BirdieBall Putting Mats: Living in the Material World

BirdieBall putting mats have been high MyGolfSpy performers ever since we began testing placing mats.

And ever since we began testing placing mats, John Breaker, BirdieBall founder, proprietor, CEO and Interior Mild, has been adamant: If you need true roll on a placing mat, his aerated foam is the way in which to go.

It’s a message Breaker has shouted from the rooftops since his first aerated foam mat debuted.

“The issue with woven synthetics, carpet, felt or every other artifical textile is that they have a sample,” says Breaker. “When the ball slows down, it follows the sample.”

And that sample means you’re getting far much less out of all of the apply you set in over the winter than you hoped.

So why, then, has BirdieBall taken a step to the left and launched a textile placing mat? Think about it an lodging to the realities of residing within the materials world.

Birdie Ball Placing Mats and the Nice Foam Wars

Within the BirdieBall world“foam” with out the modifier “aerated” is only a four-letter phrase. There’s a science to BirdieBall’s aerated foam that places it gentle years away from a pool noodle and, based on our testing, nearer to an actual inexperienced. The key is within the sub-base.

“Bentgrass and Bermuda grass have been extremely engineered over the past 60 years,” explains Breaker. “They’re in a position to mow greens all the way down to lower than an eighth of an inch now. However to maintain the ball on observe, you need to roll the sub-base.”

In actual golf, the ball rolls on the sub-base whereas the grass itself is there to sluggish the ball down. BirdieBall’s aerated foam – a novel polymer method that creates a spongy sub-base with fibrils to simulate the grass – is about as shut because it will get to actuality. Textile placing mats use what quantities to artificial grass.

“The blade for these artificial grasses is extruded,” says Breaker. “It comes out like spaghetti, then they put it on a loom. You’re making your form and the bobbins are working however there’s a sample there. In a linear foot, you’ll have about 32 paths, with a spot between every path.”

Breaker says that with textile mats, there isn’t a sub-base. The ball rolls on the floor and the floor has a sample. And the sample impacts roll.

“The telltale signal of a textile inexperienced is you’ll discover a wobble in your ball both on the trail itself or when it lastly settles to a cease,” he says. “That’s telling you the placing floor is affecting the roll which isn’t what you need once you’re training your stroke.”

None of which, after all, explains why BirdieBall has determined so as to add a textile mat to its providing.

The Materials World

So why go the textile route? Chalk it as much as the realities of residing within the materials world.

“The professionals (of aerated foam) are real-green-like roll and the flexibility to create true breaks and undulations,” says Breaker “The cons? Your canine shouldn’t stroll on it and your girlfriend can’t stroll on it with stiletto heels. It’s an excessive amount of like a pure inexperienced and far of the market can’t dwell with these cons.”

Moreover, aerated foam is indoor-only.

“We don’t need to say goodbye to that market,” Breaker provides. “If it’s a cookout and I’m ingesting beer with my buddies, the roll doesn’t matter. I’m not searching for placing suggestions as a lot as I’m searching for a superb time.”

BirdieBall’s new Indoor/Outdoor putting mat completed second in our most recent putting mat Buyer’s Guide. Our testers raved in regards to the sturdiness and the roll. Breaker says getting the absolute best roll out of a textile turf mat is a mix of the weave and the lower.

“The one distinction between carpet and turf is the loop that’s created whereas weaving will get lower,” he explains. “While you lower the loop off you now have this blade, however you’re exposing these 32 tracks.”

To fight that sample, the objective is to get the weave as tight as potential and lower the blade as brief as potential.

“The shorter the blade, the higher. However the unlucky half is you may solely lower it all the way down to a couple of quarter of an inch. That doesn’t let the ball get to the sub-base so it has to trip on the floor. You’re working to shear it as precisely as you may and making these piles as tight as you may to eradicate these channels for the ball to get distracted by.”

Commerce-Offs and the “Large Whoop” Issue

The choice tree between aerated foam and a well-made textile turf placing mat comes all the way down to trade-offs. Need the truest potential roll? Go along with aerated foam. Sturdiness and indoor/out of doors use? It’s textile turf.

“That’s the trade-off however it’s nonetheless a blast to make use of,” says Breaker. “It’s all about educating the patron on what their largest precedence is. If it’s to have a gathering place for family and friends, that’s one factor. If it’s to apply on the truest rolling floor potential, that’s fairly one other. The professionals and cons will direct you towards what you need to do.”

However for the devoted, lifelong cynic, it’s unimaginable to not ask the plain query: So the ball wobbles just a little bit. Large whoop. Who cares?

“Effectively, there’s a ‘Large Whoop’ quotient,” admits Breaker. “Some folks don’t care as a lot as different folks so it comes all the way down to how choosy are you?”

“You’re spending time training on a floor that’s not an actual placing inexperienced so why wouldn’t you select essentially the most correct floor?” provides Katie Breaker, John’s daughter and BirdieBall’s advertising director. “Large whoop? Perhaps, however you do have the choice to be very true in what you’re training.”

Your “Large Whoop” quotient will rely on what you need to use your placing mat for. In case you merely need to hold rust from setting in throughout the offseason or to have some enjoyable, it’s a simple selection. Nevertheless it’s additionally a simple selection if you happen to’re making an attempt to sharpen your flatstick abilities all yr spherical.

“Placing is basically the road and the pace,” says John Breaker. “In case you’re getting the mistaken suggestions on the road, there’s an issue. In case you’re getting the mistaken suggestions on the pace, that’s one other drawback. Put these issues collectively and that’s an even bigger drawback.”

Celebrating Two A long time of BirdieBall

We’ve written earlier than about BirdieBall’s origins and how it’s very much a Breaker family enterprise. And simply this previous spring, the household enterprise celebrated its 20^th anniversary.

“I don’t bear in mind any of the folks we competed towards for Greatest New Product again then on the PGA Present as a result of none of them are nonetheless in enterprise,” says Breaker. “Merchandise come and go and it’s uncommon for one to have the form of endurance that we’ve had.”

The unique BirdieBall stays an enormous a part of the corporate’s enterprise as is its dedication to rising the sport on the youth degree through physical education programs in schools.

“We’re in about 7,000 colleges with BirdieBall,” says Breaker. “And we’ve given away or bought thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of BirdieBalls through the years.”

And if BirdieBall was so inclined, it might additionally add a significant champion to its record of accomplishments. Coloradan and 2022 Chevron champion Jennifer Kupcho began out by hitting BirdieBalls when she was simply studying to stroll. And Breaker says a current European Tour winner stored telling himself down the stretch to hit his photographs prefer it’s a BirdieBall.

However on the subject of selecting the best placing mat, Breaker says that once you’re residing in a cloth world, there’s a number of work to do to get the message by way of.

“What we’d like is to teach the shopper that there’s not likely a mistaken selection however there’s a clear selection.”

For extra data on BirdieBall placing mats, go to www.birdieball.com.