If you suck at golf, like I do… you’re left with two choices.

1. Give up the game or

2. Figure out a way to enjoy it.

Hi, I'm Brian Wittman, and I invented a golf putter.

Yeah, you're saying, good for you buddy, so what?

Well, what if I told you that because I suck at golf, you don’t have to. What if I promised you better scores and more fun whether you’re a weekend warrior or Tiger Woods. Scratch that, Scottie Scheffler or _________ insert any name here you'd like.

I’m about to tell you a story, it’s entirely true and maybe you can relate to it.

I took up golf late in life as a way to create a hobby for myself outside of working all day. It was my brother who said, "dude, you need a hobby, why don’t you try golf?" Not sure he actually said dude.

I was never really athletic and golf seemed, well, something I might save for when I got older (no offense). After mulling it over for a week or so, I decided to give it a try. I went to the nearest Warehouse o’Golf products and was overwhelmed by my favorite things when I dive into a new interest… the accessories. But I digress.

I bought a driver, fairway woods, irons - a lot of sticks to get me the distance. Those clubs must be special. As for the putter, well just give me one of those (nothing special there, right?)

I left the store with everything I needed to get started on my new hobby and maybe a few extras that I didn’t need (does anyone really use that bristly thing to clean your balls? Ouch.)

Armed with all the equipment I “needed,” I took the advice of some people I know that have been playing awhile, and headed to the driving range. Because that’s where, they said, it all mattered. You drive for show and all that…You’ve got to get the ball down the long fairway and then you just putt it in. The long fairway. Go drive some balls.

Well, I’ll skip those gorey details (let me just say it wasn’t pretty) and leave you with the image of a bucket of balls being dropped from a plane at about 1500 feet. That my friend was the spread and let’s say, serendipity of my ball pattern.

Arrghh, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought. When you watch it on tv, it just seems so calm, sophisticated and kinda easy… for the first time. So when I got a call from an old friend and told him, yeah, hey, by the way, I took up golf, uh huh, yeah, great, awesome sport, yeah, I wish I took up earlier, love it. That was an invitation to hell on earth as I knew it. You see, it turns out that all my friends back in the day played golf, they just didn’t want to tell me because they thought I’d make fun of them. Who me? Yeah, I was THAT guy and now payback was going to hit me square in the golf balls and karma was going to crack me right in the hole.

As it turns out, this was also my date with destiny.

It’s funny how when you get to the putting green for the first time and there are no windmills. No crazy humps and bumps (unless its my local muni) and no real obstacles.

Wait, did I just say no real obstacles?!

What was I thinking? Of course there are real obstacles. It starts between your shoulders and makes its way down between your legs, all the way through your shaft straight to your putter. (We are talking about golf here).

Your swing thoughts, the ones you carried through from the drive. Obstacles.

Bob. He’s an obstacle. And, might I say quite an a@!#$

Distance to the hole. Obstacle.

The sheer mechanics. Obstacles.

And that putter you’re using? The biggest obstacle of them all.

It’s not you, really. It’s the putter.

It just wasn’t designed right.

Well, hold on a minute. Am I really saying that after 600 years (if we’re talking about the 18-hole game as we know it, 1764 at St. Andrews in which case, that’s 260 years) since golf was invented that the putter that we all know and love, the “answer” to your prayers (see what I did there?), the flat stick… wasn’t designed right? Sacré bleu!

Submitted for evidence:

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

(Wasn’t actually) Albert Einstein

So let’s break that down...

Go get your putter. Right now. I’ll wait. It’s in the garage, pick any one of them or you know what, grab the one you last used…

Take a look at it, closely, compared to every other putter, you’ve ever seen, perhaps ones you’ve owned what is one feature they all have in common (hint, it’s not the weights and balances on the back, I mean, c’mon really, do those gimmicks actually work? They may do something but you don’t really need them.)

It’s the FLAT face.

Putters…they’re all the same. Time immemorial golfers have been forced to hit a golf ball (round) with the club you use most often, the golf putter (flat).

Half of your game (used twice per hole x 18 holes = 36 strokes, out of the par-72) depends on this club and your success with it.

And yet, it has never changed… so how are you expected to?

You’re doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result!

So what’s a golfer to do?

Ok, back to me for a sec…

As I said, I finally made my way to the green, with the flag barely in sight and my nerves on fire. This was the very first time I was on a real course but I don’t think the anticipation ever goes away, does it?

Sure enough, I connect with the ball and it leaves the putter face, (it’s flat, I’ll remind you) and heads towards the hole…wait, um… away from the hole…oh, ok…nowhere near the hole. Over and over. ROUND AFTER round.

Reminder - I told you I suck at golf.

It was a long day out with an old friend that day. The golf school course I took refused my money back and I was left left disenchanted to say the least. But curious.

As I sat in my office the next morning I happened to be staring past my dog, (he thought I was looking at him to go out), right at Newton’s Cradle. The oh-so-popular desk accessory where the five balls go clickity-clack. The one where you take the first ball, suspended by a string, and release it towards the next ball in line and then one after the other the balls move in unison, against the action of the ball they hit. You know what I mean?

From Wikipedia: Named after Sir Issac Newton, the cradle is a device that demonstrates the conservation of momentum and the conservation of energy with swinging spheres. When one sphere at the end is lifted and released, it strikes the stationary spheres, transmitting a force through the stationary spheres that pushes the last sphere upward. The last sphere swings back and strikes the nearly stationary spheres, repeating the effect in the opposite direction.

