As Rory McIlroy put the finishing touches on his second straight Masters win, 144 miles away, James Holley watched with the TV blaring from a TaylorMade Tour truck.

He was already on-site for this week’s RBC Heritage on Hilton Head Island, but he couldn’t miss this moment — especially since he played a part in it.

“It’s always fun to see a putter you have a little bit a part of win on Sunday,” says Holley, TaylorMade’s putter rep and the man responsible for maintaining McIlroy’s Spider putter, the same one he used to win a green jacket last year as well. “And especially in a major it’s awesome.”

Holley will be a busy man on the putting green at Harbour Town as well, but it won’t faze him. That’s basically been the case every week this season on the PGA Tour.

In a lot of ways, it’s fitting that a Spider putter won the Masters yet again. The putter family has won all but two Masters since 2020 and won three of the four majors last season. It was the winningest putter on the PGA Tour last year with 15 victories.

But the hype around the putter has hit a fever pitch to begin 2026 as pros seek to copy what is working for others. With McIlroy’s win at Augusta, that marks six wins by five different players already this season, including five of the first six events of the year.

McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, who finished second at the Masters, account for the majority of those victories last season, but the residual effects of their success are evident in other players.

New pros are adding the putter seemingly every week, including names like Brooks Koepka and Collin Morikawa, who won with a flow neck Spider Tour X after years of waffling between putters, mostly blade models.

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.

View Product

ALSO AVAILABLE AT: PGA Tour Superstore, TaylorMade

“It’s definitely the hot putter and a lot of players you wouldn’t necessarily think want to try to tinker and switch into the putter have come up and we’ve built putters for them,” Holley said during an interview in March, just after Jacob Bridgeman won the Genesis Invitational with a Spider Tour. “It’s a good spot to be in.”

Holley sits firmly in the middle of all that success as TaylorMade’s putter rep, a job he’s had since the summer of 2024. In that time, Spider usage on the PGA Tour has exploded, in part led by Scheffler’s switch earlier that spring.

But just about everyone who has switched since, like Tommy Fleetwood, who got “Spidered” last spring, Holley has been the one helping them through the fitting and building process on the practice green.

Holley had aspirations of being the guy fitted for putters, not necessarily the one doing the fitting.

He was a standout junior golfer and played at San Diego State from 2013 to 2015, the same time Xander Schauffele was an Aztec. In the spring of his junior season, he captured his only collegiate victory at the WIU/Carlton Oaks Invitational.

While he was in school, he also did product testing for TaylorMade, whose headquarters are in nearby Carlsbad. That introduced him to TaylorMade Tour reps Ryan Ressa, who took care of Holley’s club needs in college, and Bucky Coe, TaylorMade’s putter rep at the time.

Holley played the mini tours and worked as an instructor on the side, but he found out that life wasn’t for him.

“I have a family, so it got kind of old,” Holley says.
”You know, making a lot of money one month and then no money the next month.”

It was around this time when Coe transitioned out of his role as TaylorMade’s Tour putter rep and posted the job on his Instagram. A lifelong putter nerd, Holley pounced on the opportunity.

“I’ve always kind of been a putter-tinker and would always jump on like the Quintic here and test a bunch of different stuff,” Holley says. “That’s probably what makes me a good tour rep but didn’t make me a good tour pro. The amount of putter knowledge I have is probably not super great for, you know, playing golf.”

He got the job on a Monday in August 2024 and flew to Memphis that evening for the first round of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs. The first person he was introduced to was Tommy Fleetwood, who ended up being one of his first major success stories.

At the end of 2024, Fleetwood was beginning his search for a new putter to replace his longtime Odyssey White Hot Pro 3 blade. The first try was a TaylorMade Prototype Truss Soto blade. The Truss putter line was released in 2020 and featured a unique triangular hosel that was aimed at reducing the twisting forces of the putter on mishits while retaining a traditional look.

Fleetwood had two different versions of his Truss prototype before Holley approached him in early 2025 about switching into a Spider.

“That’s the kind of art of being the rep of trying to go up to a guy who’s maybe been struggling, and if it’s the right time to ask him if he wants to try a putter or not,” Holley says. “I had been watching him putt for the last six to nine months, an hour each day during the week.”

