Cameron's dream: Making the TOUR's best putters
By Mike McAllister, PGATOUR.COM Managing Editor
SAN MARCOS, Calif. -- Scotty Cameron wants to know -- needs to know -- everything about the science of putting. After all, he has one singular goal: Make the best putters for the best golfers in the world.
So he reads all the books he could get his hands on. He listens to players, club makers and anybody else who has something to offer. He employs the latest, most hi-tech equipment. He tests theories and challenges conventional wisdom. Essentially, he's on a never-ending fact-finding mission for himself and for Titleist, the club manufacturer that supports his endeavors and sells his putters.
Fact: The golf ball, for USGA standards, weighs 45 grams. Fact: That's enough weight and enough gravity for the ball to create a cup-like indentation on the putting surface instead of sitting on top of it. Fact: Since the ball sits inside that indentation, it has to navigate the lip of the cup before it can head directly to the pin. Fact: If the putter has zero degrees loft and the shaft is at 90 degrees when it strikes the ball, then the ball will hit the lip of that cup, pop up, then down, thus losing speed and momentum.
Cameron still marvels about learning this kernel of knowledge so long ago, a piece of truth that forced him to rethink his entire approach to building putters.
"It was mind-blowing to understand that the ball doesn't roll at impact," he said. "If you don't have enough loft, then you cram the ball right into the edge of the cup, right into that indentation. Now, we just barely want to get the ball above that indentation and move it forward."
Cameron goes on to discuss how the magic number is four degrees loft but has variance depending on whether a player has a forward or backward press at impact, and that other considerations are also in play, such as swing arc (yes, it exists in putting) and shaft stiffness (yes, it makes a difference in putting), among other elements -- some of which sound like they belong at an astrophysics conference than the 12th at Augusta.
But the point is clear: Cameron knows his putters. And, just as important for the PGA TOUR pros, he knows how to make winning putters.
Thus far, Cameron's Titleist putters have been in the hands this year of 17 champions on TOUR, six winners on the Champions Tour, 11 winners on the Nationwide Tour, and 53 winners worldwide. Trevor Immelman used a Cameron putter to win the Masters; Sergio Garcia used one to win THE PLAYERS; Tiger Woods used one to win the U.S. Open; Ben Curtis used one that nearly won him the PGA Championship on Sunday at Oakland Hills. In all, 36 percent of the pros use a Cameron putter, which has been the most played and winningest line of putters on TOUR since '97.
The numbers are impressive, but they don't tell the whole story about Scotty Cameron and his Studio Selects and Red Xs and Detours and all the other models he has built through the years.
To understand the 45-year-old Cameron, you have to see him in his element, in his Putter Studio north of San Diego, not far from Titleist's headquarters in Carlsbad, Calif. You have to see him explain the nine high-speed cameras -- from angles that focus on a player's body, the putter shaft, the ball, the path to the cup, etc. -- that help provide the facts that he uses to support what he tells the players about their putters. You have to see him with his mills and grinds, his loft and lie gauges, his blocks of steel (although no signs of the super-expensive steel from Germany in which putters costing $7,000 are produced).
And then you just have to listen to him, hear the passion in his voice as he discusses putters and how to make them -- or, more to the point, how to make them better. He's a tinkerer. He's a thinker. He's a ...
"Dreamer," Cameron said. "But what really makes it strange is, I'm also a doer. Lots of dreamers aren't doers. Lots of doers aren't dreamers. And I'm a golfer. I'm always one to say, 'Why not?' ... It's about building a better mousetrap."
It's easy to see why so many TOUR pros use his putters. When these guys visit Cameron in his Putter Studio -- which, by the way, isn't located behind a locked gate but isn't easy to find even if you have the address and a GPS navigation system -- it's not so much to fix a flaw in their stroke. It's to make sure that they're using the correct putter that will maximize scoring opportunities and help them win tournaments.
"It's not a place to come get a lesson -- it's a place to understand what's going on," Cameron said. "We have the cameras now, not to confuse but to understand the facts of what's happening and then be able to share them.
