TaylorMade has offered Spider putters for more than a decade, ranging from the compact Itsy Bitsy Spider to the massive Daddy Long Legs. Through the years the company has added different technologies and innovations to broaden the Spiders’ appeal while helping establish new trends.
What Spider putters all have in common is weight positioned back in the heel and toe areas, which boosts the moment of inertia and increases stability on mis-hits. That’s been the secret sauce for Spider putters – they can make a smaller putter play like a big one. That’s good, because most golfers avoid big, oversized putters even though they would benefit from their stability and forgiveness.
For 2023, TaylorMade has two new Spider putters, the Spider GT Max and the Spider GTX. Their shapes are familiar, but these arachnids are unlike anything TaylorMade has released in the past.
Spider GT Max
Price: $449 with Black steeped KBS shaft and SuperStroke 1.0 grip
Specs: Aluminum chassis with two 40-gram moveable weights and grooved face insert. 34-inch and 35-inch lengths with single bend and small slant hosel styles
Available: Feb. 24
TaylorMade began offering adjustable drivers in 2003 with the r7 Quad. That club allowed golfers to move weights in the head and shift the center of gravity.
Several versions of the TaylorMade Spider putters have used the same weights screws to shift the center of gravity and allow fitters to adjust the swing weight. The new Spider GT Max takes things to another level.
In the address position the GT Max is reminiscent of last season’s Spider GT with an aluminum top and a pair of black wing-style extensions in the heel and toe. But flipping the club over reveals two 40-gram tungsten weights that independently slide in tracks.
Just as moveable weights shift the center of gravity in drivers, moving these weights to different positions in the rails moves the center of gravity in the Spider GT Max.
Why would you want to shift the center of gravity of a putter?
TaylorMade studies have shown that center of gravity can relate to players’ ability to square the face at impact. TaylorMade said golfers who tend to pull putts, which means missing to the left for a right-handed player, are over-rotating the face, so using a Spider GT Max with its weights in the back could be good because it will slow the putter’s face rotation. The result should be, TaylorMade said, that the putter’s face squares more often.
Conversely, golfers who block putts or miss to the right need more face rotation. Positioning the weights in the forward positions should help reduce the right miss for right-handed players.
Players and fitters can fine-tune the weight positions to match the golfer’s needs.
It is important to note that the torque wrench that comes with the Spider GT Max is only to be used with the putter. Don’t use a wrench made for TaylorMade’s adjustable woods.
The Spider GT Max has TaylorMade’s True Path alignment system on the top. It features a wide white area with a single black line in the center, making it easier to get the sweet spot directly behind the ball and aim the face along your intended target line.
Finally, TaylorMade gave the Spider GT Max a grooved Pure Roll face insert. The grooves face down at a 45-degree angle to grab the ball and start it rolling instead of skidding.
Spider GTX
Price: $349 with KBS Chrome 120 shaft and SuperStroke 1.0 grip
Specs: CNC-milled 66160 aluminum body with grooved face insert, short slant hosel and steel bar. Available in white, silver, black, red, ice blue and pink.
Available: Feb. 24
The Spider GTX was designed by blending two of the most-popular Spider models from recent years, the Spider Tour and the Spider X.
Golfers will immediately see the True Path alignment system that debuted in Spider X, a club Rory McIlroy used to win the 2022 FedEx Cup. Its white center stripe has a black line in the center, and set against the aluminum top piece, it pops and makes it very easy to align the face.
As with all Spider putters, the Spider GTX has extreme perimeter weighting and a center of gravity that has been pulled back from the hitting area. But what makes this putter unique is the weight and center of gravity have been shifted by a 154-gram, horseshoe-shaped bar that extends back from the heel and toe and encircles the back of the head. The bar accounts for 45 percent of the putter’s overall weight.
Designers added small extensions to create the same silhouette as Spider X, but the Spider GTX has a much higher moment of inertia – the highest of any putter TaylorMade has ever made, which should make it among the most stable putters ever.
The Spider GTX is available in six colors (white, silver, black, red, ice blue and pink), and if golfers go to TaylorMadeGolf.com, they can use the MySpider GTX tools to customize the club with more top plate colors, hosel configurations and other details.
