[Matt]

I try to stay away from vertical hinging for the most part - I do like to practice it on pitch shots as I go through the three hinge actions. There's really not much you can do with a vertical hinge that you can't do with an angled hinge. What full shots would benefit from the introduction of a vertical hinge instead of an angled hinge?

For the short shots, the shaft/ground angle gets steeper as the lie angle of the club increases. This alone will play around with the closing and layback properties of the angled hinge. It will become more "layback" and less "closing." When putting, an angled hinge is very close to a vertical hinge, and completely without the deliberate muscular manipulation that always accompanies vertical hinging.