Gut feeling leads to golf invention

Simon Moore shows off one of his company's belly putters. Picture / Kenny Rodger

World No 2 golfer Vijay Singh isn't the only one who's been winning from belly putting.

Cambridge company Puku Golf has chipped into the market for the golf-putting technique with its Puku putter - designed to fit into the golfer's navel.

Puku founder Simon Moore said at least 5 per cent of tour professionals were bellyputting - a style in which golfers stabilise their swing by attaching the putter to their stomach - and the percentage was growing.

With so few specialised belly putters on the market, Moore believed the opportunity was wide open for a company "from down under" to take a lead in the category.

"When the best putter at the PGA Tour last year, Stewart Cink, used a belly putter, wouldn't you think they'd [golf companies] be paying attention to it?"

Moore discovered belly putting eight years ago, finding the style helped his score when he played golf.

Effectively, the putter becomes like a pendulum connected to the body.

This stabilises the stroke, so fewer body parts, such as the wrists, are active in the swing.

An optometrist of 20 years, Moore knew nothing about the golf industry, international patents or computer-aided-design. He travelled to major golf trade shows and tournaments in the US to learn how to design his own version.

"Sometimes knowing nothing is a good place to start, because if you know nothing you assume nothing."

It was the enthusiasm of a local club professional who tried his first prototype in 1997 that encouraged him to keep pursuing the concept.

Golfers and their bellies come in all different sizes, and Moore decided the shaft length needed to reflect that.

Not only does that feature set the putter apart from others, the patented self-locking mechanism that makes the length adjustable is opening up opportunities off the green.

Moore hopes it will be used for a range of applications from furniture through to scaffolding.

The Puku offers three putter heads, each 420g, and has an ergonomic grip with a smaller tip to hold comfortably against the body.

Despite many attempts to get the Puku (the word is Maori for belly) made in New Zealand, only two parts are made locally. The rest is made overseas and assembled in Ohio, US.

It is priced at the top of the market at US$290 ($418) and not sold here yet as the company is focusing on the US, where belly putting has a foothold and where an estimated US$40 billion is spent on golf annually.

A US distributor is lined up and the Puku putter will be sold in golf stores there and via the company website from the end of the month.

The goal is to make Puku the No 1 belly putter on the market and to launch a range of clubs off the back of it in the future.

"Golfers are a great market: There's a lot of them, they have a lot of money, they're passionate about the game and all a bit desperate ... to improve," said Moore.

Although golf remains the main focus for now, the business strategy has changed a lot since Puku received a positive patent examination of the putter's "auto-locked" mechanism from the US last month.

Although he had previously downplayed the technology, Moore now sees its benefit for a range of uses from the building site to the operating theatre and has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars applying for patents in three countries, with more to come.

The titanium components only release for adjustment when a T-shaped tool is engaged and lock up when it is taken out.

It provides a safe and simple way to connect and adjust metal to metal or metal to glass with no screws or small parts to come loose.

Puku has ambitions to seek partners and license the mechanism.

But first it will concentrate on building the golf market, from where the cash is just starting to flow.

Like most small businesses, Puku's biggest obstacle to progress has been raising finances.

All avenues from angel investors to golf companies have been explored, but Moore said raising capital had been "diabolically hard".

The company has managed to raise $350,000 from 48 shareholders and Moore and his wife, Fiona, have put in about the same amount themselves.

Last year, Moore sold his optometry practice of seven years to focus on the business. He owns 70 per cent of parent company Puku, which owns Puku Golf.

Investment is still a bottleneck for the company and Moore estimates it needs $500,000 to $1 million to get on with its immediate plans.

That aside, Moore is confident of the company's success and aspires to one day list Puku on the New Zealand Stock Exchange.