For years, Collin Morikawa’s identity on the PGA Tour has been tied to precision iron play and steady putting, usually with a blade-style putter. At Pebble Beach on Sunday, that identity bent just enough to help him win.
Morikawa closed with rounds of 62 and 67 to capture the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and while his iron play led the way (he finished first in Strokes Gained: Approach and hit 60 of 72 greens), the story quietly unfolding on the greens was just as important.
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He wasn’t using his usual putter. In fact, he was using a TaylorMade Spider Tour X, and it was someone else’s.
The path to getting that putter into Morikawa’s bag began a week before the WM Phoenix Open during a casual match with Min Woo Lee, Kurt Kitayama and Kurt’s brother, Daniel. The two-time major champion had been experimenting with a wide TaylorMade blade like the one Nelly Korda recently won with, but the results weren’t coming. In the match, Daniel was using the Spider Tour X that had been made for Kurt, featuring a flow neck and a “Back T” alignment aid.
The Spider Tour X putter that Morikawa “stole” from Daniel Kitayama was made with a custom alignment aid added to the white True Path area.
Morikawa tried it.
“(It) felt great,” he said Sunday evening. “I jokingly said I might have to take this.”
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By the end of the round, he wasn’t joking. Morikawa took the putter and used it for the rest of the day before bringing it back to his hotel. For two straight days, he didn’t hit balls. He didn’t tinker with irons. He just rolled putts in his room.
“That’s all I was doing in the hotel room, putting, putting, putting.”
After a rough start on the greens with the Spider X on Thursday, Morikawa made several critical putts down the stretch on Sunday to earn his win at Pebble Beach.
He put the Spider Tour X in play at TPC Scottsdale, and while Phoenix didn’t immediately show a dramatic improvement, the switch bore fruit at Pebble Beach. After a rocky start on Thursday, Morikawa gained 1.616 strokes putting on Sunday, when he battled Lee and Sam Burns and held off Scottie Scheffler’s 63 to win by a shot.
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This is not the first time Morikawa has used a TaylorMade Spider putter, and by putting it back in the bag, he joins a host of other elite TaylorMade staffers, including Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, who are using versions of the Spider.
What makes the Spider putters appealing to a broad range of players is a combination of design elements. In Morikawa’s putter, the weight positioning is slightly more forward than the standard Spider Tour. Instead of large back weights protruding off the rear corners, the Tour X tucks mass into the sole under heel and toe blocks. That creates a center of gravity location that is slightly more forward and lowers the MOI compared to the standard Spider Tour.
The short slant neck hosel creates toe hang, which is ideal for golfers who prefer to have arc in their putting stroke.
In practical terms, it’s a little less “locked down” than the highest-MOI Spiders. However, it still offers far more stability than a traditional blade.
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The flow neck configuration of Morikawa’s putter adds toe hang and should give him the sensation of releasing the head that he didn’t always feel with other Spiders. For a player who likes to see the face rotate naturally but doesn’t want it over-rotating, that balance can be critical.
The Spider platform also has other advantages. The steel and aluminum construction pushes weight outward to resist twisting. The internal Hybrar Echo Damper softens vibration at impact, helping with feel and sound. The Pure Roll insert, with its 45-degree downward grooves, promotes forward roll and reduces skid, while the True Path alignment system frames the ball in a way many players find easier to aim.
The TaylorMade Spider Tour X has weights in the sole under the back heel and toe areas that boost stability.
For a player who admitted he had been overthinking and “trying to make golf so perfect,” simplifying alignment and starting the ball online may have been exactly what he needed.
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Morikawa said this week was about rediscovering the “art” of golf. Ironically, he did it with one of the most technologically advanced mallet designs on Tour.
Sometimes equipment changes are the result of months of R&D meetings and structured testing. Sometimes, evidently, they happen on the 13th hole of a friendly match. This one ended with a trophy on the 18th green at Pebble Beach and a Spider Tour X that probably won’t be going back to Kitayama’s locker anytime soon.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Collin Morikawa uses TaylorMade Spider Tour X in Pebble Beach win
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