PHIL KENYON on Torque free putters.

[notsohard]

 

[ChaosTheory]

Unfortunately his logic is flawed.  I commented on the video.

 

In the 3rd minute, when he demonstrated “in line” with the face balanced putter, yes it did not twist.  Why not?  Well, because he held it plumb/ vertical/ straight up and down.

 

Had he swung it in the playing angle (lie angle), it would have flopped open.  Which is what the revealer shows.

 

 I had high hopes for a solid video, and have no problem with someone concluding that they are not for everyone.  But that kind of misunderstanding just ruins the credibility.

 

Most days it seems that no one in the golf media and teaching establishment understands the basic physics involved.  Sigh.

Edited July 28 by ChaosTheory

[golferdude54]

21 minutes ago, ChaosTheory said:

Unfortunately his logic is flawed.  I commented on the video.

 

In the 3rd minute, when he demonstrated “in line” with the face balanced putter, yes it did not twist.  Why not?  Well, because he held it plumb/ vertical/ straight up and down.

 

Had he swung it in the playing angle (lie angle), it would have flopped open.  Which is what the revealer shows.

 

 I had high hopes for a solid video, and have no problem with someone concluding that they are not for everyone.  But that kind of misunderstanding just ruins the credibility.

 

Most days it seems that no one in the golf media and teaching establishment understands the basic physics involved.  Sigh.

 

Not to mention you can cheat the tee inside grip test by firmly gripping it in your fingers to prevent twisting on purpose. It has to be gripped lightly to slide around in your fingers if there are any twisting from hovering from above the ground in a square position at its lie angle.

 

I had posted videos of my own 2-part revealer test involving using just the hands on this forum but all I got were crickets.

 

You can tell if a putter has zero torque if you roll/spin it freely inside your palm without any resistance, a Bullseye can spin inside the palm but with a bit of resistance because it's slightly heel-shafted.  A dead center-shafted symmetrical head putter will roll/spin inside the palm with noticeably less resistance than the Bullseye (like the bLaD.1/B.2). 

 

The 2nd part is finding the balance point and balancing it on your index finger with the face pointed any orientation, and it doesn't slide to its default toe hang, a Bullseye will slide down to a full toe hang from a face-balance position or toe-up. But if it was center-shafted, it wouldn't slide down, it would actually stay at wherever the face is pointing. This is the lie angle balance part Kenyon mentioned in the video that is apparently different from torque-free. 

 

Now, the index finger balancing toe hang test is different from say, using the corner of a flat table. Balancing part of the shaft on top of that would eliminate the grip having an effect on toe hang since the grip isn't touching the surface; plus the table has less friction than our fingers, so it's the best toe hang test. 

 

I haven't been able to find a putter that balances toe straight up on a table corner and spins with zero resistance in my palm. I think a combination of the Edel Brick putter with the weight taken out of the toe and added to the heel along with a center shafted LAB B.2 would be able to achieve that but then people would say it's too unforgiving because of its super low MOI.

[IC3BURGH]

It was pretty hard not to feel like the video was slightly disingenuous with a brightly colored Scotty Cameron bag sitting next to him, but there was one thing that was definitely worth considering. Him showing the amount of torque to keep a torque putter on plane and then speaking about the subconscious benefit of a player feeling that torque. Like much of his video, I'm not going to nitpick his visualization, but this is definitely worth considering. I've been on the ZT bandwagon for over three years now. On short distance putts, I know that it has meaningfully improved my results inside 6 feet. However, I've seen some measured slippage on my lag putting in the last year. Anecdotal n=1, of course, but his comments resonate.

 

@ChaosTheory - I think he was pretty clear that he was simply demonstrating how the torque was exhibited in specific planes rather than trying to argue that conventional putters have no/less torque. He does eventually put the Newport in the revealer to show what happens. 

[Farrow]

3 hours ago, ChaosTheory said:

Unfortunately his logic is flawed.  I commented on the video.

 

In the 3rd minute, when he demonstrated “in line” with the face balanced putter, yes it did not twist.  Why not?  Well, because he held it plumb/ vertical/ straight up and down.

 

Had he swung it in the playing angle (lie angle), it would have flopped open.  Which is what the revealer shows.

 

 I had high hopes for a solid video, and have no problem with someone concluding that they are not for everyone.  But that kind of misunderstanding just ruins the credibility.

 

Most days it seems that no one in the golf media and teaching establishment understands the basic physics involved.  Sigh.

If you watch the whole thing he addresses this. He shows how little effort it takes to control the twisting around the shaft. So when it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter whether he’s holding it vertically or in the lie plane, the effect during the stroke is still the same. He’s actually shown us he understands the physics very very well. 

[Pnwpingi210]

I mean, I absolutely believe the forum over Phil Kenyon.  What does he know anyway???

[rsballer10]

24 minutes ago, Pnwpingi210 said:

I mean, I absolutely believe the forum over Phil Kenyon.  What does he know anyway???

"torque will give the player feedback, in time and space, where the club is" - phil kenyon some guy who isn't on the forum

[jtj74]

Am I the only one thinking this would all be great if I putted without touching my putter shaft or in a revealer or whatever? I control the face of my putter with my hands and my stroke. 

[jubilee_links]

10 hours ago, jtj74 said:

Am I the only one thinking this would all be great if I putted without touching my putter shaft or in a revealer or whatever? I control the face of my putter with my hands and my stroke. 

 

I find the use of the 'revaeler' to look at the putter laughable. Nobody putts with a single point of contact as a pendulum - as Kenyon shows -once you grip the putter you are applying force to the shaft from 2 sources.

The revealer is a marketing tool to show and issue that is irrelevant to the how a putter works for a player

[golferdude54]

Crickets again... I save people money from getting a revealer that just wastes space by testing torque in their palms, which works with every "0 torque" putters by the way, and no one gives a cr*p.

 

Phil Kenyon is endorsed by Scotty Cameron & he owns Visio putting aids; LAB and the Putting Board (a putter path training aid with a better on-plane concept than the Visio mats) endorse each other, so there was always going to be negative criticism from Kenyon. 

[corky]

The main takeaway from his video is that zero torque is not a universal panacea. I thought his presentation was insightful. He might be a Scotty Boy but I didn’t detect any bias here.

[getitdaily]

If you tend to rotate the face closed in the downswing, a LAB could be very good for you. 

 

If you putt with a lot of hand and wrist controlling the club then a LAB probably isn't the best for you.

 

The more your elbows or lats or shoulders control your stroke, the better a LAB will likely be for you.

 

Anecdotally, any ZT putter with shaft lean seems to have more left misses if you rotate the face closed in the downswing.

Edited July 29 by getitdaily

[vman]

5 hours ago, golferdude54 said:

Crickets again... I save people money from getting a revealer that just wastes space by testing torque in their palms, which works with every "0 torque" putters by the way, and no one gives a cr*p.

 

Phil Kenyon is endorsed by Scotty Cameron & he owns Visio putting aids; LAB and the Putting Board (a putter path training aid with a better on-plane concept than the Visio mats) endorse each other, so there was always going to be negative criticism from Kenyon. 

Only there isn’t any negative criticism.

[jda]

What this guy understands that much of WRX does not is that you need a force to counteract to have touch and feel.  He said it in a slightly different way, but it is basically the same thing.  Torque is just one of the forces.

[Bob M]

In a series of 8 or so short articles in his Burnt Edges Substack, Bruce Rearick has made similar observations about what torque is and what causes it in putting and why it is neither good nor bad. Eliminating it may not be a good idea for everyone and is highly dependent on a number of factors including setup, swing path, etc.