Mallets dominate pro golf and putter sales, but can blades rise again?
Ahead of next week’s DP World Tour Playoffs, the DP World Tour’s gear measurement service SMS on Tour has released address photos of every putter used by the top 70 qualifiers.
By modern standards, only 7 (10%) are considered knife putters. Going back 15 years, blades were probably the majority.
On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Complete Equipped, Odyssey Tour representative Cody Hale joins the show and tells co-host Johnny Wunder that Odyssey’s usage trend on the PGA Tour is up to 80 percent with mallets.
But Wunder begs the question, can players ever return to Blade? Another guest this week is PGA Tour pro Justin Lower, who still uses a PXG Prototype Anser style blade.
Wunder says this trend will only reverse if gearheads decide to go back to what worked for them before.
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Also available at: PGA Tour Supermarket, Odyssey
Hale didn’t shrug. He also noted that while “zero torque” putters have exploded in the retail market, usage at the professional level has been relatively flat last year. But he also explains why so many players gravitate towards the mallet.
“We can make mallets that function like blades,” Hale said. “Obviously, the mallet is more stable, but you get all the benefits from a different mallet.”
But with the rise of “zero-torque” putters, could OEMs finally make bladed putters that look like mallets? Only time will tell, but Hale says there’s still a lot of intrigue surrounding the category.
“So it’s going to be interesting to see where that goes because, you know, some of the Zero Torque models are still in the works and we’re still rolling out a lot of them and we still feel like there’s a lot of players that could benefit from it,” Hale said. “But in terms of usage on tour, I mean, it’s pretty level right now.”
