Explore every episode of the podcast Putting Is Fun

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.

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.

Brian brings his own honesty: 44 years of teaching, a stack of 27-putt rounds, the nerves that still test him, and the Langer-style stroke that works some of the time. Together they lay out the five elements of putting that this show is built on.

Dedicated to Biv Wadden.

Putting Is Fun is part of Funnel Golf, alongside No More Lies and The Brian Manzella Show. New episodes weekly. Be your own coach.

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 breaks toward the ocean, the digital level calibration tour players swear by, John's "Zen Point" aiming stick drill, and the origin story of the Arnold Palmer 8802.

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.

Respect the three-footer. Putting is fun.

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 it. Billy Casper is not on it anywhere, which is where the argument starts. Also: the putters who lifted the club off the ground before impact, David Toms opening the Tour School finals with six straight bombs, and the practice green money game called 11.

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.

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 pulls out a Millennium X John Byron putter, number 14 of 100, and tells the story behind it.

Watch the full video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@funnelgolfx

Chapters:

0:00 Putting Is Fun intro

0:53 This week: putting trends

1:21 Mallets vs non-mallets: the tour win count

2:01 Why mallets win: grooves, MOI, and aiming systems

3:28 Can a blade steal the mallet's advantages?

4:24 The John Byron Millennium X: number 14 of 100

6:24 Zero torque putters: mallet mania's next wave

10:14 Why tour pros skip zero torque: Jake Knapp's feel

12:00 Would John Byron Putters ever make a mallet?

13:20 Mallet city: the Roger Dunn story

15:04 Ping, Ryan Fox, and blade-style MOI

17:18 Big grips: has SuperStroke peaked?

21:09 The Apollo hump shaft and modern graphite

23:57 Johnny Miller, Daiwa, and graphite shaft history

28:00 Stroke curve, shoulder rotation, and the robot

35:49 The putting ruler under 150 dollars

37:35 3D printed putters

40:04 The Putting Package: rigid vs flexible strokes

43:11 Trackman 4 for putting lessons

49:16 The wrap-up stat: putting stats haven't improved in 20 years

53:39 Outro

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 purchases, what a brand new Ping Anser runs off the shelf, and whether the line on the putter and the line on the ball are worth anything. Then the first lesson itself: the reverse overlap grip nearly every great putter used, how much wrist is too much, what a gravity powered putting robot reveals about the arc of a stroke, and where your neck and eyes belong.

Then break. Why putts curve, why architects build the tilt into every green on purpose, and the two dollar yardstick drill that teaches green reading with no system, no fingers in the air, and no math.

Finally, the honest timeline. How often to practice, and how long before you stop embarrassing yourself.

Chapters:
0:00 The Putting Is Fun song and intro
2:01 Becoming a putter: beginners and the great reset
3:55 The first putter: what to buy and what to skip
13:14 What a brand new Ping Anser costs off the rack
18:17 Lines on the ball and lines on the putter
20:06 Your first session: lesson, YouTube, or the putting green
25:08 The reverse overlap grip
32:10 The gravity powered putting robot and the stroke arc
35:20 Wrists: how much is too much, and the flying wedge
39:35 Neck parallel to the ground, and where your eyes go
43:11 Finding a straight putt and why putts break
51:58 Learning to read break: the yardstick drill
58:09 How often to practice and the honest timeline
61:19 The whole plan in one minute

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.

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 Copycat Kid nickname with the Futura, the Phantom, and the Teryllium insert in an Anser, why the Circle T (the tour only version of his retail putters, some of them one-off designs for particular players) has the gravity it does, the Tour Championship putter count that ended in a dead tie between the TaylorMade Spider and the Camerons, Michael Kim's 59 with a zero torque Spider, the 8802 Gary Koch talked John out of making, forged vs. milled, welded necks vs. one-piece, and why the big box putter wall is quietly costing you strokes.

If you've ever paid too much for a putter, or too little attention to the one you have, this one's for you.

Be your own coach.