The key, Holley says, is never pushing a move on a player. While much of his job revolves around being ready for when a curious player walks up to his bag stationed at the putting green, the real work is biding his time to know when he’s going to approach a player.

The results for Fleetwood speak for themselves. He was 84th on the PGA Tour in SG: Putting entering the RBC Heritage and was 15th at the end of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The putter change sparked the best summer of Fleetwood’s career, culminating in his first PGA Tour win at the Tour Championship, another victory at the DP World India Championship and a career-high World Ranking (3rd).

At his breakthrough at East Lake, he led the field in putting, picking up more than eight shots over the week on the greens.

Fleetwood liked the milled True Path alignment aid on the Spider ZT, so Holley drew Sharpie lines on the top of the Spider Tour and Fleetwood liked it so much he stuck with that version until the Texas Open this season. (Holley redrew those lines by hand every few weeks, but it was worth it.)

The same success story holds true for TaylorMade’s two other top-ranked athletes. Scheffler was 143rd in SG: Putting during the 2024 season before making the switch to the Spider at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He improved to 69th by the end of 2024 and 18th by his final start of 2025.

McIlroy was 97th in 2018, the year before he started dabbling with the Spider. In the 2019 season, when he won three times, including the Players Championship and Tour Championship, he was 25th. Last year, his first full season using the custom torched Spider Tour X, he finished in the top 10 in putting for the first time in his career.

What makes the Spider so successful at taking long-time blade users and turning them into some of the top putters on the PGA Tour?

Take it from Holley himself, who was a blade guy most of his playing career until he started using a Spider.

He was — and still is, as his Handicap Index is +5.4 — an extremely high-level player, giving him a unique perspective to pitch the Spider to Tour pros.

But the thing that makes the Spider tick, Holley says, is TaylorMade’s Pure Roll insert.

The insert is made from a blend of Surlyn and aluminium and has grooves angled at 45˚ that are supposed to help you produce immediate forward roll on your putts instead of skidding. The most common insert on Spiders on Tour is the 80/20 variant with 80 percent Surlyn and 20 percent aluminum, but Holley can also do a fully Surlyn insert to soften the feel or add more aluminum to make it more responsive.

“Any of the guys that have switched like Scottie or Tommy, they see such a big improvement inside that 20 feet,” Holley says. “Especially out on Tour, that’s where those guys make their money. Statistically, the best putter and the worst putter from 30 feet, there isn’t that big of a difference from a strokes-gained perspective.”

After Scheffler’s putter switch, he went from 151st from inside 10 feet in 2023 to 33rd last season.

That kind of statistical success is crucial for Holley, whose job is much different than a Tour rep dedicated to full swing clubs.

Early in the week on a PGA Tour practice green, the perimeter is lined with staff bags, each with dozens of putters leaned up against them, just asking to be rolled. The putter reps stand nearby, waiting to spring into action. But because of the Spider’s success, players visit Holley often, curious about what so many pro are using and winning with.

Technically, Holley’s first putter switch was McIlroy’s move to the torched Spider Tour X at the 2024 Tour Championship.

“All I did on that was punch in the email,” he jokes. “So that was the extent of the switch that I had there.”

Holley also plays a role in the week-to-week maintenance of the putters. He takes care of loft and lie checks and regrippings, like the one he did for McIlroy at Bay Hill last month, the same putter that’s now responsible for two consecutive Masters wins and potentially many more victories.

While McIlroy probably won’t change any time soon, these things have a domino effect. Not only will more players be curious to try a Spider after yet another win, but TaylorMade is launching a whole new line of Spiders on the PGA Tour this week, presumably the first step of a new retail release later this year. (From what Holley and TaylorMade are willing to divulge at this point, it doesn’t look like there’s been much of a change to the shape of the uber-successful Spider Tour or Tour X shapes, nor the Pure Roll Insert. But a new Spider Tour V and Spider Tour X are joining the fray.)

But for Holley, there’s little time to celebrate. Back on Hilton Head Island, his week just got a whole lot busier.

The author welcomes your comments at Jack.Hirsh@golf.com.

