Kenny Perry has racked up three wins in his last five outings - a number that would be hard to do without a consistently good performance on the greens.
And for the past few months, Perry's flat stick of choice has been the Ping Craz-E putter. It's a regular-length putter - not a belly model.
"Ever since I stuck with this putter, I have been comfortable with it," Perry said after winning the John Deere Classic Sunday. "Man, I kept tumbling them in there. All it did was give me more confidence."
Perry used a Rossa model putter for much of his career, until he picked up the mallet-style Craz-E putter from a guy named Paul Hargarten, a member at Bent Pine in Vero Beach, who told Perry he should use the putter for help on the greens.
"I just accepted the putter from him, kind of threw it in the back of my truck," Perry explained Friday. "And started putting bad with my Rossi, so I went and grabbed it, and next thing you won I've won $3 million with it this year."
What makes the Craz-E putter work so well for his game? Perry said that the stability built into the putter was of help for his stroke.
"To me it's the most stable putter I've ever hit through impact. I don't feel a lot of heel-toe motion through impact area. It stays very stable, very balanced, and it's very dead," he said. "What I like about it is I've kind of got a little hit in my stroke. At my age I want to hit it with my right hand a little bit, and the face of this putter is very dead, so it lets me whack at it like I want to and the ball doesn't come flying off the face."
Perry said that he's never thought that his putting was better than his ball striking until the win Sunday.
"I have never remembered a tournament where my putter won the tournament for me. I always felt like my ball striking was what I won the tournament with. Today it was definitely my putter that won the golf tournament. I was clutch. Whenever I had to make it, I made it," he said.
