A lot is said about the momentum in technology within some of the best drivers, fairways and even golf balls but are we overlooking one of the most monumental shifts in golf club usage for decades? For a long time, blade putters ruled the roost when it came to the market share of flat sticks at retail as well as use on Tour but ever since the inception of the original Odyssey 2-ball putter in 2001 and some impressive alternatives since, it feels as though the momentum has swung and in a big way in favor of larger mallet designs.
There have been countless mallet putters that have really changed the landscape of the category. Whether it was the eye catching red Spider Tour putter first used by Jason Day, the unorthodox Scotty Cameron Futura or the fang-style Odyssey #7 putter, mallets have earned their place in history down the years in the hands of many great players.
Entering the 2024 Masters, only two out of the top-ten players in the official World Golf Rankings were using a blade putter and it got me wondering... could blade putters soon become a niche club used only by the minority? Earlier this year, world number one, Scottie Scheffler made the switch from a blade putter to a mallet putter in the form of the TaylorMade Spider Tour and has been playing the best golf of his life.
He has been hands-down the best ball striker on the planet over the past few seasons but his wand at the time - a Scotty Cameron Newport style model, was not behaving and often saw him finish near the bottom of the putting statistics. The increase in performance on the greens was there to see after the switch into the mallet and he has now gone on to win five times this season. During the 2022-23 PGA Tour season, Scheffler ranked 162nd in Strokes Gained putting with a -0.301 average while predominantly using his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 blade, but since the switch to his mallet this year, Scheffler now ranks 71st in this statistic with an average of +0.127.
The dominant force Scheffler is turning into is already convincing other golfers that higher MOI putters may be the way to go. Brooks Koepka has somewhat of an unconventional looking stroke, addressing the ball out of the toe and then re-routing the putter on the way down to find center contact, so the higher stability and MOI on the Scotty Cameron 5.5 slant neck style putter he now has in play has helped if the timing with his stroke is off.
“Just needed a new look. That was really what I was looking for,” Koepka said during the Masters. “Maybe a little bit more forgiveness. I think you can kind of see it, right. There's trends in golf, and everyone starts using a mallet and it's a little bit more forgiveness. I noticed that the dispersion pattern is a little tighter, and that's the big thing with me.”
Rory McIlroy is another prime example of someone who used a bladed putter for stints at the start of his career and even in some of his major championship winning appearances, yet he switched out to a mallet putter a few years back now and his putting stats drastically improved. In the 2015/16 PGA Tour season, McIlroy ranked 139th in the Strokes Gained putting statistics with an average of -0.207 whereas this year the Northern Irishman ranks 39th, averaging +0.302 - a massive rise of 100 places. It wouldn't surprise me if this is the year we see Rory go on to win his 5th major championship after a 10 year hiatus.
So what are the key differences between blade and mallet putters? Blade putters are known for their beauty and craftsmanship with many of the biggest manufacturers, such as Scotty Cameron, forging the putters from a single block of stainless steel. A lot of people like a blade putter due to their aesthetics and because of the feel and feedback you get from a milled face. The addition of inserts in faces in more recent models has also given a few different ‘feels’ when it comes to feedback off these putters and help produce a different roll on the ball. Additional weights in the sole have also helped make modern blade putters surprisingly forgiving given the compact size.
This style of putter is typically designed with a large amount of toe-hang, which means the face opens on the way back and closes back down through the ball at impact to square the face. While all golfers will putt with some arc in their stroke, the bigger the arc, the more face rotation and so the harder it is to get the face back to square at the right time.
Mallet putters on the other hand are usually more face balanced and require far less face rotation, meaning more of a straight back and through style stroke. These putters make up the majority of the most forgiving putters we've tested. The beauty about mallet putters is the different shapes and styles of mallet putters available. The larger head size allows weight to be re-distributed efficiently in order to improve the MOI and therefore increase forgiveness. You can also get more powerful alignment cues on the flange because of the extra real estate and we're seeing the emergence of a variety of styles becoming popular on tour, like the lie angle balanced models from LAB Golf.
There is, of course, one rather large elephant in the room in that arguably the greatest golfer of all time, Tiger Woods, won all 15 of his majors with a blade putter. We know that Tiger is a once-in-a-generation talent and blade putters were very on trend during his peak - but who knows how many more majors he could have one if the mallet putters of today were available to him?
From my own personal perspective, I was fortunate enough to receive a Scotty Cameron blade putter for Christmas a long time ago now and used that for many years. It wasn’t until the rest of my golf improved, I realized it was actually on the greens where I was losing shots. I had a putter fitting and was put into a mallet. While not fully convinced on the look, I remember being slightly apprehensive using it on the course but after rolling more putts in than ever before, I’ve never looked back.
With the speed at which technology is accelerating, not just within putters but also the gadgets we can use to analyse putting strokes and the roll of the ball, the benefits of a mallet putter for every ability of golfer over a blade is hard to ignore. With only two of the top ten and six of the top twenty golfers in the world using blade putters currently, don't be surprised if everyone in your group this weekend or your favorite player on tour is using one.
