Ahead of next week’s DP World Tour Playoffs, SMS on Tour, the DP World Tour’s equipment research service, posted the following Address photos of every putter used by the top 70 qualifiers.
Only seven of them, 10 percent, were considered blade putters by modern standards. Go back fifteen years and knives would probably make up the vast majority.
On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipment, Odyssey Tour representative Cody Hale joined the show and told co-host Johnny Wunder that Odyssey’s usage on the PGA Tour is trending toward hammers at an 80 percent clip.
But Wunder posed the question: Can players ever go back to blades? The other guest this week was PGA Tour pro Justin Lower, who still uses a PXG prototype Anser-style blade.
Wunder suggested the trend would only reverse if gear heads decide they want to go back to what worked for them before.
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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour SuperstoreOdyssey
Hale didn’t shake him off. He also pointed out that while “zero torque” putters are booming in the retail market, usage at the professional level has remained relatively flat over the past year. But he also explained why so many players have been drawn to hammers.
“We can build hammers that play like knives,” Hale said. “And of course hammers with more stability, but you get all the benefits from different hammers.”
But with the rise of zero torque putters, can OEMs eventually build blade putters that play like hammers? Only time will tell, but Hale said there is still a lot of intrigue surrounding that category.
“So it’ll be interesting to see where it goes because some of the zero-torque models still have a lot of testing going on and we’re still introducing a lot and we still feel like there’s a lot of players that could benefit from this,” Hale said. “But as far as usage on Tour, I mean, it’s pretty flat at the moment.”
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