Hat Tip to Stephanie Wei who is at St. Andrews for the week for writing about Tiger rolling out a new Nike Method Putter this week. From the article:
“‘I have a new putter in the bag,” he said nonchalantly after explaining his decision on which 2-iron he’ll play. “I’ve switched to the Nike putter for this week….”It comes off [the Nike putter] faster, which one these greens is something that I’ve always struggled on slower greens,” he explained. “I haven’t had to make that much of an adjustment because the ball is coming off a little quicker.”….From the 5-10′ feet range, he’s putting 53.97%, which ranks him at 109th on Tour this season. Last year he finished 9th and made 62.07% of putts from the same range.”
By coincidence, while at the Met Golf Writers event this Monday, we were treated to a presentation on the new Nike Method Putter by a Nike rep.
He told the assemble media that Nike had a fit getting any players to use the models they had designed independently. So they went directly to their players and asked them to do the heavy lifting for them. “We asked them to tell us what they wanted,” he said. “They gave us specs and we designed to their wishes.”
The club is so new, we haven’t as yet been able to get a pulse on how it performs. Now Nike will have the greatest litmus test they could ask for: the game’s greatest star at the game’s most hallowed venue at the de facto World Championship.
Oh, and Steph, about Tiger putting well on fast greens…don’t forget Augusta!
Interestingly, Woods says he hates greens that have severe undulations. “I don’t like greens with elephants buried under them,” he told R&A officials while visiting Royal Liverpool in 2006 in prep for his cakewalk win in sunny, calm weather over the flattest greens in the Open Championship Rota. Odd…he sure putts well at Augusta…