The “executive toy” itself has a rich and fascinating history. If you saw the movie Hudsucker Proxy with Paul Newman, it was in there and so many other great films. I’m not sure where or how I acquired mine but I’d spend a lot of time just watching and listening to the transfer of motion in these little shiny spheres…

Eureka! I didn’t actually say that, but it was a eureka moment…

All along I’ve been expected to hit a round golf ball with a flat putter, which is like hitting a tennis racket with a tennis ball. All those varying angles and distortions and restrictions and conditions. It’s no wonder the ball behaves the way it does. If you’re not perfectly set up to hit the golf ball square at it’s core, at it’s equator, the “sweet spot,” what happens next is in the hands of the universe for all I know, because scientifically, this ‘ain’t right. There are just too many variables and no consistent repeatable action that will improve my game. None. Ever.

So, why then are putters flat faced?

Why aren’t they round, I asked.

Well, it turns out there were some attempts to make the face rounded to a degree but the primary principal was the same. Golfers were still expected to waggle their way to the sweet spot and connect with the ball for a true roll and given that the putter was barely round the results were the same. In other words, there was never really any science behind it… that is… until now.

You’ve been very patient, so I’ll save you the details but the long and short of it is -

That morning, after my very first round of golf, I set out to invent a round faced putter that was equal to the diameter of a golf ball (ball on ball like Newton’s Cradle) not even knowing if it was doable and how it would perform.

After modeling my first version, I presented it to another friend of mine, an avid golfer. I explained my theory about hitting a round ball with a round face and when I took it out of its case, he thought about it long and hard. The anticipation of his comments made me a little queasy, actually. But to my surprise he said, "Brian, I get it. If that putter was legal I’d give you $600 for it right now!"

Wow, I thought, not about the $600 bucks but what about the “legal.” Did I do all this work and now I have to jump through some kind of hurdles so that people can actually play it!?

His encouraging words put a lot of balls in motion (amazing the play on words that occur while writing this).

Legal. Patent. Performance. Public Scrutiny and Rejection.

Jump ahead a few months time…

Turns out, right about the same time I received my first patent for the design, I received the news that the putter conforms— not only the USGA (United States Golf Association) but the R&A (Royal & Ancient)—so you can humiliate your friends around the globe in tournament play. (And as I write this today, we have a fifth patent on the putter).

As a designer, I can safely say I know how to make things look nice, and in the case of this putter, I could back up the design with my theory but I’m not a scientist, or better, a physics professor.

I sent our model away for third party analysis and when I received the data back, it was a little overwhelming, a little too scientific, nerdy if you will. I wanted a simple answer.

So doc, did I achieve what I hoped to with the design of my new putter?

Well, he said, not only did you do what you said you wanted to, but the putter outperformed the two top leading putters on tour in our testing. This should make you very excited. And it did. Wow, so we have a unique, patented design that is not only legal around the world but has shown promising results in an independent lab to measure high performance… What could possibly go wrong? What’s next in this saga…

Do you know anyone with an ugly baby? You know, the parents are just so proud and they’re happy to share the moment with you. Perhaps you’d rather get back to the lawn, or even clearing out the leak in the basement. But they’ve shown up and you have to take the time to look as they peel back the blanket and reveal the… what the heck is that!?

You know.

Well, I’ll say it this way. The first version of the putter as introduced was quite a bit different then the refined model we have now. It was still the same round face and all the same design, performance and science, but just a bit different. And, as it’s proud parent, you don’t want anyone saying bad things, but people can be people.

I was at the largest demo day I’d ever seen and my audience were filled with everyday golfers, all sizes, all levels of play, And I remember this one guy, who came up to me and he said dude, I’m not sure he called me dude, "this is the effing ugliest thing I’ve ever seen." I thrashed back, "yeah, effing ugly accurate buddy." This guy was huge, I mean a monster (and a mean monster) I continued… roll it and then tell me what you think.

He stormed off to the practice green just in view and I watched as he set up the putter, as directed (we’ll get to that later) but couldn’t make out what happened after he struck the ball. Next thing I know, he’s charging at me nearly at full speed. I’m demoing the club to someone else and look away to “greet” him and he shouts out loud, all excited…

This thing is like cheating - did you see me sink that 20-footer!?

I didn’t have to. The point is, the putter, and I’ll introduce it to you now, CenterStrike Golf’s CenterG putter. It’s not like any putter you’ve ever seen before. You can’t. It’s new. It’s ours.

But it can be yours.

It’s a tech, sleek, round faced precision engineered, "effing accurate,” revolutionary golf putter that is literally changing the face of golf and disrupting the industry as we know it.

It’s par for par, a better putter than any you’ve ever owned and it’s forgiveness and accuracy will have you loving he game even more by scoring less with it.

It takes only 10 minutes to get used to the difference in your stroke (we call it Sole. Press. Sweep.) And you’ll instantly see the difference our Center Strike® Technology makes in delivering a true roll, every time.

The very first version sold out in pretty short order, so I’m happy to announce that we will be opening up our preorder gate today releasing the CenterG putter in limited supply.

All of the details are here: centerstrikegolf.com

And every putter comes with my Maybe Guarantee. If the putter doesn’t perform as advertised and you’re not draining more putts, more often, then MAYBE you suck at golf more than I do. The full terms of sale are available in the store. I’ve eaten enough of your time.

Thank you, kindly.