The Arc Master Putter – Milled by Smith & Wesson

Why Arc Putters Instead of Down-Line Putters?

Arc Putters utilize the same physics that caused the rotary place kick to take over the straight away kick in football. In a rotary place kick, almost the entire weight of the body turns against the football. In a straight away kick, only the weight and strength of the leg move the football. When putting on the arc with your body mass, much less effort is required for the ball to reach the hole. Power comes from the release of your core mass, instead of coming from your shoulders and arms. Our arc putters are designed to compliment a rotary stroke as opposed to a down-line stroke. Trying to use a down-line putter to apply power in a rotary fashion is difficult, and does not yield the best results. Putters should be designed to work with the method of power application being used and should not conflict with it.

The Importance of Driving Vs. Putting

Most golfers use their putter for more than a third of their shots. Putting is second only to driving in importance, and should be given the utmost attention. The only reason the driver is so important, is because driving the ball well takes pressure off your putting. Once you are on the green putting becomes critically important. We have invested years of research developing the ideal putting technique and discovering why arc putting is the superior method. For 90 years the equipment industry has been designing putters to putt back and forth on the flight line in a pendulum fashion. Golfers tend to believe that because you are holding the putter in your hands, they should be used as a power source. However, if you want to achieve maximum touch on the greens, the hands should be used for feel only. Power should come from the ground up.

The Purpose of the Arc Master Design

The idea behind the design of the Arc Master putter was to build a head shape that was visually friendly to the human eye. Putting on the arc successfully requires a putter head with some degree of trap. To most golfers, a putter with built in trap appears that it is aimed to the left. When leading the stroke with a turn of the body, trap is required to keep the ball from going to the right. This is why there is a curve built into a hockey stick. If you threw a baseball with no curve in your fingers, the ball would go straight up in the air upon release. Try handing a player a putter that appears hooked and they will normally hand it right back to you. The Arc Master however, doesn’t look hooked because of its mirror image and is very comfortable to the eye.

Why Arc Putters Outperform the Competition

Tiger Woods started and reached the peak of his career putting on the arc. Jack Nicklaus personally told David Lee that George Lowe originally taught him to putt on the arc when he was a teenager. Tiger has putted on the arc for the majority of his winning years on the PGA Tour. Briefly, between 2014-2019, he tried putting down the line, probably due to uncomfortability standing on his injured left knee. During that time his putting suffered and he went through the longest winless streak of his career. He has recently begun posting over his left leg as he used to, and is putting better in recent tournaments.  Tiger instinctively feels that putting on the arc is technically superior to putting down the flight-line. Most golfers that are uncomfortable putting on the arc, don’t feel proper core connection.  Understanding “slack” in the spine will completely solve those issues.

The Physics Advantage of Putting on the Arc

Each of our putters is designed to perfectly compliment the superior physics of putting on the arc. The conventional technique of going back and forth on the flight-line puts less body mass against the ball. If the weight of the shoulders, arms and putter are the only moving mass at impact, less energy is imparted to the ball. This requires the player to work harder in a down-line stroke than in a rotary stroke. Moving the core in rotation, puts the weight of almost the entire body through the putt. The power efficiency is significantly increased and the hands are totally free to feel the attitude of the putter face.  The attack path in a rotary stroke is shallower and puts a much better roll on the golf ball.

What is the Future of Putting?

As the physics of proper putting become better understood, more and more golfers will gravitate toward arc putting. In addition to improved knowledge, changes in putter design will also make putting on the arc more popular. Some of the world’s best putters have instinctively mastered the subtleties of the technique. Most players however, because they are holding the putter in their hands, sense the impulse to power it from there. Using counter-fall and core mass release for power, is completely counterintuitive to most golfers. On the other hand, once a player feels how to do it, they sense that it is the only way to putt.  Getting your power and feel from the same place will simply cloud your feel. Separating the two, will provide you with maximum consistency, distance control and touch. Combining ideal physics and physiology will take the future of putting technique to an entirely new level.

Return Policy