Instead of casting or milling, Cobra teamed with HP to 3D print, in metal, a blade putter that delivers maximum stability and MOI.
Gear: Cobra King Supersport-35 putter Price: $399 Specs: Printed 316 stainless steel. 34″ and right-hand only Available: November 20
Making an iron involves using one of two manufacturing techniques, either pouring liquid metal into molds and casting your design or superheating a bar of metal and forging it under high pressure into the shape you want. Putters are either cast like an iron or milled, a different process that involves a computer controlling a fast-spinning bit that passes back and forth over the metal. The bit shaves off thin ribbons of material, one after the other, until the desired shape is finally achieved.
With the release of the limited-edition King Supersport-35 putter, Cobra has teamed with HP to make a putter using a new method, 3D metal printing.
The process of 3D printing involves a computer being given detailed instructions about a structure before the system adds layer upon layer of material to recreate the object. In schools, students often make simple things like tiny statues of the Eiffel Tower or simple figures. Using HP’s Metal Jet 3D printing technology, Cobra designers could create shapes and structures that could not be made using either casting or forging.
The lattice of steel in the back of the Cobra King Supersport-35 putter can only be produced by 3D printing. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The King Supersport-35 is printed in 315 stainless steel, including the dark lattice area in the back of the head. The lattice structure is very strong but utilizes significantly less steel, so the middle of the putter is lighter. The saved weight was redistributed to the heel and toe areas of the head, giving the King Supersport-35 extreme perimeter weighting and more stability.
After the head is printed, it is sintered, which means heating it to bond the printing more solidly, but it is not heated to the point of melting the metal. Closely examining the chrome-toned steel reveals tiny lines that were created by a final milling process that gives the King Supersport-35 a more traditional look. Even though the milling machines are controlled by a computer, they can not get into the tight spaces of the lattice structure, so it feels rougher and has a darker color.
Descending Loft Technology helps golfers achieve a more consistent roll. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
To help golfers achieve a better roll, Cobra gave the King Supersport-35 a four-segment face insert designed by SIK Golf (Study in Kinetics), the company that makes putters for Bryson DeChambeau. The hitting area has been divided into four flat surfaces that have different lofts. The top portion has 4 degrees of loft and each portion below it goes down in loft by 1 degree, with the lowest area having just 1 degree of loft. SIK calls it Descending Loft Technology and it is designed to normalize roll and nullify the effects of an excessive forward press at impact or a thinly-struck putt.
Looking down at address, the Cobra King Supersport-35 looks like a traditional high-MOI blade. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Cobra King Supersport-35 has 35-degrees of toe hang, so it should be ideal for a golfer who has a slightly-arced putting stroke. If comes standard with an Arcoss-enabled Lamkin Sinkfit Smart grip. The putter will only be available at cobragolf.com.
Using multiple materials, three alignment aids and a grooved-face insert, PXG’s One and Done aims to help golfers improve on the greens.
Gear: PXG One and Done putter Price: $525 Specs: Aluminum body with tungsten weight and adjustable weight screws in the sole.
PXG has announced the release of the second putter in the company’s Battle Ready family, the One and Done, a mallet that offers a blend of materials and technologies designed to help golfers improve their alignment and enhance distance control.
The first putter in the Battle Ready collection, the Blackjack, was released in October.
Looking at the One and Done in the address position, a player’s eyes will immediately see a white golf ball-size disk on the top of the putter, bracketed by a pair of white lines. There is also a single alignment line in the center of the topline. These three elements are designed to work in harmony and make it easier for a player to square the face to the target line.
The matte black portion of the One and Done is aluminum, and the light gray area is tungsten. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The matte black portion of the chassis of the One and Done is made from aerospace-grade aluminum, which is extremely light. PXG designers then gave the putter a C-shaped tungsten piece that wraps around the back of the sole. The heavier tungsten pulls the center of gravity down and back, away from the hitting area, which helps boost stability on off-center hits.