Want to find the best wedges for your game? Find a club-fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — A year ago, Gerry and Rosie McIlroy were 4,000 miles away, at home in Northern Ireland, when their only son won his first Masters title and the career Grand Slam. This time around, Gerry and Rosie weren’t about to miss out again — but they were cutting it close. On a warm, still Sunday evening, as Rory was putting the finishing touches on what would be a one-shot win over world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, the McIlroys pulled up in a golf cart in front of Augusta National’s clapboard clubhouse.

With Rory’s handlers and Augusta National member and general man-about-golf Jimmy Dunne in tow, Gerry and Rosie entered the building, passed through a narrow foyer lined with renderings of Masters champions past — their son among them — and exited through a back door onto the lawn just behind the 18th green, which by this point was ringed with patrons 20 or 30 rows deep. Gerry was in black wing tips, dark pants and a polo emblazoned with the logo of Seminole Golf Club, the exclusive South Florida haunt to which he belongs; Rosie was in a colorful, flowy top and white capris. Their son was about to be in his second green jacket.

Knowing the winning moment was imminent, Dunne suggested that the McIlroys might be better off staying in the clubhouse and watching the telecast in the reception room. The group wheeled around, ducked back inside and gathered around a small computer monitor that was streaming the Masters.com feed. Rory, after a wayward tee shot on 18, was sizing up his options from the pine trees right of the fairway. He had a two-shot lead and was still very much in control of his fate, but still … for his parents it couldn’t have been easy to watch.

And they didn’t — not for long, anyway, because just a couple of minutes later, Gerry and Rosie were on the move again. Someone on Rory’s team had recommended that they start walking down to the area behind the 18th green where friends and family gather to greet the victor. The McIlroys exited the clubhouse for a second time, navigated the masses craning for a view of the action and positioned themselves for an embrace that had been a lifetime in the making.   

***

The many sacrifices Gerry and Rosie made for their son have been well chronicled. As young Rory was taking to the game at Holywood Golf Club, in a suburb just east of Belfast, Gerry worked two jobs, as a locker-room attendant and bartender, while Rosie worked nights at a 3M factory. It wasn’t easy but it was necessary to support their son’s blossoming obsession: the lessons, the travel to competitions near and far, the lighted practice green in the yard behind their humble brick house. It was all necessary for Rory to become Rory.

Earlier this year, Rory took Gerry, a fine player in his own right, for a spin around Augusta National, which marked Gerry’s first Augusta visit since Rory won there the previous April. They stopped at the spot on the par-5 15th from where Rory, in the fourth round of the 2025 Masters, hit a sublime drawing 7-iron; Rory dropped a ball and delivered another beauty. On the Sunday before this year’s Masters, Rory invited his father to play another round at Augusta — this time with Dunne and another Augusta member, entrepreneur Michael Walrath. Vibes were high. They were about to get much higher.

When McIlroy tidied up his winning bogey on the 18th green Sunday evening, the scene lacked some of the spine-tingling electricity from a year ago but still was not short on feels. After McIlroy hugged his caddie, Harry Diamond, and exchanged pleasantries with his playing partner, Cameron Young, he made his way to the roped-off channel behind the green where his family was waiting for him. The first squeeze went to his 5-year-old daughter, Poppy, who snuck under the rope line. Then came a kiss and a hug for wife Erica, who was hiding under a sun hat. Gerry and Rosie were next. Rory pulled them in close — Rosie under his left arm and Gerry under his right.

“Good thing you came!” the son said, beaming. “Good thing you came!”    

Rory’s Tour pals were happy to see Rory’s parents, too. As Rory tended to his card in scoring inside the clubhouse, a swell of well-wishers gathered outside. Among them was Shane Lowry, who found Gerry and embraced him. So, too, did Tommy Fleetwood. Not that there was much time to loiter: the Green Jacket Ceremony beckoned. As Team McIlroy made the procession to the putting green where Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley would slide the coat on to Rory, Erica and Poppy led the charge. Gerry, who was in the parade behind them, laughed and said, “She’s experienced at this. She knows which way to go.”

