The Unequivocal Proof That This Once Popular Style Of Putter Is On The Way Out

On Sunday at the DP World India Championship, Tommy Fleetwood secured another win in 2025, taming Delhi Golf Club to secure the inaugural title.

Using a full TaylorMade bag, Fleetwood was one of many players to wield a mallet-style putter over the weekend, as his Spider Tour Prototype put the Englishman inside the top 10 of the putting stats for the week.

In fact, according to SMS On Tour, out of the top 45 players on the leaderboard at the DP World India Championship, just four of them used blade-style putters, with Ben Griffin among those with his Scotty Cameron Concept 2 Tour Prototype.

Griffin has two wins on the PGA Tour in 2025, with both his victories featuring the Prototype Scotty Cameron. However, following on from the tournament in India, it does beg the question of are blade-style putters on their way out?

This is a question that our gear expert, Joe Ferguson, has asked previously, especially as he noted that just two blade putters have claimed men's Major glory in the past 12 championships.

In fact, looking further afield, and at the 43 tournaments that have been played on the PGA Tour in 2025, a total of just 12 wins have come using blade putters.

These include Griffin (won twice), Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Aberg, Brian Campbell (won twice), Joe Highsmith, Min Woo Lee, Ryan Fox (won twice), Aldrich Potgieter and Kurt Kitayama.

Primarily, though, players have opted for more forgiving options in mallet designs and zero torque putters and, as seen in India, TaylorMade, Odyssey, Ping and L.A.B Golf were just some of the manufacturers on show.

Not only that but, on the DP World Tour in 2025, just eight wins from 40 events have come from blade putters, as Johannes Veerman, Calum Hill, Marco Penge, Connor Syme, Daniel Brown, Grant Forrest and Alex Noren (won twice) have wielded the flatstick.

Obviously putting is a personal preference but, one of the biggest success stories involving players switching to a mallet from a blade is none other than World No.1 Scottie Scheffler.

In early 2024, following a suggestion from none other than Rory McIlroy, Scheffler added the TaylorMade Spider Tour X to his set-up and, since then, has racked up 15 wins worldwide, including three Majors and an Olympic gold medal.

Crucially, Scheffler has also gone from 162nd in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2023, to 20th in 2025, with his stats jumping from -0.301 to +0.382. Certainly, the move to a more forgiving mallet has paid off for the world's best.

That's not to say that there aren't benefits of using a blade putter, especially when one of the best putters in golf, Tiger Woods, used his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS blade to win 14 of his 15 Majors.

For example, a blade putter can provide more feedback at impact, as well as being more helpful on quicker greens and more effective for those with arced putting strokes.

However, all of the men's top 10 use mallet designs while only five of the world's top 20 opt for a blade style putter.

Obviously, blade putters will continue to be around at the professional level, but with individuals seeking to save shots and make life easier on the greens, the thought of a zero torque putter or mallet design is too tempting for some, as it appears they are taking over.