0A utopian putter

A putt that doesn’t hop, skip, jump and otherwise annoy on the way to the hole? That would be utopian.

That’s what Scott Saunders and Michael Hillis of Utopia, Texas, about 80 miles west of San Antonio in the state’s windy Hill Country, thought as well. They knew from experience that every putt skids a bit as soon as it’s hit – and during that time, is subject to all kinds of mishaps of physics. The sooner the ball gets rolling end over end, the more likely it is to hold its line. Many innovations have been tried over the decades to assure this result, including putters with negative loft.

Saunders and Hillis, founders of Utopia Golf Products, had a different solution. Their idea was to build a putterface engineered so that  the contact point is a ridge – what Utopia calls “The Edge.” It’s positioned to strike the ball above its equator, which Utopia says will encourage an early forward roll.

The idea raised some eyebrows at the PGA Fall Expo in Las Vegas in September. There are currently two models, priced at $170 and $180. For more information, contact the company’s Web site.