Variable-depth grooves help golfers improve distance control. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The grooved face of the One and Done was designed to help golfers improve distance control. The grooves are packed more tightly in the center of the hitting area, and the pattern loosens in the heel and toe areas. Studies have shown that tightly packed grooves slow a ball down more than loosely packed grooves, so the configuration in the One and Done normalizes ball speed over a larger portion of the hitting area. That should mean more consistency and enhanced distance control.
The four weights in the sole of the One and Done are not designed to be adjustable for consumers. They allow fitters to change the swing weight of the club based on its finished length and a player’s preferences.
To further enhance personalization, the One and Done can accommodate four shaft and hosel configurations – plumber’s neck, heel-shafted, double bend, and armlock – to help balance the putter in a way that optimizes it for any player’s stroke type.
The newest mallet from Parsons Xtreme Golf combines aerospace-grade aluminum and tungsten to boost stability and consistency.
Gear: PXG Blackjack putter Price: $395 Specs: Milled aluminum body with tungsten weights
When it comes to putting, the name of the game is to have good aim, a repeatable stroke and solid distance control. With the release of the new Blackjack mallet, PXG believes it can help golfers improve in all three of those areas.
Looking down at the Blackjack at address, golfers will see a long white alignment line set against a matte black body, making it easier to square the face to the player’s intended path.
By designing the head using a frame made from aerospace-grade aluminum, PXG engineers saved a significant amount of weight. That allowed them to reposition and concentrate more weight in the back heel and toe areas in the form of tungsten bars and in a back section. As a result, the center of gravity is pulled back away from the hitting area, the moment of inertia increases and the Blackjack resists twisting on off-center hits more effectively. That means even a putt struck outside the center of the face has a better chance to roll along the intended target line.
PXG Blackjack putter (PXG)
The hitting area is covered with a variable-depth groove pattern that is packed more tightly in the center. According to PXG, packing more shallow grooves in the center and deeper grooves toward the heel and toe normalizes speed off the face to produce better distance control.
Each Blackjack putter has four weight ports in the sole that allow fitters to increase or decrease the swing weight of the club based on its length and a golfer’s preferences. The Blackjack is also available with three hosel configurations (heel-shafted, plumber’s neck, double bend), and an arm-lock version of the putter also is available.
With the help of a good fitter and the latest technology, you can find a putter than will enhance your consistency and improve your roll.
When most golfers think about custom fitting, they think about drivers. The experience can be magical. A player and a trained fitter tinker with different head and shaft combinations, tweak lofts and adjust moveable weights. Presto, the ideal combination adds 15 yards of distance off tee and the golfer is hitting straighter shots.
Putters, on the other hand, rarely come to mind. That’s a huge mistake. Elite golfers will use their driver, typically, fewer than 10 times in a round but roll 27 to 30 putts. Weekend players may reach for their driver more often than pros, but they putt more too, often up to 35-40 times per round. A custom fit putter that augments your natural stroke can enhance your chances of performing better on the greens and lower your scores.
If you recently read my story on Arccos Caddie Strokes Gained Analytics, you know I’m an average player. My handicap is 13, and while I would love more distance and accuracy off the tee and need to sharpen my iron game, I’m a decent putter. But when Club Champion asked if I would like a putter fitting, I jumped at the chance. Here’s what I learned.
Safety first I had not taken three steps inside Club Champion’s Hartford, Connecticut, faculty before Mitchell Becker, a PGA of America professional and my fitter for the morning, asked me to use some hand sanitizer. He also used some while we talked, and like me, he wore a mask. Becker explained that every morning before the store opened, it was thoroughly cleaned. Aside from fist-bumping instead of shaking hands, everything about the fitting experience felt the same as fittings before the COVID-19 pandemic. I felt very safe.
Know thy stroke Before we did anything, Becker measured my putter and learned it is 34 inches in length and has 3 degrees of loft. That would be our starting point.
