According to the SAM puttlab folks, why should a putter have any loft at all?
I don't know, but I can tell you that there isn't an OEM on the planet that designs its putters with anything even remotely resembling a bonafied scientific approach. Just go to Golf Galaxy and take a stroll through the putter section. If you're like me, you'll think to yourself, "What the hell is this crap?"
Let's go back in time to the turn of the 20th century. The average putting green surface most likely resembled the fringe of your modern run-of-the-mill public course. In that time, the putting stroke closely resembled the chipping stroke because the surfaces the ball was struck from closely resembled each other.
Harry Vardon and and his contemporaries putted like they chipped because their greens were lumpy and necessitated that type of motion. Even into the '70s, some tour pros had wristy strokes and used putters with a lot of loft. I'm sure you can think of plenty who fit the bill.
The game changes though. Greens became smoother and the putting stroke became less handsy as a result. In my opinion, the evolution of the golfing motions have reflected the change in course conditioning and length. A powerful, modern pivot is required to hit nine-iron into a 480-yard par four, and a correspondingly modern putting stroke is required to make the sliding 12-footer on a green that's rolling at 12 on the stimp.
The average putter today has approximately 3.5 degrees of loft, and I'd bet the farm that that number is completely arbitrary, or at best, a remnant from a bygone era when putters did need a lot of loft. Why don't putters have zero degrees of loft? Probably because the OEM folks don't have the SAM folks' phone number, or even the desire to disrupt the status quo and threaten their bottom line. Innovation, even when backed by scientific research, is a risk few OEM's are willing to take.
However, there is a handful of small putter companies who are challenging tradtition and making putters with a consideration of the physics of putting. Here are a few that have caught my attention:
Torpedo Golf
Positive Putter
Inseyed Putters
Quantum Golf Putters
Even if you disagree with their approach or just think the putters are goofy, you can at least respect the desire to make something that is truly new and governed by scientific principles rather than ritzy-titzy marketing.
I expect the OEMs to start applying physics to their putter designs at about the same time Diora Baird shows up at my front door with a marriage proposal and a tray of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies.
