Latest news with #TaylorMadeSpiderTourXL-Neck
USA Today
20-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Changing to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck turned Scottie Scheffler's putting around
Changing to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck turned Scottie Scheffler's putting around Not long ago, the world's No. 1 player was putting terribly. But after switching to a mallet for a non-obvious reason, things turned around. Scottie Scheffler had one of the most dominant seasons the PGA Tour has ever seen last year, and he just won the 2025 PGA Championship on Sunday, so you can be forgiven if you forgot that poor putting may have cost him several more wins back in 2023 and that switching putters early last year might have been the best equipment adjustment the Texan has ever made. In the second half of 2023, Scheffler benched the Scotty Cameron blade-style putter he had been using and tried several different flatsticks, including prototype TaylorMade Spider Tour putters designed with milled faces at the end of the PGA Tour season. None of them stayed around long, and Scheffler finished that year with a blade made by the Olson Putter Company, a boutique brand purchased by TaylorMade in 2024. Then, before the start of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational, Scheffler switched back into a TaylorMade Spider with an L-Neck hosel and won, leading the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. The next week, he won again at the Players Championship, finishing 37th in Strokes Gained: Putting. As you can see in the chart below, while Scheffler's ballstriking has remained elite, his putting has dramatically improved. Shop Scottie Scheffler's putter Understandably, when most golfers think about why a mallet putter could help them on the greens, they think about forgiveness and stability, and for good reason. Mallets tend to have more perimeter weighting than traditional blades, so they resist twisting on off-center strikes more effectively. But for Scheffler, the Spider mallet provided something else he needed. "The goal, honestly, was to give him better alignment," said Andrew Oldknow, TaylorMade's director of product creation for putters, in a recent chat with Golfweek. "While centering the ball with the alignment system, we were actually trying to get that thing to perform just like a blade." Looking back to the testing period when Scheffler was thinking about making changes, Oldknow said, "At the time, he loved the performance of his blade, he just felt like he didn't have enough alignment out of it. True Path worked really well for him in terms of centering the ball. One of his biggest issues is that he doesn't always hit the ball center face." By removing weight from the back of the Spider Tour X head and repositioning it forward, then adding an L-Neck hosel to create the same level of toe hang Scheffler's blade putters had created, TaylorMade was able to give the world's No. 1 player a putter with enhanced alignment that swings like the blade putters he had used all his life. The combination has now helped Scheffler win two majors, a Players Championship and a Tour Championship in 15 months. Shop Scottie Scheffler's putter
USA Today
08-02-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda both use a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck putter
Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda both use a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck putter Scottie Scheffler and Nelly Korda both use the same putter, TaylorMade's Spider Tour X L-Neck. Can it help you be more successful on the greens? Last March at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Scottie Scheffler showed up with a new mallet putter in his bag and won at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge. Scheffler would go on to win the 2024 Masters, an Olympic Gold medal, the FedEx Cup and over $29,228,357 in official prize money in 2024. Nelly Korda also changed her putter last season and put a new mallet in her bag. Although she had already used one six times last season, she used the club at the Solheim Cup and then won her seventh LPGA event, The Annika, using it last November. Going into this weekend's play, Scheffler is ranked No. 1 on the Official World Golf Ranking, and Korda is ranked No. 1 on the Women's Rolex World Ranking. Each of these stars, who used to game a blade-style putter, now has a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck putter in their bag. In Scheffler's case, the biggest reason for switching to the Spider was that the white True Path alignment system on the crown of the Spider Tour X helped him aim the face more effectively and start his putts on his intended target line more often. "At times last year I struggled lining the ball up in the middle of the face," Scheffler said during his press conference before the start of the 2024 Players Championship. 'This Spider putter is really easy for me to line up. I don't have to use the line on the ball. I line the putter up really well, and I line up in the middle of the face, and pretty much as simple as that. Kind of gives me just a really good visual.' Shop Scottie & Nelly's putter In August, leading up to the AIG Women's Open at St. Andrews, Korda reached out to TaylorMade and requested to test a few Spider models. TaylorMade's European technicians built her some putters to try, and she liked them. Then a putter with an L-neck hosel, like Scheffler's, was made with a short sight line added to the True Path alignment feature at TayorMade's headquarters in Carlsbad, California. That putter was shipped to Scotland, Korda used it in her practice rounds at St. Andrews and the club wound up in her bag. The video below, made by TaylorMade, shows exactly how Korda's putter is built Scottie's Spider Tour X has 3 degrees of loft, a 72-degree lie angle and a Golf Pride pistol grip. Korda's putter has a 2.5-degree loft and a 70-degree lie angle. It is fitted with a Golf Pride pistol grip. Both clubs have a short, L-neck hosel that creates toe hang that is similar to a classic heel-toe weighted blade. Both putters also feature a Pure Roll insert that is designed with grooves that face down at a 45-degree angle to encourage the ball to roll instead of skid after it is struck, although Scheffler's insert is white and Korda's insert is black. So, can a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck putter help you make more putts and improve your performance on the greens? The best way to find out is to work with a good custom fitter and try one, allowing the fitter to study your stroke and see if the putter's balance matches with your natural putting stroke. That said, the long True Path alignment line should make it easier to aim the face along the intended target line, and the Spider's perimeter weighting should help it remain steady on putts struck toward the toe or the heel. Many recreational players struggle to properly aim their putter, and they often make contact on putts outside the sweet spot, so a Spider mallet might be able to improve two of the most common shortcomings players have. Shop Scottie & Nelly's putter
