow in there. So that's then backfilled with polymer to soften the vibrations and dampen everything so it sounds softer, feels softer. You get the benefit of a hollow body, multi-material putter with the feel of something like a solid blade. Sure. It feels good. Feels good. Looks good. Grip feels nice. Everything about it feels good. The weight, everything. If I was going to pick this up off the shelf and use it, I'd be quite comfortable straight away. I would normally have a slightly shorter putter, which I think would be even more suited to my comfort. But it certainly doesn't feel like a long putter straight away in your hands for some reason. You can see very slightly that as the putter is a little bit long for you, the putter head gets a little bit outside of your eye line. Your eye line is closer to here. Yes, where it should be for me though. So my visual line to see a straight line is roughly on about that hosel. Oh, okay. So that's where I should have my eyes. That's good to know. So, as I said, every player is different. Tour average is about the hosel. Yeah. But some players are obviously on the toe line, some players are on the heel line, some players are inside the heel line. So you just do either a laser test or you do it with a straight line on the ball and line it up with a line here and see where you get your eyes in perspective to get that matched up. Yeah. And then you want to be in the same spot every single time. Because if I have my eyes too much on top of the ball, obviously the hole looks like it's more left. And then that obviously changes my stroke, changes the way I approach it and play. The starting point for me if I'm teaching putting is all very much around where do we see a visual straight line? And you build your posture and set up around that eye position. And I got that very much from Paul Hurrian, who's a good friend of mine. Obviously he's a very technical putting coach. Yeah. Very similar to Nick Soto. Nick Soto is a very good coach. But that's how I would start, how I would build. So using mirrors and using lasers and lines to work out where your eyes should be and then build from there outwards. Yeah. And then try and get the arms hanging comfortably, elbows in for me and hands forward obviously and then just rocking the shoulders to try and keep the connection. So that's what I try and do technically, but that's where my eyes would want to be. Yeah. So the length of the putter is for me more about how I feel comfortable with my arms hanging naturally. Yeah. Because I'm not the tallest. Yeah. It's getting my arms in this kind of position, so where would that feel kind of there comfortably? And it's probably there if you look at it, it's probably one and a half to two inches down from the top. Yeah. Again, whether my chest is quite in the right position when I'm doing that, where I've got the chest height I would want. So I could go taller on my chest and that will make me have more of an arc. So again, I haven't really looked at my putting stroke in video for a long time, but if my arc needed to be bigger, I could obviously stand taller and further up and more upright to encourage that. Yeah, because that would widen that arc. And the more forward you are, the sort of straighter that arc gets. Yeah. So those are the, if you like, the tuition bits I could change to try and tweak the stroke. But obviously very much from your point of view, when we're doing the putter fitting, you're trying to fit the putter to what I walk in with, aren't you? Yes. Obviously you coach as well, so you can obviously start to do some coaching within the session if you wanted to. But generally speaking, most of the people who want to come for a putter fitting is very much of, this is what I've got, how can we maximise my opportunity of getting that ball in the hole more often and three putt less? Yes. And that's very much what we're kind of looking at today, aren't we? Matching this to my average stroke. Yeah. I say this around the full swing as well. We can all hit a good shot well, we can all hit a good putt well. What we're trying to do is just help the ones that aren't quite so good a little bit better. Correct. 100% correct. So this is the Hellcat? Yeah, this is the Hellcat. More traditional looking putter? Yeah, so it's still zero torque and that's because that shaft is projected into the head slightly above the centre of gravity and that will stop the toe wanting to… So now we have the shaft into the heel, obviously it creates a difference between the centre of mass and the shaft, doesn't it? Yes. Which then creates… Torque. Rotation. Yes. Essentially twist. Yes. So yeah, impact and in the stroke. So this one, obviously if we tap it, where the centre spot is, we're getting zero torque on that point. Whereas if it was the heel, the shaft is in the heel, when you tap in the middle, even though the line is in the middle, you get that twist. Correct, yes. So you're almost better off hitting the standard putter in the heel, aren't you, slightly? Yes. From the point of view of face twist. Yes, because you're actually… think of it a bit like your normal item. At the centre of the face, it still wants to twist open. So same with the putter, that if the centre of… whilst the centre of gravity is in the centre, because it's away from the shaft axis, as soon as you hit it there, it wants to twist. Yes. Good roll. So the initial visuals of the putter? I like both. Okay. So if I was