How Collin Morikawa broke his winless drought with a ‘borrowed’ Spider putter

Collin Morikawa has been searching for a new flatstick for seemingly forever, but he might have found one through his friend, Kurt Kitayama.

The two-time major winner has tried no fewer than half a dozen putters in just the past 10 months, but the one he got the win this weekend with was a new TaylorMade Spider Tour X Flow Neck that he took off Kitayama’s brother during a friendly match a few weeks ago.

After closing with a 67, in which he picked up more than 1.6 Strokes Gained: Putting, Morikawa got his first victory since October 2023 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this weekend. He revealed the putter was actually made for Kitayama on Saturday night, after he lost strokes on the greens, but still managed a 62 to climb into contention.

TaylorMade Spider Tour X Custom Putter

  THIN WALL UNDERCUT CONSTRUCTION We’ve engineered a super stable structure by removing excess weight to create high MOI and legendary Spider performance. STEEL WIREFRAME Allows engineers to better control weight distribution and CG location. HYBRAR ECHO® DAMPENER HYBRAR is behind the face to dampen unwanted vibrations, delivering premium sound and feel on every putt with the best possible sensation. DIFFERENT CG LOCATION Each Spider Tour model features different CG locations for optimal putter fitting. TSS WEIGHTING TSS weights provide balanced weighting and help optimize performance for all various putter lengths. GUNMETAL PVD FINISH The durable PVD coating creates a beautiful high-quality finish. TRUE PATH™ ALIGNMENT The patented alignment system provides visual clarity and helps golfers better envision the line to the hole. WHITE TPU PURE ROLL™ INSERT Made from a combination of Surlyn and aluminum, the white TPU Pure Roll™ insert creates a softer feel. Grooves are angled at 45° to encourage optimal forward roll as well as better sound, feel and overall roll characteristics. The white insert also creates better symmetry with the white True Path alignment. REFINED HOSEL DESIGNS Spider Tour Series includes two different hosel shapes and designs. The small slant produces toe hang, and the double bend produces a face balanced design.

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ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour Superstore, TaylorMade

Then he said he’d probably be “unsettled” with his putter for the rest of his career.

“It’s a comfort thing for me. I think I play a lot with my feel and I play a lot with my gut, and unfortunately, that changes a lot,” he said Saturday night.

Morikawa played multiple different blade putters throughout his career, tending to stick with a TaylorMade TP Soto the past three seasons, but last year, he started experimenting with more mallet putters. That led him to start off the year with a new Spider ZT Black, before he switched again to a TaylorMade wide-body blade, similar to the one Nelly Korda used to win the LPGA’s season-opener.

That was after his debut at the Sony Open and before his next start at the Phoenix Open and when he said he played a match with Kitayama, his brother Daniel and Min Woo Lee at home in Las Vegas. The wide blade and he weren’t getting along, before he spotted the flow neck Spider Daniel was using.

“I was putting with it, didn’t make anything. I looked at Daniel, his brother, his caddie. I said, ‘Oh, let me try it.’ I tried it on maybe the 13th hole,” Morikawa said Sunday. “Felt great. I was like, I jokingly said I might have to take this. Then the rest of the round I only putted with that putter.”

Morikawa said he was drawn to that particular putter because of the back “T” alignment aid and the unique flow neck as he wanted to feel more of a release through impact.

“It’s kind of settling nice to where it allows it to flow a little bit but it doesn’t have as much toe hang as the neck assumes just because of the mallet look,” Morikawa said Saturday.

That weekend before the WM, Morikawa said all he did was roll putts with that Spider and he put it in the bag that week and it stayed in the bag at Pebble.

He nailed a go-ahead 30-foot birdie putt on 15 and then another 8-footer on 16, before using the putter from off the green on the 72nd to 2-putt for the clinching birdie to hold on for a one-shot win over Lee.

He joked he’s not sure if the putter has any staying power right now — he lost .05 strokes putting for the week — but it seems like it’s his to keep.

“I don’t know if he’s going to want it back,” Morikawa said of Kitayama. “He looked at it again this week. I think he’s trying to replicate it with maybe a different club or whatever.

“But it’s mine now.”

With the win, the TaylorMade Spider has now won four of the first five events on the PGA Tour this season. Ironically, the last player to win with a blade putter on the PGA Tour, as pointed out by PGATour.com’s Alistair Cameron, was Kitayama back in July.

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