The Equipment Debrief: Gerard Makes Big Putter Call And A Huge Hitter Plays His Own 'Mini' Driver

We must start this week’s equipment debrief with a huge congratulations to Ryan Gerard who, having qualified for the 2026 Masters, will be feeling rather pleased with himself this Christmas.

The American, who made the 20,000-mile round trip from Florida to play in the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius, entered the week at No. 57 in the OWGR, needing to climb into the world’s top 50 to earn a spot at Augusta.

And he very nearly secured one of those coveted spaces in style, narrowly missing out on the title after a playoff.

Still, job done - Gerard is Masters-bound.

As first reported by SMS on TOUR, the 26-year-old took four putters on his trip to the DP World Tour event, to see which one rolled the best on the paspalum greens.

The highlight of his week was a spectacular 63 in the third round, which included ten birdies - so we can only assume that he was happy with his decision to put the Scotty Cameron Xperimental Prototype 3 in the bag.

ZERO TORQUE ON THE RISE

Staying with the last tournament of 2025 on the DP World Tour - and staying with putters - it was interesting to see the stats on zero torque putter usage.

The number of professional players using this style of putter - which are essentially designed in a way to prevent the fast twisting as little as possible - appears to be on the rise, with nearly 15% of the field playing with a zero torque putter (that figure was just over 10% at the same tournament in 2024).

Maybe this has got you thinking about a little last-minute Christmas gift for yourself. We say little, most zero torque putters will set you back a good few hundred dollars).

However, can you really put a price on a red-hot putter?

If you are thinking about going the ZT route, you’d do well to listen to what tour pro Michael Kim had to say about the pros and cons of this style of flatstick.

Turning our attention to the top end of the bag, there was a second victory for TaylorMade’s yet-to-be-released Qi4D driver (our man Joe Ferguson has recently started testing it).

After Jayden Schaper did the business at the Alfred Dunhill Championship with the new Qi4D, the South African recorded back-to-back victories in Mauritius, where he closed the door on Gerard with a hole-out eagle at the second playoff hole.

Staying with the big stick, it was interesting to get a glimpse inside Christo Lamprecht’s bag.

The 6ft 8in South African, known for his huge drives, appears to have had his own ‘mini’ driver created - not a regular mini driver (which are becoming more and more popular), but a 43 inch model, three inches shorter than his ‘main’ Ping G440 Max driver.

We’ll be back in the new year with the more equipment news from the professional tours, plus we’ll have the latest on the new 2026 drivers from all the major brands.