Launch monitors like TrackMan and Foresight do a great job revealing things like the launch angle, spin rate and ball speed you create with a driver off the tee. On the green, technology can show you data points and tiny details about how you aim, your stroke’s path and what is happening at impact.
Club Champions’ SAM PuttLab tracks every aspect of your putting stroke. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Science & Motion’s SAM PuttLab is the device of choice at Club Champion. After attaching a small plate to your putter’s shaft, the Y-shaped machine uses ultrasound to track the club as it moves. Calibrating it using my putter took about 15 seconds, and putting from a predetermined spot on the artificial green, it collected information as I made seven 10-foot putts. Becker quietly studied my posture and alignment while standing about 10 feet behind me. The SAM PuttLab analyzed everything else.
The SAM PuttLab shows I have a slightly arced stroke. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
It turns out my aim is good. On average, my putter’s face was pointing only 0.5 degrees to the hole’s right at address. Becker said he had seen golfers who aim as much as 10 degrees away from the cup.
Coming into impact, my putter does not swing straight through the ball. Instead, it rises an average 1.7 degrees.
My putter has 3 degrees of loft, but my forward press reduces it to 2.1 degrees at impact. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Many people do not realize that the ball’s weight creates a tiny depression in the green and that a putter’s loft is designed to get the ball out of that depression. Too much loft can make the ball hop, but too little loft will drive it into the ground.I have a slight forward press, so while my putter has 3 degrees of loft, the playing loft at impact usually is 2.1 degrees. Luckily, my combination of effective loft and rising swing was good.
SAM also revealed I have a moderately arced stroke. The head swings to the inside of my target line on the takeaway and on the follow-through. As I make my backswing, it also showed the face opens an average of 7.4 degrees, and it closes an average of 15.7 degrees on the follow-through. In other words, it’s rotating, but at the most critical moment – impact – it was open 0.6 degrees to the right. Again, that’s pretty good. That combination of arc and rotation indicated that a face-balanced putter would be wrong for me, but that either a blade or mallet-style putter with 30 to 45 degrees of toe hang could be an option.
Length and lie angle are critical While I holed six of the seven putts the SAM device studied, it showed I made contact slightly toward the toe of the face on all but one putt and that the toe of my putter was elevated by about 2 degrees. In the ideal setup, the putter should be flat.
A small adjustment to my lie angle was necessary to center my strike location. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
At impact, the lie angle was 68 degrees. By flattening the lie angle to 67 degrees and adding an inch in length to the club, the impact spot could be shifted more to the center of the face for improved consistency.
Becker bent the lie angle of the putter I was using 1 degree flatter, but I could not see any difference at address. Then he handed me a putter with the same specs but that was one inch longer. I felt the difference immediately. It was only an inch, but I felt more upright and more comfortable. However, because the lie angle was ideal, my eye position over the ball was in the same location, so my aim was not affected.
In 20 minutes I had learned that I need a putter with 30-45 degrees of toe hang, 3 degrees of loft, a length of 35 inches and a lie angle of 67 degrees. After that, everything is my preference.
Grips, alignment aids and customization Once you know what you need, a good custom fitter can help you sort through the scores of putters on the market that are viable options.
A mallet or a blade?
Large grip or small?
Chrome, black, white, blue?
Alignment lines, alignment dots or both?
Custom stamping?
So, what putter did I get? In the end, I opted to keep the same heel-toe-weighted blade that I walked in with, but with a few modifications.
The putter was given a longer shaft, a small amount of extra weight was added to the tip section to increase the swing weight and I switched to a new midsized grip.
I walked into my putter fitting with a club that pretty closely matched my stroke and walked out with an even better one.
Titleist’s putter guru is releasing 2,020 limited-edition putters inspired by Justin Thomas’ prototype.
Justin Thomas was not thrilled with the way he was putting at the end of 2016. He was striping the ball off the tee and from the fairway, but his putter was holding him back from contending and winning more.