"Some golfers may say, 'I'm not changing anything -- make me a putter that works.' We can do that, too. But the issue is, by you doing one thing, that affects the putter and the putter affects the ball. So it's pulling together the performance of the ball, the performance of the putter, the performance of the player and making it all jive together.
"We've learned over the years, these guys have big egos, They're the best of the best, and they need to have that kind of confidence. So we have to work around the egos, the confidence. Do we give lessons? Absolutely. But do we do it in the manner of it feeling like we're sharing information? Of course. These pros really don't want lessons when they come here -- and we don't want to give them lessons. We just want to share the information.
"It's so simple -- and that's the key. We've never had a person leave here and say, 'I'm confused.' Ever. We strive for that. We simplify it. We share the facts. And we decide what we're going to do."
The players' testimonials can be found on panels that line a large two-story wall in the Putter Studio. When the players visit, they often leave messages of appreciation, such as one from Justin Leonard ("Thanks for letting me play with your cool tools") or Hal Sutton ("What a great day. Teach me more."). The idea for the panels actually started when Cameron was making putters out of his four-car garage at home more than 15 years ago, with players coming to visit and leaving messages on the cabinet doors.
The Putter Studio's current location, which he has been in for six years but is rapidly outgrowing, now has several rooms for Cameron's 14 employees. But it's the room with the nine cameras and other high-tech equipment that draws the most oohs and aahs from visiting pros.
"We go to his studios and he's got the video camera that's unbelievable," Tom Pernice Jr. said. "And every time I go back there, that putter strokes the ball best and works for me. So it's kind of given me the confidence that it's the Indian and not the arrow for me. So I'm happy with my arrow -- it's just a matter of me performing."
Added Davis Love III: "As far as putting, he's full-service -- you can get your putter made, you can get it fit, you can get your stroke analyzed, you can work on your stroke and never leave his building. That's why it's a studio and not a factory."
In other words, it's to create works of art, not mass-produced products. But Cameron, Titleist's master craftsman when it comes to putting, knows there's a better way. Just like a technogeek, he wants to be the first guy on the block with the latest toy. Unlike most technogeeks, he actually gets a chance to build them.
That's why he thought of an idea for a new divot tool that he built in his garage workshop, then hauled his daughter to nearby La Costa so the two of them could test it out by repairing divots around the course. That's why he then thought of a better divot tool, this one with a clip on it so players can stick in on their back pockets instead of in the front where the forks might jab the skin.
That's why he thought of a new ball marker that has alignment lines on it so players can line up their putts quicker (see sidebar). That's why he experiments with hand-stitched alligator, snakeskin, lizard, crocodile and ostrich grips. That's why he devised a protective lid for the cup at the end of his putting green in the studio so that family and friends won't be tempted to practice on their own during a session. That's why he's making a putter for a handicapped player who has short arms; the putter has an extended grip that bends so that it can be supported under one arm. That's why he'll even make wallets.
Yep, that's right. The Scotty Cameron wallet.
"My son said, 'I need a new wallet.'" Love said. "I happened to have a Cameron wallet he had given me and I hadn't used it yet. So I said, 'Here, you can use this one but be careful and don't lose it. It's a Scotty Cameron.' He goes, 'Scotty Cameron makes wallets?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because it's cool.'
What's cool about Cameron, though, is that as much as he knows about putters and how to make them, he also knows there's more to be learned. And that thirst for knowledge, the thirst that so once lapped up information about ball indentations unseen by the naked eye, continues even today.
"I'm intrigued right now by eyesight," Cameron said. "The average touring pro aims 8-12 inches to the left. People say, Is that because it's right-eye or left-eye dominant? I don't know. I don't have the answers. I have theories -- everyone has theories -- but I haven't proven them yet."
Hmm. Sounds like Cameron may need a 10th camera in his Putter Studio, one that looks up from the ground straight into a player's eyes. After all, in his world, the more toys you own, the better putters you can make.
PGATOUR.COM's Helen Ross contributed to this report.
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