Collin Morikawa contending at The Country Club after switching putters

BROOKLINE, Mass. — At 25, and obtaining currently received the 2020 PGA Championship and the 2021 British Open, it’s tough to criticize Collin Morikawa’s video game way too significantly. Set a 5-iron in his fingers and Morikawa is revenue (he ranks fifth on the PGA Tour in strokes attained method the environmentally friendly and was No. 1 previous season), but kryptonite for this Superman is placing. Give him a putt four to 8 ft from the hole and statistically, he’s one particular of the worst on Tour (building 66.41 % and rating 154th).

But so far this 7 days at the U.S. Open up, on some of the trickiest greens the players will confront all season, Morikawa’s placing is keeping up. It is a big purpose why he has shot 69-66 and is at the top rated of the leaderboard heading into the weekend. And part of that accomplishment may be due to his new putter.

Collin Morikawa placing with a TaylorMade GT Spider Rollback at the 2022 U.S. Open up. (Photo: David Dusek/Golfweek)

In an effort to improve his putting, Morikawa created a putter transform just before the start off of The Memorial three months ago, using out his TaylorMade TP Juno and including a TaylorMade Spider GT Rollback.

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The two putters are very distinctive in design and style. Morikawa made use of TaylorMade’s MyTP putter program on his smartphone to style a TP Juno, a heel-toe weighted blade, with an specifically extended neck then experienced PGA Tour reps make it for him. The Spider GT Rollback, which was produced in January, is a semicircular mallet that has a chassis machined using aluminum with an 80-gram tungsten ring in the again of the head. The extra bodyweight increases the second of inertia (MOI) and can make the club a lot more resistant to twisting on off-middle hits. It ought to surely be more forgiving than TaylorMade’s blade-fashion putters.

Morikawa’s putter also has a grooved, Pure Roll deal with insert. There is urethane involving the insert’s aluminum bars to soften truly feel, but the bars issue downward at a 45-degree angle to get the ball at impact and inspire it to roll alternatively of skid.

As a result of two rounds at The Place Club, Morikawa has produced birdie putts from 9, 10, 13 and 14 feet, as properly as par-conserving putts from 6, 8 and 9 ft.

Morikawa’s Spider GT Rollback has a short black line extending back again from the topline rather of the 3 very long lines that arrive on the retail variation. It is 34.75 inches in size, as 2 levels of loft and a 71-degree lie angle. The putter is fitted with a Super Stroke Pistol GTR Tour grip.