He wanted a change, and after rummaging around on the Titleist PGA Tour van, he spotted a Scotty Cameron Futura X5.5. Having always played a Newport-style blade, it was visually a departure for Thomas, but he liked it. Eventually, Cameron welded a small slant neck onto a Futura X5.5 putter, Thomas put it into play and a few months later he won the 2017 PGA Championship with it.
If you have thousands of dollars to spend on a putter, for years you have been able to buy a Scotty Cameron prototype putter at the Scotty Cameron Studio in Encinitas, California, or on eBay. This is different: Starting on Sept. 22, for $850 you can get one of 2,020 limited-edition Scotty Cameron Inspired by Justin Thomas Phantom X5.5 putters at select Titleist authorized golf shops.
The Scotty Cameron Justin Thomas Phantom X5.5 putter. (Titleist)
Like Thomas’ actual putter, the Scotty Cameron Inspired by Justin Thomas Phantom X5.5 has a milled 303 stainless steel face and wings that extend back from the heel and toe areas. A portion of the sole has been milled out and replaced by a 6061 aircraft aluminum soleplate. That shifts more of the club’s overall weight to the perimeter for increased stability.
The club comes standard at 34.5 inches with 10-gram weights screwed into the heel and toe areas of the sole, just like Thomas’ putter. The hand-welded neck is also there.
Instead of a Circle T logo, the Scotty Cameron Inspired by Justin Thomas Phantom X5.5 putters have a Circle JT. (Titleist)
While Scotty Cameron putters designed for the PGA Tour typically are stamped with a Circle T logo, these putters are adorned with a unique Circle JT logo on the milled face and the sole.
“This was an extremely cool project for me to work on with Scotty,” Thomas said in a media release. “In the beginning, I was only thinking it would give me something different to look at for a couple weeks. Yet here I am, four-something years later and still using it. So, I guess it’s worked out pretty well.”
Cleveland’s newest putter family boasts a variable-density face pattern that helps golfers improve their distance control on the greens.
Gear: Cleveland Huntington Beach SOFT Premier putters Price: $159.99 Specs: Stainless steel heads with variable-density grooved faces Available: Aug. 21
There are few things more frustrating for golfers than leaving a 15-foot putt way short, then racing a 12-footer well feet past the hole on the next green. Reliable distance control not only results in more holed putts, it helps avoid card-wrecking 3-putts.
To help golfers improve distance control, Cleveland has developed a new family of putters, the Huntington Beach SOFT Premier putters.
The Huntington Beach SOFT Premier putters have a milled face pattern that is tightly packed in the middle and more open in the heel and toe. (Cleveland Golf)
SOFT stands for Speed Optimized Face Technology, so while the gray satin PVD finish will make a white or yellow golf ball’s color pop, the differentiating feature of these putters is their milled faces.
Cleveland packs the milling pattern more tightly in the ideal hitting area and loosens its configuration in the heel and toe areas. The tightly packed grooves reduce the energy transferred to the ball, so the difference in speed between a putt hit perfectly in the center and one hit slightly toward the toe or heel is reduced. The result is a normalization of ball speed across the face, leading to better distance control and consistency.
Taking the concept a step further, Cleveland designed a unique variable-density groove pattern for each of the eight putters in the lineup.
Cleveland Huntington Beach SOFT Premier 11 putter (Cleveland Golf)
There are three heel-toe-weighted blade style putters in the Huntington Beach SOFT Premier family and five mallets. The blades each come with a Lamkin SINKFIT Skinny Pistol grip designed to enhance an arched stroke, while the mallets come standard with a larger Lamkin SINKFIT Pistol grip that many golfers with a straight-back, straight-through stroke prefer.
TaylorMade’s newest Spider putter is designed for players who prefer a heel-toe weighted blade but want mallet-style forgiveness.
