think by Eugenio Chacarra TaylorMade Spider Tour S Long putter does it look a little different? Well, it is!
The four-time winner on the DP World Tour is one of a growing number of young professionals wielding a broom and has used a different model for most of the season. But behind the scenes, he worked to improve.
You may notice that, unlike most players who use this style of putter, Chacarra’s putter is not straight as the rules of golf allow. It is noticeably further from the ball. It’s a change he made recently after working with TaylorMade Tour Rep Alex Marine over the past 4-5 months.
Marine and Chacarra had worked together before, during the latter’s Oklahoma State days, but didn’t really go deep into the suit until this summer.
“First he changed into Spider Tour S Long at the Nexo Championship and then in the following weeks he continued to do some work to refine the characteristics of the putter to produce what he was looking for,â said Marine.
That led to a realization at the BMW PGA Championship in September that a 79-degree lie angle was too fair for Chacarra. The Race to Dubai leader has used a long putter dating back at least to his college days, and most of them have been around a 79-degree lie angle, which is pretty standard for most long putters.
At Wentworth, James Holley, TaylorMade putter representative he helped Marine and Chacarra work out a solution.
“He was aiming left and toe in an attempt to start in line, which created inconsistent speed,” Marine said. âWe found that if the putter was flatter, he could get his eye line further into the ball and line up better.
“So we flattened it from 79° to 76°. Between the shape and stability of the Spider Tour S and the total weight of 870g, we built a high MOI putter to the exact specification to suit Eugenio’s shot and the feel he was looking for with Pure Roll.”
Despite having already won twice this season, Chacarra also worked with the reps and the GRASP Smart Putting Door to refine his mechanics.
“He hit the ball and looked straight for it with a short backswing,” Marine said. “So I would hold my head while he would keep his head down and that made his path much straighter and his back and back much longer as well.”
Since Wentworth, Chacarra is 3rd on the DP World Tour in Adjusted Strokes Gained: Putting with the new Spider Tour S Long. Before the change, he was outside the top-75 on the Tour. He also saw dramatic improvements in putting from 6-12 feet (11 percent in 5 events before the change, 48 percent since) and three putting from outside 30 feet (5 percent).
It all came together for Chacarra last week at the India DP World Championship, where he finished fifth in SG: Putting at Delhi Golf Club.
