After ranking last in Strokes Gained putting at Torrey Pines, Brooks Koepka is switching it up at Phoenix with a TaylorMade Spider in the bag.
Brooks Koepka has never been one to panic, which is good because you don’t win at places like Shinnecock Hills, Bethpage Black or Oak Hill if you are prone to panicking, but golf has a way of humbling even the most stubbornly confident players. Last week, at the Farmers Insurance Open, Koepka made the cut and then quietly did something alarming. He finished dead last among the 74 players who played the weekend at Torrey Pines in Strokes Gained: Putting, hemorrhaging more than seven shots to the field. For a five-time major champion playing his first PGA Tour event since leaving the LIV Tour, that number landed with a thud.
So this week, at the WM Phoenix Open, Koepka spent hours on the practice green and showed up with not only his familiar Scotty Cameron blade that helped him win back-to-back U.S. Opens and three PGA Championships, but also a few TaylorMade Spider mallet putters. Same player, same reputation for thriving under pressure, but the Spiders are a very different tool.
Koepka’s old Newport-style blade was all about feel, precision and rewarding a centered strike. The Spider lives at the other end of the design spectrum. It is larger, has a higher MOI and is built to resist twisting when contact drifts away from the sweet spot. It is also larger from front to back, which means it has more room for alignment features and can be easier to aim. Spider putters also feature a grooved face insert designed to get the ball rolling rather than skidding. In short, it is designed to keep putts online even when the stroke is less than perfect, which is a useful feature when the numbers say your putting is actively costing you tournaments.
Koepka is hardly alone in reaching for this style of putter. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has leaned on a Spider during his dominant stretch and had his in the bag when he won the American Express two weeks ago. Rory McIlroy and Nelly Korda, two of the most efficient ball strikers in the game, both trust Spiders. The common thread is stability, roll enhancement and aim. When the stroke gets quick or tentative, the Spider has tools to make things a little easier and more consistent.
For Koepka, this does not read as a philosophical shift so much as a practical one. He still hits it like Brooks Koepka and ranked 21st in Strokes Gained: Approach at Torrey Pines. He still thinks like Brooks Koepka, too, but after a week when his putter turned his return to the PGA into The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a little built-in forgiveness starts to look less like a crutch and more like a smart, possibly short-term adjustment.
Putting changes are rarely permanent, especially for elite players with long memories of what has worked before. But for now, the Spider offers Koepka something his old blade could not guarantee in La Jolla: a bit of help when his hands and posture and setup aren’t perfect. In this game, even the toughest guys need to accept that stubbornness does not hole putts.