Gear: TaylorMade Spider FCG putter Price: $350 with KBS CT Tour stepless shaft and Super Stroke X Traxion Pistol 1.0 PT grip Specs: Compact mallet with copper and tungsten weights and grooved copper face insert. Available in 33 inches, 34 inches and 35 inches, right-handed and left-handed. Available: Sept. 4
TaylorMade’s Spider putters have been a hit for the past several seasons. Jason Day started the movement in 2015 when he asked the company to modify a compact mallet putter initially designed for the Japanese market. That first putter, an Itsy Bitsy Spider, was black and Day loved it, but he switched to the red Spider Tour version TaylorMade created for him at the end of that season. After the Australian became the first to average better than 1.0 in strokes gained putting for a PGA Tour season in 2016, numerous pros and elite golfers started using Spider Tour putters.
In early 2019, Rory McIlroy switched to a Spider X, and soon after, Jon Rahm added an off-white Spider X Chalk to his bag. Those putters have about 30-degrees of toe hang, making them ideally suited for golfers who have slightly arched strokes, but some golfers who have always played a heel-toe-weighted blade just can’t get past the mallet-style look of Spiders. For those players, TaylorMade is now releasing the Spider FCG.
The Spider FCG putter’s heel and toe weights bring the center of gravity foward. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
FCG stands for forward center of gravity. Unlike previously released Spider putters, which featured a center of gravity that is well behind the hitting area for increased stability, the Spider FCG’s center of gravity is much more forward. This was achieved by designing 70 percent of the head’s overall weight (247 grams) to be in the front, as opposed to only 43 percent of the Spider X’s weight being in the front.
To keep the club small in size while shifting that much weight, TaylorMade gave the Spider FCG a pair of copper and tungsten weights in the heel and toe areas. They weigh a combined 101 grams, and their positioning greatly enhances the club’s stability on off-center strikes.
The Spider FCG’s alignment system allows players to square the face like a blade or use the path-style line. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
While the crown and back portions of the putter have been made lighter, TaylorMade designed them with a new alignment system, the T-Sightline True Path. It allows golfers who are used to a blade to align the putter using either the lighter-colored portion of the topline or the long white area that extends straight back from the ball.
The grooved insert helps to get the ball rolling instead of skidding after impact. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The grooved Pure Roll insert is also made with copper, and TaylorMade said it is the firmest feeling insert in the company’s lineup. It is designed to match with the solid feel of a blade.
The Spider FCG will be available with three hosel configurations – a small slant, an L neck and a single bend – to complement different putting strokes.
Woods, who has won 14 of his 15 majors with a Scotty Cameron Newport II putter, is considering switching to a prototype that is longer and with adjustable weights.
Any time Tiger Woods considers changing putters it is big news, but it is next level when he’s flirting with benching his trusty Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS gamer, the one he’s used for 14 of his 15 major titles, the week of a major championship. Even U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker, who played a practice round with Woods on Wednesday at TPC Harding Park, was interested in this latest development.
“I asked him about the putter switch. It’s basically the same putter with a little bit more flexibility in the putter. He’s able to change the weights around a little bit…he’s got a little more length on there, and that’s just so he can practice a little bit more without back pain,” he said. “That’s what excites him the most is that he was able to put in a lot of time with this putter, and watching him putt, it looked exactly the same to me. He rolled the ball great.”
The new putter is a Scotty Cameron prototype that Woods first began dabbling with at the British Open last summer, and has been practicing with ever since, according to Golf Channel, and will be a game-time decision.
Woods has struggled on the greens in his limited action this season. He ranked near the bottom of the Strokes Gained: Putting statistics at The Memorial, his lone start since the golf season resumed in June, and was No. 67 of 68 players to make the cut at the Genesis Invitational. As a matter of fact, if Woods had played enough rounds to qualify to be ranked in the season’s leaders, he would be No. 207 out of 214 golfers on Tour in SGP this season. That’s hard to fathom from arguably the greatest clutch putter of all-time.
Tiger Woods looks at his yardage book on the 11th hole during a practice round for the PGA Championship golf tournament at TPC Harding Park. (Photo: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
Stricker has served as Tiger’s unofficial putting coach for a number of years, and recalled the time at the 2013 WGC at Doral Resort when he finished second to Woods after giving him a pre-tournament tip.
