Gear: Scotty Cameron Phantom X putters (2024)
Price: $$449 and $499 (Phantom 11 Long)
Specs: Milled 303 stainless steel and 6061 aluminum chassis with steel/tungsten weights.
Available: March 29 (Phantom 5, 5.5, 5S, 7, 7.5, 9 and 9.5), May 17 (Phantom 11, 11.5 and new Phantom 11 Long)
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Who It’s For: Golfers who want a mallet that is easy to align and aim while still getting the sound and feel of Scotty Cameron’s milled blade putters.
The Skinny: The Phantom putters for 2024 have been subtly tweaked so the entire head acts like an alignment aid, while the dual-milled face design enhances sound and feel in each of the five different head shapes.
The Deep Dive: Golfers who compete on the PGA Tour, LPGA and DP World Tour have loved the look and feel of Scotty Cameron blade-style putters for years, but the popularity of mallets increased over time. Today, about half of the Scotty Cameron putters you will see “inside the ropes” are mallets. But while most players add a mallet to their bag for extra forgiveness, they still want to maximize feel, get a pleasing sound at impact and like what they see when they look down at the club.
That’s why, besides Newport, Newport 2 and other blade-style putters, Cameron offers several different mallets in the Phantom lineup, which has been updated for 2024.
While recreational golfers typically see mallet putters as clubs offering more forgiveness, tour players usually see their most appealing feature as something else. Yes, larger putters tend to resist twisting on off-center hits more than blades, and the Phantom putters offer a higher moment of inertia (MOI) than the Scotty Cameron Super Select blades, but elite golfers often prefer mallets because they can hold bigger, more effective alignment aids.
Cameron wanted to make that the most significant point of emphasis in the 2024 Phantom family and worked with his team to make each head work as an alignment system.
For example, when golfers put a Phantom 11 putter down behind a ball, they see a pair of lines extending from the back of the head to the topline and forming an arrow. However, golfers may not even be aware that the topline edges in the heel and toe area have been angled inward toward the ball, while the back of the topline has also been angled toward the ball. The negative space between the wings in the back of the head also forms a second arrow. These features work together to aid a golfer in alignment, even if some of them are working subconsciously.
The Phantom 9 has two lines on the top, but while there is no arrow, the angles on the topline and the space between the wings in the back point the golfer’s eyes toward the ball and the target line.
In addition to subtly modifying the putter shapes, Scotty Cameron and his team have updated the milling pattern in the hitting area. Each Phantom mallet still starts as a block of 303 stainless steel that is milled into shape, and 6061 aircraft-grade aluminum has been added in the soles to reduce weight in the center and increase the perimeter weighting, but now the Phantom putters have come with the same dual-milling face that debuted in 2023’s Super Select family.
During the process, a milling machine passes over the face, makes deep cuts in the hitting area and removes ribbons of steel. Then, a second milling pass shaves the points off the hitting area created during the first milling pass, flattening them. The result is a face that creates the sound and feel of a deep-mill pattern but also puts more steel on the ball at impact to enhance a golfer’s sense of touch.
Finally, Cameron gave the 2024 Phantom putters a new rubber grip. For years, Scotty Cameron putters have come with very slender or pistol-style grips, but the Phantom putters come standard with a paddle-style grip that is flat on the top and features minimal taper.
Below is a closer look at the 2024 Scotty Phantom 5, 7, 9, 11 and 12 putters.