Wyndham Clark may owe at least a piece of his U.S. Open title to his Ping Scottsdale TEC putter that he shouted out in his post-round interview Sunday.
Clark has a Ping deal now, but he first switched to the wand back in March without a contract. Ping announced a unique putter-only deal with Clark on the eve of the U.S. Open last week, a first for the company in more than 50 years of sponsoring Tour players.
Now, the company has its first major victory in over a decade and the potential for a gear-industry disruption.
For the first two-plus months that Clark had the all-white, center-shafted putter in his bag, he did so without incentive. It was a bit of a wild journey to get there.
The now two-time major winner’s previous equipment contract with Titleist expired at the end of last year, leading him to become one of the most high-profile gear free agents to start 2026.
Clark joked at the Memorial earlier this month that he was “dating” different clubs at the beginning of the year as he cycled through both drivers and putters. With the flatstick, he settled into a L.A.B. Golf DF3 at the end of last season, moving away from the counterbalanced Odyssey Jailbird with which he won the 2023 U.S. Open, but it wasn’t long before he switched things up.
First, he started playing the grip upside down. Then he bought a new Bettinardi putter at his home course pro shop and gamed it at the Players. Two tournaments later, Clark walked on to the Ping Tour truck to have some work done to his G440 Max 3-wood.
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“During a discussion in Houston regarding his equipment, we noted he was using a center-shafted onset putter and how we just introduced two new onset mallets in our Scottsdale TEC line,” Ping Player Development Manager Dylan Goodwin, who worked with Clark on the switch, told GOLF. “We explained the technology and our philosophy on torque. He liked the look of both models and the principle behind them. He requested we build both to his specifications at the time.”
Unlike the L.A.B. or the Bettinardi Antidote models Clark was using, Ping’s Scottsdale TEC Onset models are not “zero-torque” putters. Instead of the shaft going through the center of gravity of the head, Ping places the shaft directly in front of the CG to create stability by “pulling” the majority of the mass.
Clark tried out both the Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset and Ketsch Onset models and found the Ally Blue, with a slightly more face-balanced design with five degrees of toe hang versus 15 on the Ketsch, better fit his stroke. Specifically, he noted an improved start line, fixing a left miss.
He put a standard 35″ Ally Blue Onset model in play in Houston and used it for two events before going back to the Ping Truck at the RBC Heritage. There, Clark asked for a new Ally Blue Onset CB to match the same specs of the counterbalanced Odyssey Jailbird 380 he used to win the 2023 U.S. Open.
Clark was part of maybe the wildest gear story of 2023 when he earned his first two victories, including the major at the Los Angeles Country Club, with a counterbalanced Jailbird with lead tape covering the entire sole. Rickie Fowler was the first player to switch to that kind of build, and Clark asked for the “Rickie-build.” Both players, along with Keegan Bradley, a longtime user of the head, won that year.
At the time, the Jailbird was a potentially forgotten-about Odyssey head, but within one summer it became the company’s flagship mallet and was back in production. Clark wanted that same heavy feel again.
“We initially built a standard 370g head at 38” with a SuperStroke 3.0 17” grip,” Goodwin said. “However, he felt this setup lacked the head feel and control he prefers. To address this, we built two new options: one with a standard head weight and a 17g tip weight, and another with a 400g head featuring tungsten in the sole plate. Since Wyndham adds lead tape to the sole regardless of the initial build, he found the 400g head too heavy with the added tape, but the 387g head (which finished at 400g with the lead tape) was perfect.”
Clark excelled with the added stability both from the shaft and CG placement, as well as the overall weight. It showed in the stats.
“Since I switched to this Ping putter, it’s been amazing,” Clark said at the RBC Canadian Open two weeks ago. “Now I feel like all the hard work I’ve put into my swing is paying off because when I hit the greens or hit it close, I’m actually making the putts, where maybe earlier in the year I wasn’t.”
After finishing 4th in the field at Shinnecock in SG: Putting, Clark has risen from 155th on the PGA Tour in the stat, where he was losing .725 strokes a round, to 43rd, gaining .239 strokes. He’s also 5th in putting average at 1.702.
“I played some ugly golf the last two days, but my putter and short game kind of kept me in it,” Clark told NBC’s Mike Tirico Sunday after hoisting the U.S. Open trophy.
There’s no telling whether Clark’s improvement will lead to the same fever around the Ally Blue Onset that surrounded the Jailbird three years ago, but it’s safe to assume that at least a few have jumped off the shelves in the last few hours.
Not since TaylorMade’s 2022 signing of Scottie Scheffler has a company pulled off a better-timed sponsorship agreement than Ping just did.
Wyndham Clark’s putter Specs:
Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset CB
Loft: 3˚
Lie: 70˚
Length: 38″
Headweight: 400g (17g tip weight + 13g lead tape)
Insert: PEBAX
Grip: SuperStroke Tour 3.0 17″