“It was amazing to be a part of that little lesson with him, because I watched a guy struggle from the week before, I guess that he played, not putting very well, and then watching him on the putting green wasn’t very good. And then by the time the 45 minutes or an hour was up that I was putting with him, the confidence that he had was like a light switch; a light bulb went on for him. And then he made a lot of putts in the first and second rounds and his confidence just grew,” he said. “For him that week, if I remember right, it was a lot of the setup and the path of what his putter was going back on, and so I just worked on the setup a little bit, I remember, that week. But I didn’t touch him today. I didn’t want anything to do with that.
“He’s Tiger Woods. He’ll be just fine. He’s got a lot of talent when it comes to that short stick and he’ll do just fine.”
Thanks to a unique hosel configuration and shaft, this putter is designed to create a more-consistent stroke and help you hole more putts.
Gear: Odyssey Stroke Lab Black #7 Toe Up putter Price: $199.99 Specs: Graphite and steel shaft, multi-material face insert and PVD finish
When Odyssey released the original Stroke Lab putters just over two years ago, golfers took notice because the shafts are made using a combination of graphite and steel. Opting for weight-saving graphite in the upper portion of the shaft allowed Odyssey designers to put more weight at the top of the shaft and into the head, which studies revealed to them would help golfers develop a more-consistent, higher-quality stroke.
Dark-finished versions of the putters followed, but for golfers who are looking for even more consistency on the greens, Odyssey is now releasing the Stroke Lab Black #7 Toe Up putter.
The Stroke Lab Black #7 Toe Up’s hosel creates a unique balance in the head. (Odyssey Golf)
The club comes standard with the same Stroke Lab shaft that is on previously-released putters, but it has a unique hosel configuration that creates a different balance in the head. Held loosely in your hands, the toe of most putters either drops downward, opening the face, or points directly to the side while keeping the hitting area pointed skyward, indicating that the putter is faced balanced. According to Odyssey, the advantage of balancing the putter so the toe goes up is the face rotates significantly less during your stroke, so you are more likely to strike the ball with the face pointed down your target line.
This is not the first time that Odyssey has headed down the toe-up path. It released two toe-up putters in 2016. It is, however, the first time a toe-up style putter has been made using the #7 head, a mallet that is among Odyssey’s most popular shapes.
Like the previously-released Stroke Lab putters, this club has a White Hot microhinge face insert that is designed to soften the feel at impact and get the ball rolling quickly instead of skidding, for improved distance control.
The Odyssey #7 putter has been popular for years. Now Odyssey is making it with a unique alignment system and face technology.
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In January, Odyssey released a new family of putters that take advantage of a technology that debuted in Callaway golf balls in 2019. The ERC Soft with Triple Track has two blue lines that bracket a red line, a visual aid designed to help golfers align their putts more easily. The Triple Track putters are made with the same pattern, and several PGA Tour players started using them.
Today, Odyssey has announced that it is expanding the Triple Track putter family and adding its most popular head shape to the lineup, the #7. Used by scores of pros over the years, the #7 head has fang-like pieces that extend from the heel and toe areas that increase perimeter weighting and stability. The Triple Track #7 will be offered with either a single-bend or a double-bend hosel.
Like previously-released putters, the Triple Track #7 ($249.99) comes standard with Odyssey’s Stroke Lab shaft. The shaft’s upper and midsections are graphite, to reduce weight, while the tip section is made from steel. The saved weight has been shifted to the head and a portion of the handle. Research showed Odyssey designers that a heavier head and more weight at the top of the club helped golfers develop a more rhythmic, consistent putting stroke.
Odyssey Triple Track #7 putter with double-bend shaft. (Odyssey Golf)
It also has the Microhinge Star insert that combines metal pieces with a firmer-feeling plastic face. It produces a higher-pitched, clicking sound at impact that many accomplished players preferred to previously released microhinge inserts.
