About Hourglass Golf, LLC

Hourglass Golf, LLC was founded in 2020 by Andrew Barber.  The idea was created while Andrew was caddying for his son, Owen at a junior GSGA tournament.  Andrew, a former collegiate level golfer, misread an important putt and told his son Owen the putt broke subtley the wrong way.  After putting the ball, Owen looked back at his dad in disbelief.  Infuriated that he let his son down with a misread, Andrew began a journey to understand how he was fooled by the putting green with the realization that his peripheral vision and objects behind the hole played a large influence on his vision and the misread of the putt. 

Andrew found little research and understanding around vision science related to green reading with the long standing belief that green reading is an art you either have it or you don't.  Andrew did not believe that myth. 

Andrew looked at current green reading methods golfer's practiced and questioned why for decades golfers have used the edge of their shaft in a vertical plumb-bobbing position to gauge a horizontal slope of the green.  After all, any professional in any trade whether construction or on the putting green would opt for and be far better served using a tool in a horizontal position when trying to gauge a horizontal change in slope.  The first conclusion - a simple one - horizontal is a better gauge for horizontal than vertical could ever be.   

Andrew also noticed the significant recent rise in golfers moving away from reading the green with their eyes and moving towards using their feet and feel to read the green.  While Andrew sees value in a golfer using all of their senses combined to make the best green read, he knew vision still plays the primary role in green reading and alignment.  Realizing that vision can be distorted, as in his misread, Andrew found that vision distortion occurs through conflicting slopes, visual illusions, and distant objects in peripheral vision such that the eye may see break that does or doesn't exist as the eye can struggle to know where the true level horizontal position lies given all of those dynamics.  The second conclusion - adding a level horizontal visual reference line assisted more precise green reading.  Andrew found that through providing either a solid wide horizontal reference line in vision or by replacing a significant part of peripheral vision behind the hole with that solid wide horizontal reference line (both consistently achieved by gravity and the edge of your balance point putter shaft) helped make the true breaks of the green much more visible. 

It was through these realizations that Andrew created the ground breaking, game changing and conforming Balance Point Putter Shaft that will help you make more putts!