Putting Is Fun
Everybody who's ever tried it knows putting can be fun. It can also break your heart. This show takes the fun road.Putting Is Fun is a weekly conversation between Brian Manzella, a Top 100 teacher who spent 44 years coaching golf and will happily tell you he's a poor putter, and John Ortega, the putting guru who has coached PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp since he was 8 years old and co-founded John Byron Putters back when Scotty Cameron was still Scott.No systems. No gimmicks. Just two lifers who love this part of the game, telling the stories behind putters, putting...
A $750 Putter Shot 125. Hubert Green's Cost $5 (with Kieran Harris) | Ep. 12
John is out this week, so Kieran Harris of Good Misses sits in the Ortega chair from his mother-in-law's basement in Toronto. Brian Manzella, Top 50 teacher, starts with the putter in Kieran's bag: a 20-year-old Ping Zing 2, the putter Curtis Strange won two US Opens with, and the putter Brian's dad Basil Manzella putted the best of his life with after banging the pin so many times he took the loft off.
Then the big question: do regular people putt better than they did 20 years ago? Kieran caddied in the Toronto city championship and watched a grade 8...
Nicklaus's White Fang and the Putter Karsten Never Glued | Ep. 11
Tricked-out putters, all the way down. Brian Manzella and John Ortega on the first putter covers, $800 headcovers, black oxide and Cerakote, flipping a beat-up Scotty for profit, how Karsten swedged the Anser shaft with a ball bearing, the marble in Tom Watson's putter, Jack Nicklaus painting a Bullseye white, and why a black shaft on a black putter ruined Brian's putting. Brian Manzella is a Top 50 teacher. John Ortega is co-founder of John Byron Putters and long time coach to PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp. Be your own coach.
Chapters 0:00 Putting Is Fun 0:37 New Orleans and rainy...
The Training Aid Episode: Putting Platforms, the Smittle Stick, and Se Ri Pak's 81 Putts | Ep. 10
Brian Manzella and John Ortega go through the training aids that actually work. The motorized putting platforms with projected break lines, why John is buying a Zen, and why Brian thinks every studio should have one. Bill Smittle's Smittle Stick for matching face rotation to your arc. Matt Bryda's Gimme Towel for speed. The origin of John's Groove Board, from kitchen slats to Se Ri Pak's 81 putts over 54 holes, and the first board off his new 3D printer. Plus the best aid you can't buy anymore. Putting Is Fun is a Funnel Golf show. Golf without the spin.
<...Side Saddle Putting with Sam Osborne: Snead, Bryson, and the Stroke the USGA Tried to Kill | Ep. 9
Sam Osborne (No More Lies) joins Brian Manzella and John Ortega for the first three man Putting Is Fun. Sam has putted side saddle for eight years and makes the case that it is technically superior. Brian covers how one comment from Bobby Jones got Sam Snead's croquet stroke banned, John tells the inside story of the putter he built for Bobby Schaefer and Bryson DeChambeau, and all three dig into putter length, anchoring rules, and why non-golfers learn it faster. Ends with a challenge: try it for half an hour on the practice green.
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They Called Scotty Cameron "The Copycat Kid" | Ep. 8
They called Scotty Cameron the Copycat Kid. His original designs shut that down for good.
Brian Manzella is a Top 50 teacher and runs his Studio in the Sky in New Orleans. John Ortega is co-founder of John Byron Putters, runs the Ortega Golf Lab in Costa Mesa and is long time coach to PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp. This week the two of them go all the way down the putter rabbit hole: why a third of golfers who show up for a fitting are playing something that grossly doesn't fit them, how Cameron busted through the...
Blade Putters Are Disappearing | Ep. 7
Mallets are winning on tour by a landslide, blades are vanishing from the racks, and after 20 years of better equipment and better data, tour putting stats have barely moved. This week on Putting Is Fun, it's the trends episode.
Brian Manzella, Top 50 teacher, and John Ortega, co-founder of John Byron Putters and long time coach to PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp, break down why mallets keep winning, whether a blade can steal the mallet's advantages, the truth about zero torque putters, and the one stat that should make everybody in golf wonder why. John also...
You Can Become a Great Putter Without Ever Playing Golf | Ep. 6
Brian Manzella and John Ortega build a putter from scratch. Not a club, a person.
Ep. 6 is for two kinds of listeners: someone who has never held a putter outside of a mini golf course, and the golfer who has been doing it wrong long enough that the only fix left is starting over. Jack Nicklaus asked his teacher to reteach him golf from the beginning every year, so there is no shame in the reset.
What to buy and what to skip. Why $50 on the used rack plus $15 for a grip beats most new...
Aimpoint vs Vector Putting, and Grok's 25 Best Putters | Ep. 5
Aimpoint took over the PGA Tour and never made it to your Saturday game. Brian Manzella and John Ortega break down both green reading systems, the lawsuit between them, and the reason amateurs quit before either one starts working.
Then a drill for anyone who is never going to learn a system: an alignment stick, a repeatable image, and enough repetitions to build an internal GPS.
In the second half, Grok hands over its 25 best putters of all time. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Bobby Locke and Brad Faxon lead...
Are Zero Torque Putters Already Fading on Tour? | Ep. 4
Brian and John are back from the US Open at Shinnecock with a report from inside the ropes. John's student Jake Knapp returned from six to eight weeks off with a thumb injury and posted 190 mph ball speed on his first day back. Wyndham Clark signed a putter-only deal with Ping on Wednesday and won on Sunday. And the zero torque putter revolution some predicted? It's quietly stalling on tour.
Also in this one: how the USGA tamed Shinnecock's domed greens, the real differences between Bermuda, Poa annua, and bent, why every putt at Pebble...
The Putting Stroke Stopped Evolving 50 Years Ago, Ep. 3
The golf swing changed. The equipment changed. The putting stroke? Stuck in 1975. Brian Manzella (Top 50 teacher) and John Ortega (co-founder of John Byron Putters, LONG TIME coach to Jake Knapp) trace the stroke from wristy Bobby Jones flicks to the semi frozen-wrist modern era, and ask why 50 years of tech has barely moved it two degrees. Plus: Tiger's misleading SAM PuttLab data, the Nicklaus right arm stroke, Brent White's bag room to boardroom story, Freddy Haas ending Byron Nelson's streak, and the 12 year old who beat John for $22.
Arnold Palmer Asked John for a Putting Lesson, Ep. 2
Brian Manzella (Top 50 teacher) and John Ortega (co-founder of John Byron Putters, coach to PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp since he was 8) share the stories only guys who've spent decades around putters can tell: Arnold Palmer asking for a lesson, a 13-year-old Tiger Woods ordering a putter, and the $600 Scotty Cameron that would be worth $5,000 today.
Plus: Brian's Langer-style arm lock experiment, the putters winning on tour right now (TaylorMade Spider, Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset), and part one of the Five Elements of Putting: The Golfer.
He Needed a Baseball Bat. Golf Got Him Instead. | Putting Is Fun Ep. 1
He needed a baseball bat. Golf got him instead.
In the first episode of Putting Is Fun, Brian Manzella sits down with John Ortega, the man who has coached PGA Tour winner Jake Knapp since age 8, to hear the whole story: three rounds of caddying to earn a bat, teaching lessons for $12 an hour, co-founding John Byron Putters in the era when Scotty Cameron was still Scott, tour wins with Trevino and Floyd, the Spalding deal that got away, and the lifetime of putting knowledge that came out of all of it.
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