The world’s first fully adjustable putter
Published:
Drivers have been adjustable for years – now there’s a putter you can tweak in 486 different ways. The Happy putter takes its lead from the adjustable-driver movement, as well as tour players’ tendencies to tweak their putters based on course or stroke changes.
Vikash Sanyal, CEO of parent company Brainstorm Golf, told us: “Obviously adjustable drivers are the current rage, so it made sense that an adjustable putter would be accepted by golfers. In the golf industry, tour players define which technologies are legitimate, and tour players have had access to adjustable putters for decades through tour reps who work for the different manufacturers.”
So how would you use a putter that’s adjustable for head weight, offset, loft and lie angle… pretty much everything except length. Sanyal, who used to work for Odyssey, added: “If pros were playing different green surfaces, they would ask for more or less loft on their putter, or if they wanted to try a different putting stance, they may ask for the putter to have a different lie angle. We could make some players over 10 putters in one season, but tour players have this luxury because they don’t get charged for those putters. We thought that consumers should have access to this same adjustable technology.
“We have been working on the Happy putter for almost 30 months. We created close to 30 prototypes. It can be adjusted 486 different ways, has five patents and over 30 parts in each one.”
So why hasn’t one of the big brands done the same thing already? “It may have something to do with the fact that the top putter firms are owned by big companies who are focused on the larger equipment categories,” says Sanyal. “It is also a product that is a bit risky because the technology is so far beyond anything else.”
Brainstorm Golf hopes to have a UK distributor by spring, so the two models – a mallet and a blade – will be on sale here.
So which piece of golf gear could be adjusted next?
We trawled the patents websites to see what manufacturers are working on now…
Ball: Nike has looked at balls that have “adjustable tackiness”. Its patent says: “A coating is designed to allow a golfer to modify or increase the tackiness of the golf ball; this coating changes tackiness when exposed to a soaking material.”
Automatic adjustment: Nike has also been investigating technology that automatically adjusts your club based on things such as your swing path and even the weather. That patent says “such settings systems may alter one or more of lie angle, loft angle, face angle, shaft kickpoint location, face flex etc.”
Irons: Callaway has been looking into irons with a changeable cavity. Why? You could change the centre of gravity location, turf interaction, loft and general forgiveness with different materials.
