Joe,
Sometimes on a short putt I feel like I am sure that I made a good putting stroke, but the ball sometimes reacts like a pull or a push and it misses the hole. Could it be the dimples on the ball?
Drake

Hello Drake,
You are correct. The Zen putter manufacturer has done some experiments that show striking the ball on the edge of a dimple can send the ball as much as two degrees off line, which can result in a miss from 5 feet. Zen then claims that their putters correct for this because of the way the face is designed, but I do not buy that. I do not see how a milled or grooved face is going to strike the dimple any differently. It was not that long ago when all golf balls had a visible seam where there were no dimples. Golfers used to line up this seam so the putter could strike the ball on that seam where there were no dimples, resulting in a true roll. Today’s ball designs have eliminated the seam in favor of better ball flight on full swings. Then I saw another ad for a ball with no dimples at all, and it was very pricey. However this ball is probably only intended for putting because ball flight will be erratic without dimples, and for competition you cannot switch balls for putting. The only solution that I can think of is to use a ball that has smaller dimples. Anyone else have any ideas on this?
Joe