Gear: TaylorMade Spider GT Rollback, Notchback and Splitback putters
Price: $300 each
Specs: Mid-size mallets with steel weight extensions and tungsten back weights. Aluminum chassis and grooved face insert. Matte black, silver/black, red/black and white/blue colorways.
Available: March 4
While TaylorMade’s Spider family of putters has been successful for seven years, the company knows there are some players who want a mallet and the benefits of a Spider, but they also want something that looks slightly more traditional. For them, the company is offering the Spider GT Rollback, Notchback and Splitback, three putters that have time-tested looks and modern technologies to help create a better roll.
All three putters – the Spider GT Rollback, Notchback and Splitback – feature TaylorMade’s new Pure Roll 2 groove face insert. The silver-toned beams that stretch across the face are pointed downward at a 45-degree angle to better grab the back of the ball and help get it rolling instead of skidding.
The Spider GT putters have a grooved face designed to encourage the ball to roll instead of skid. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The black thermoplastic polyurethane material that holds the grooves is 23 percent firmer to compensate for the softness of many modern golf balls. At impact, golfers should hear a higher-pitched click and feel a firmer strike.
All three putters also have a tri-sole design, so when a golfer sets the putter behind the ball it should lay flat more easily and set up properly.
TaylorMade Spider GT Rollback putter (David Dusek/Golfweek)
In the address position, this semi-circular putter gives players three long, black alignment lines to help improve aim, but it is the use of multiple materials and what you cannot see that helps improve performance.
The main part of the chassis is machined aluminum, a light material, but unlike the new Spider GT that has extensions in the heel and toe, the curved shape of the Rollback forced TaylorMade designers to do something different to pull the center of gravity back and increase the moment of inertia. The addition of an 80-gram tungsten ring to the back of the sole accomplishes both those things.
The Rollback has a large tungsten weight in the back. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Spider GT Rollback is available in an all-silver version and a silver/black model.
TaylorMade Spider GT Notchback putter (David Dusek/Golfweek)
As with the Rollback, the Notchback has a curved heel and toe area, but the back section runs parallel to the face. It has a single black alignment line extending along the top of the silver-toned aluminum piece.
On the bottom of the club, TaylorMade added a pair of 86-gram tungsten bars to pull the center of gravity back and create more perimeter weighting for extra stability.
TaylorMade Spider GT Splitback putter (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Splitback is more angular and looks like the Spider GT without the aluminum top pad. It has extensions in the heel and toe areas, but unlike the Rollback and Notchback, the Splitback’s chassis is made from one material, 304 stainless steel.
To shift the center of gravity back, TaylorMade removed some of the steel in each extension, added TPU foam (like the Speed Foam 2.0 found inside the P-790 irons), then covered the foam with a steel plate. That created some discretionary weight that was added back to the putter in the form of two 3-gram tungsten weights at the end of each wing.
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Spanish