Mallet Putters Are Taking Over - Is It Time to Make the Switch? 🏌️♀️
Nelly Korda joined the mallet movement at the AIG Women's Open. With 4 of the top 5 male players now using mallets, the stability and alignment benefits are hard to ignore. Maybe ugly is the new beautiful on the greens! ⛳
Okay besties, let us talk about something that just happened at the AIG Women's Open! 🏌️♀️ Nelly Korda showed up with a brand new mallet putter and honestly, I am here for it!
So here is the tea: Nelly and Scottie Scheffler are basically gear twins with their TaylorMade Qi10 drivers, and now our girl is taking notes from the World No. 1 on the greens too. She switched to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X mallet and opened with back-to-back 68s to grab the lead through 36 holes before finishing third. Not too shabby! ⛳
Real talk though, this is not some random switch. This trend has been building for like 20 years. Back in the day, people used to side-eye mallet users the same way they looked at anchored putters. The vibe was basically "oh, you cannot putt so you need help." But times have seriously changed!
The Ping Anser and Scotty Cameron blades are still iconic and beloved, but mallets have absolutely entered the chat in a major way. Want proof? Look at the top five in the Official World Golf Ranking. Four of them rock mallets: Scottie Scheffler at No. 1, Xander Schauffele at No. 2, Rory McIlroy at No. 3, and Wyndham Clark at No. 5. Only Ludvig Aberg at No. 4 is holding it down for the blade squad. And get this: all four mallet users are positive in strokes gained putting, with Xander and Wyndham ranking in the top 15 on tour! 📊
When Scottie made his switch at the FedEx Cup Playoffs last year, he was already ranked No. 1 in the world but was struggling on the greens. He was ranked 135th in strokes gained putting at minus 0.192. Yikes!
"I have always liked the visual of that Spider putter, but I really just did not like the feel," Scottie explained. "I have always struggled with putters that have a lot of weight in the back side, and this one is a bit different than a lot of the Spiders that they have made. The weight is more in the front so it has the feel of a blade putter that I like, but it also has a lot of that visual on the top where it is easier for me to line up. The margins in this game are so close, so it is something that I feel really comfortable with where the balance point is on this putter."
Why do players switch putters? There are tons of reasons! Some need a mental reset to break out of a funk. Some prefer certain putters on specific grass types. For Nelly, TaylorMade says she loved the look and the shorter sight line. 👀
Now for all my everyday golfers out there who are struggling on the greens: a mallet might be worth considering! They offer stability, better alignment features, and here is the thing that surprised me too: they are not just for straight-back-straight-through strokes anymore! Yes, some of them look like little battleships, but these bad boys help promote a smooth, fluid stroke! 🚢
The late Dick Helmstetter, former R&D chief at Callaway, said it best when the Odyssey 2-Ball came out: "If it helps you get it in the hole, the ugliness goes away in a heck of a hurry. You do not get paid for looking cool out there."
I personally switched to a mallet this year as well. Am I sinking putts like the pros now? No. Of course not. But I am aligning my putts a lot better and getting much closer the the hole in fewer strokes. Score! My advice is go out and get your hands on a few. It literally felt like angels were singing when I found my new putter.
Honestly? Facts! 💯 If it drops more putts, who cares what it looks like?