I’m jealous of my friend’s mallet putter

I’m jealous of my friend’s mallet putter

Photo by Soheb Zaidi on Unsplash

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When Scottie Scheffler changed from his blade to a mallet putter last year, it took the golfing world by storm. Well it did in my head at least.

They say “drive for show, putt for dough”, and it seems as though Scheffler took this advice all too literally as he earned a whopping $29 million dollars on tour last year — much of this being attributed to his 71 place jump in putting stats.

Just like Scottie, my friend also has a mallet putter. It’s an older generation Odyssey with the pathognomonic 2-ball design. Its faded SuperStroke grip serves as a visual testament to the many sweaty putts it’s endured over the years. When we used to flat-share, he would leave it out in the hallway, and many evenings would be spent taking turns on makeshift Par 2 courses around the living room. Simpler times.

I think this is when my intrigue with the mallet style putter first started. I seemed to putt straighter in the living room than on the course. The ball left the clubface predictably. My distance control felt better and even the mishits were more forgiving. “Why aren’t all putters like this?” I would think. Perhaps more importantly, “Why is my putter not like this?”.

That’s not to say that I don’t love the putter that’s been in my bag for as long as I can remember. It’s a vintage Rossie Blade from 1997 that was handed down to me. It has a classic black pistol grip, none of this fancy modern thick stuff. It feels heavy in your hand and despite almost 30 years of use, shows no sign of letting up. Upgrading it has never really been an option, and even the thought of it has always felt like disloyalty.

Until recently that is — I finally caved.

The putter is by far the most used club in the bag. You may hit your 6-iron two or three times per round but the ball contacts the putter around 36 times per round for the average golfer. A 290 yard drive fluked right in the middle of the fairway counts the same as a 3-inch gimme putt. And yet, it is the most neglected part of the game for many golfers.

Because in essence, the actual act of putting is ridiculously boring.

And when something is boring, it’s unnatural to spend time thinking about it, deliberating over it or investing time (and money) to improve it. You definitely don’t want to spend hours practising it. That’s probably why I’ve also never felt the need to upgrade my old putter. It does the job, and change feels unnecessary.

But the story on the course itself is all too different. From a sporting perspective, not much rivals the exhilaration one feels when you save par by draining a 30-footer, or sinking a 10-foot downhill lag putt for birdie. You can instantly change the complexion of a round by making a putt for a score you probably didn’t deserve, or even better, on the 9th green to build momentum for the back 9. Good putting becomes necessary. It becomes fun. And if a mallet creates even a couple of moments like this, it’s worth it for me.

“It’s a funny thing, the more I practise the luckier I get“— Arnold Palmer

That exhilaration, I feel, is also echoed in life’s many highs and lows. Many of you reading this will have experienced a time where you’ve had to suffer to land that job interview, to set up that important meeting — to get yourself onto the green.

But in the end, it comes down to the interview or meeting itself to seize the opportunity — the putt. Some will go in, but others will be agonisingly close. Some will come up short, despite your best efforts. You’ll make some you deserve, but many you make will be so lucky that you’ll almost feel apologetic.

In any respect, you’ve just got to keep the balls rolling towards the hole. You never know — one might just fall in when you least expect it.