choosing between the two at the moment, it would be a difficult choice. Yes. This feels a little bit more… solid is the word I'd use maybe, but it's not really a great word. It probably feels a little bit more like an old-school putter, metal-wise, even though it's got the same pyramid design. Yes. It just feels a little bit more… And that's because you've not got the polymer insert. Okay. So because that's a one-piece construction, you've not been able to put the polymer insert, and that polymer insert is what's going to soften up the vibration. So change the feel a little bit. Yes. That will feel a lot more, as you said, traditional, like a normal metal putter. Yes. And this one often feels a little bit softer, but that is open to interpretation. Yes. Because we're humans and not robots. They both feel good. How's that length feeling for you? Length feels good. They both feel… I can happily play with either one of them at the moment. Yes. As I said, would I have a preference? I don't know. As it stands, club path has straightened up a little bit, kind of as we expected, because you're going a little bit shorter. How do you line up the ball, by the way? Do you just pop it down, or do you use a line? I sometimes use a spot. I don't use a line. Line confuses me. When I get a line down there, I get over it and I think it's not aiming in the straight place. Again, maybe because my eyes aren't in the right spot every single time, but it just tends to… I get over it and I think, oh, that seems like it's aiming way right or way left. It tends to confuse me and then makes me adjust and compensate too much in my stroke. It gives me that uncertainty. Any uncertainty for me is really, really bad. In terms of line on the putter head, do you then prefer something that looks a bit cleaner without as much of a line? No, I don't mind lines on the putter. You can have as many as you want. One to three would be good for me. The line on the dot on the first putter, this straight line here is fine. I don't find it any different in that respect for both of those. If it had more lines, it wouldn't bother me. You definitely hit the ball more left with a mallet putter. Yeah, on these ones so far, yeah. Definitely, so whilst your path and your angle of attack is a little bit better… Maybe because the weight's more back is why the angle of attack improves. Yeah. It feels almost like it aims a little bit more left for me though. But with your dynamic lie being a little bit flatter… If I hit it off the toe, I feel like I hit it more right and that helps it. Okay. On that one, that's what it felt like. So it feels like it's hooking more. Yeah, and you can see it in your stroke when I stand behind you, you can see how it almost looks like you want to draw that face a little bit and that's coming through on your miss. That one was pretty good, the last one. Unlike when you put Hellcat in the hands, it's like immediately they roll online. So your face angle is basically the same. But your path is getting worse instead of it being one degree. One degree, yeah. And then your angle of attack is better in terms of it's not as down. Hellcat is a bit more down, 0.7 down, 0.7 up on that. But that tells us the story, you visually miss way more to the left on that. Definitely, and the roll's less as well. Is it 91, 92 Hellcat? It's in the 90s. 91? Yeah, in the 90s. Hellcat's the best so far? Yeah. The first couple of puts which are most representative to how we put, because we don't have loads of puts in a row, you hold the most of these. When you picked it up after a couple of minutes, you've rolled it online and hold the first couple. Whereas it's almost like with the other mallet style putters, you have to give yourself some puts to kind of, oh, I'm missing a little bit left, let me just subtly tweak it. So straight off the bat, this one performed best when you just went straight back to it. And that's what's going to really shine through when we're playing golf and we have those 10, 20-minute gaps between puts. So I hope you enjoyed that video looking at the putter fitting process and the reasons why I chose this putter. Essentially, this one gave me the best face stability. As you probably know, if the face is one degree out from 8 flat in putting, you miss the hole. With all the mallet type putters, when the centre of mass is further back, I tended to close the face a lot more and therefore I would be pulling less putts. This one also felt great, looked great, but I also did like the mallet putters as well, the way they looked. Particularly, there was one I particularly liked the most. Those two stuck out for me from the get-go. But this one performed the best and I would always pick something on performance as opposed to just the look. But obviously, I equally liked the way this one looked anyway. And the feel with this is much more traditional, which again, I like that too. The other ones felt definitely a little bit less, let's call it less solid, less metal, less kind of reinforced, because they have obviously the weight set further back on the inserts and they also have the foam behind the insert, which gives them that slightly different feel. I still like the feel, but this is again a bit more traditional. So I hope you enjoyed the video and if you're new to the channel, please like and subscribe. Hopefully see you back here soon for my other instructional videos or some of my other club testing videos I have on the channel.