Are all putters, despite their sizes and shapes, essentially created equal when it comes to rolling the rock? Larry Garcia doesn't think so. The founder and vice president of product development for Q-Roll Golf, Garcia believes lofted-putter faces are old technology.
"Karsten Solheim created lofted-face [Ping] putters with heel-toe weighting because greens 40 years ago weren't very good," Garcia told PGA.com. "The idea was to get the ball running on top of the grass. Basically what you're doing is lofting the ball, and by the time you actually achieved 'true roll,' the ball has traveled quite a distance."
The quicker a player can achieve true roll off the putter face, Garcia said, the better he or she can control accuracy and distance control.
"Isn't that all there is to putting?," said Garcia, whose Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based company has started shipping its Celebration Series of Wave and Monarch putters.
Like every model in the Q-Roll line, the Wave and Monarch putters (suggested retail price $250) features the company's patented Radius Face technology. That, Garcia said, allows the putter to strike the golf ball above its equator, producing immediate topspin and a true and more accurate forward roll toward the hole.
The Wave and Monarch putters, Garcia said, each are 100 percent milled from 6061 aluminum by a CNC milling machine. In addition to Q-Roll's Radius Face technology, Garcia said the putters feature special alignment "waves" or "directional bars" to improve alignment.
"With today's fast greens, you want to get the ball rolling as fast as you can," Garcia said. "There are so many benefits to our putters as opposed to lofted-face putters, it shouldn't even be a contest."
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