I switched to a mallet after this putting lesson | The Lab

I’ve been trying to hold down the fort on being a blade putter user for a long time now, and I’m still holding out hope, but a few months ago during my first-ever putting lesson with Stephen Sweeney, I was convinced to give the mallet a real “college try.” Turns out, it’s been a game changer. Let’s dive into some of the facts and I’ll explain why the mallet is in my bag, but the trusty blade still sneaks in.

Within the first three minutes of the video, you’ll hear me state “yeah, well, blades are better” as Sweeney introduces our topic of the day, but writing this now four months later, a custom TaylorMade Spider Tour X has been in my bag ever since.

I am in love with the Toulon Golf Chicago shape. It’s an old design from the team when they were still a part of the Odyssey family, but I’ve also been fortunate enough to have a prototype of an upcoming small-batch release from the company. I have used the Chicago shape — a slightly wider (but not quite a double-wide) blade with a well-pronounced top line and very simple bumpers — for the better part of the past five years in one form or another. I actually have four of them all built up almost identically to one another because I love the putter that much.

Over the past couple years, the TaylorMade Spider has taken off in popularity mainly because of its success on Tour in the hands of Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Tommy Fleetwood, Ben Griffin, Bobby Mac and many others. That Spider takeover has also increased the mallet usage on Tour as pros with other club contracts fight to find something that’s going to give them a larger benefit on the putting surface. Personally, I don’t see the trend being the benefits of mallets so much as I see it being the benefit of the Spider’s Pure Roll insert, but that’s a story for another time.

All that being said, Sweeney and I decided to find a way to test the results, and as you can see in the video, they weren’t exactly black and white.

Is there going to be a massive performance difference between a well-fit blade putter and a well-fit mallet putter? Probably not. However, there is a greater opportunity for the mallet to end up in the bag because of what the size of the platform gives you.

With a mallet putter being larger in size, it allows the manufacturers to experiment with it more. They can add different types of alignment that don’t physically fit onto a blade-style shape. They can also throw weight into different places to create drastic changes in feel for a player without having to lose that same alignment real estate. Mallets just create a better opportunity to tune them for exactly what a player needs. That’s the true benefit of them.

There’s also something to be said for the forgiveness that a mallet creates as they are typically back-weighted, but the performance implications of that are still with the jury. While it’s mathematically a higher MOI design in a general scope compared to a blade offering, players don’t really miss their putter that far off-center so it’s hard to judge that actual implications of the higher MOI on performance. What really matters is can you aim the putter and can you get it back to square more easily.

With a mallet, those answers are typically going to be yes for a player, but it’s not a hard and fast rule. That’s why I still bring my Toulon Chicago with me every now and then. But the key to this is in something I mentioned earlier — the differences will shrink with well-fit equipment.

I know I aim my Toulon Chicago as well as I do the TaylorMade Spider Tour X. I’ve proven it at home and out on the course. I’ve also recently been putting with a new TaylorMade Spider Tour X that has the milled insert to actually feel more like my Toulon Chicago. The differences are nitpicky. It really comes down to which one I feel like I’m going to like on a certain day.

Jake’s choice of TaylorMade Spider

TaylorMade 2026 Spider Tour X L-Neck Custom Putter

TORCHED PVD FINISH The durable PVD coating creates a beautiful high-quality finish. THIN WALL UNDERCUT CONSTRUCTION We’ve engineered a super stable structure by removing excess weight to create high MOI and legendary Spider performance. CG LOCATION PROGRESSION Each Spider Torched model features different CG locations for optimal putter fitting. HYBRAR ECHO® DAMPENER HYBRAR is behind the face to dampen unwanted vibrations, delivering premium sound and feel on every putt with the best possible sensation.

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If you’re looking to see if a mallet or a blade is the better fit for you? Go see our friends at True Spec Golf for a putter fitting.