The most revealing crew stat from the 2026 PGA Tour season?
Mallet putters accounted for 33 of 38 wins.
If you are a MyGolfSpy reader, you probably know the Reader’s Digest version of how it happened. Our tests have repeatedly shown how blades are outperformed by clubs and putters at zero torqueso it only makes sense that Tour pros would trend in the direction of blades becoming less of a standard and more of a niche offering.
However, this is an amazing statistic to see. Consider that a decade ago (the 2015-2016 Tour season), mallets accounted for about a third of wins. Now I’m up to about 87 percent!
This season, the TaylorMade Spider Tour X has won only 11 times seven different playersmaking it the most successful individual putter model. The Spider Tour family has amassed 13 total wins including major wins by Rory McIlroy and Aaron Rai. Scotty Cameron finished with nine wins on seven models while Odyssey and PING produced six apiece.
Therefore, this is not a manufacturer that distorts the results. We are talking here about a demolition in the entire category.
And then add this: Among the top 50 players on the Tour in 2026, only seven use traditional blades. Nine of the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking use clubs (Matt Fitzpatrick is the only exception, in case you were wondering).
The numbers draw a fairly obvious conclusion: the Blades are being left behind.
You probably already know this. However, I think it’s worth revisiting the details of why this happened because I think there are a couple of missing pieces that don’t get talked about enough.
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Mallets have learned to behave like blades
The ancient distinction of blade versus mace was relatively neat.
A blade with a heel typically offers appreciable hang, a center of gravity closer to the face and a release pattern suitable for players who want to feel the head spin. Generally, a mallet comes with a shaft with a bend, a minimal toe hang and a deeper center of gravity.
One deck was stable but felt resistant to rotation. It was not suitable for Tour professionals.
In addition to this, mallets were seen as clumsy, ugly or untraditional. There was a significant barrier to entry. For a while, a Tour pro using a mallet was akin to a cry for help (or at least waving the white flag).
Enter modern decks that have largely broken the relationship between head shape and face rotation profile.
The Spider Tour X, for example, can be built with a short-slant neck that creates a significant toe hang. Scotty Cameron’s Phantom family offers several neck configurations that alter the tip flow without sacrificing the chassis of the club. Odyssey does the same in its #7, Rossie, Jailbird and other forms.
A player who grew up freeing a plumber’s neck blade can now move into a deck without being forced into a face-balanced setup. The location of the neck, the geometry of the hosel and the axis of the shaft can be manipulated to provide a more comfortable / familiar rotation during the shot.
It is the development that made the general adoption of the Tour possible.
The player gets more MOI in a putter that can be configured to preserve the “in-stroke characteristics” he already trusts.
Basically, there are fewer compromises now.
And once the players started having success, many of the other hold-ups I referred to earlier began to crumble.
Stability is valuable, but alignment may be even more important
Everyone is talking about ME. It is the easiest part of the story to market because it can be expressed as a number.
Its practical benefit is obvious as moving the mass away from the center of the face reduces the head’s response to off-center impact. The resulting differences in face angle and ball speed are smaller than they would be with a compact blade.
But Tour players don’t routinely miss center by half an inch. These guys are good, as the old commercial said.
The stability benefit is significant, especially in four tournament rounds, but which does not fully explain the mallet tendency by itself.
I’m a big believer that the extra real estate given to the alignment matters just as much.
The larger head of a mallet allowed designers to create longer sightlines, perpendicular edges, contrasting sections and shapes that frame the ball. Innovation with alignment has been a game changer.
There is also a mental shift here and that can positively affect both the goal and the player’s perception of the angle of the face.
This distinction is important in my eyes. A putter can produce excellent launch and speed consistency and still be useless to a golfer who aims it poorly. But a form that helps a player aim correctly can improve performance without mechanically changing the shot.
The Spider Tour X has become dominant in large part because it is more compact than some of the larger traditional clubs, but still provides a wide body and TaylorMade’s “True Path” alignment structure. It gives players a stronger visual without looking like a huge game improvement product.
Size, CG placement, hosel options, alignment and familiar insert performance. Add in (more than a few) Scottie Scheffler wins, and that explains the popularity of the mallet.
The remaining advantage of the blade is always more emotional
Don’t get me wrong – blades are not completely dead.
Some players target compact heads better. Some prefer the feedback of a more concentrated mass behind the face. Others want a shorter view, less visual information or particular flow created by a traditional heel design.
A player who has looked at an Anser-style form for 20 years can do better (or thinks he will) with it simply because the picture is familiar. Our testing would say that is highly unlikely, but a player may still feel that a blade is the best choice.
That being said, it is now more of an emotional decision for players to choose a blade.
The modern deck has a lot more flexibility without any of the sacrifices players have had to give up.
This is why the traditional shovel has lost a lot of ground.
It’s not necessarily because Tour players immediately need more help. In fact, they don’t. That’s because the mallet category stopped asking them to choose between stability and everything they valued.
So those are my thoughts. What do you have in mind? Let me know below in the comments.
Top Photo Caption: Patrick Rodgers uses a blade during the 3M Open. (GETTY IMAGES/David Berding)
The place Why the Blade Putter is Quietly Disappearing from the PGA Tour appeared first MyGolfSpy.