In my younger days I played quite a lot of hurling and I guess it is from those days that I like the feel of the ball hitting the ash, so to speak. Anyway, this might explain why I wasn't totally enamoured with The Pay Day, a putter I'd describe as horse-shoed with a heavy bottom. I couldn't feel the sensation of hitting the ball and the result was that I was either over- hitting the ball or else leaving it short of the hole.

When I use a light-headed putter, I can actually feel the ball coming through the shaft - but no matter how much I used this one, I couldn't get the same feeling and my confidence dropped.

The strange thing is that I had a lot of confidence initially when looking down at the head and it was lovely to hold. I couldn't wait to get out to use it. Because I had no feel, however, I lost control in distance and you just can't putt well in that situation. Even more worrying was that I didn't feel confident of making three footers or four footers. Perhaps if I'd spent a long time practising on the putting green it would have helped, but I believe that it is the type of putter that would be better appreciated by a lower handicap player than myself.

It comes down a lot to personal choice and the mallet head was something that I wasn't accustomed to using. Despite my enthusiasm when setting out to use it, the resultant lack of confidence when standing over a putt suggests that the small, light-headed putter is probably the one that suits me best, although I could understand how someone else could be very taken with the mallet.