***

When the proceedings began, the descending sun cast a lovely glow over Augusta National. Rory thanked the club and the staff and his “biggest supporters” in Erica and Poppy. Then he called out “mum and dad.”

“They weren’t here last year to celebrate with us last year, and surprisingly I had to convince them to come this year because they thought that the reason I won was because they weren’t here. So I’m glad that we proved that wrong.”

The crowd laughed.

“Mum and Dad,” Rory continued, looking at his parents, “I owe everything to you. You are, umm…”

Rory’s voice cracked. The crowd clapped. Rory wiped tears from his eyes.

“You’re the most wonderful parents,” he said. “And if I can be half the parent to Poppy as you were to me, then I know I’ve done a good job. Thank you.”

Later, when meeting with the press, Rory said that whenever he found himself thinking of his parents during the round, he squashed those thoughts. “I was like, ‘No, not yet, not yet,’” he said, adding, “It’s amazing to have them here. I’m excited to celebrate with them tonight.”

Gerry and Rosie were way ahead of him, over in Eisenhower Cabin, which is adjacent to the practice green on which the green jacket ceremony had been held. As day was melting into night, Rory’s parents exited the cabin and began the walk to their next destination. The object in Gerry’s left hand indicated the party was well underway: a half-finished glass of beer.

You may have noticed that Rory McIlroy has been leaning on a new-ish shot off the tee — especially when the wind starts to swirl. Some call it a low bullet, others refer to it as a stinger. Whatever its name, the goal is the same: a low-launching drive that maintains a stable, piercing ball flight that can cut through the breeze instead of ballooning.

It’s a shot that McIlroy says he’s been refining over the past few years.

“I think I started to use it a lot more at Pinehurst in ’24,” he said at the Genesis Invitational last month. “I started to hit the low one there. I’ve always had it, but I started to hit it more.”

What started as a specialty shot has quickly become an old reliable for the five-time major champion.

“When I start to hit it more, I start to become more confident with it, and it’s become more of a go-to shot,” he said, “It’s something I’ll use a few times a round.”

It’s no surprise McIlroy relies on this shot. The low bullet drive is designed to do one thing: find the fairway — regardless of the conditions. 

Whether you’re playing baked-out courses where every extra yard of roll counts, in gusty winds that demand trajectory control or a tee shot that leaves little margin for error — this stinger-style shot delivers. 

And, says Keith Bennett, an instructor at McCormick Ranch Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., with a few setup adjustments, you can master this tour-trusted shot and leave it in the short grass every time. Here’s how to pull it off.

1. Tee it low(ish)

The first step in mastering McIlroy’s low bullet drive is finding the right tee height. To start, Bennett recommends teeing up your driver with the top of the ball just below the crown of the club.

Once you’ve dialed in this shot, you can experiment with lowering your tee height for an even more dramatic stinger effect — but keep in mind, the lower you tee it, the smaller your margin for error.

2. Set up for a shallow angle of attack

Typically, a driver calls for a wider stance to encourage an upward angle of attack. But off a low tee, that same wide base can cause you to hit it lower on the face, leading to a weak shot that slices uncontrollably or barely dribbles into the fairway.

Instead, Bennett says to narrow your stance by pulling your back foot in a few inches. This adjustment will bring your weight slightly forward and allow your sternum and pelvis to naturally align, creating a more neutral spine position.

“A lot of people will get in their normal driver set up with a lot of tilt to the right [away from the target],” he says, “But that ball is lower. With the tilt to the right [away from the target], the club is more likely to be moving away from the ground by the time it gets to the ball, but we don’t have the high tee height like we’re used to so we’re going to catch it low on the face.”

Before taking the club back, check that your shoulders are in a neutral position; your lead and trail shoulders should feel level. If your lead shoulder feels higher, you may still be unintentionally setting up with spine tilt.

3. Aim for a slice

Your last set up key is to aim left. Not only does this help you account for the low, fading ball flight you’ll produce, but it will also help with ball position. As Bennett explains, when you aim left (for right-handed golfers), it naturally pulls the ball position back in the stance.

“This is going to help us catch it in the right part of our ‘swing circle’ so that we can make the contact that we’re after,” Bennett says.

Remember, the goal for this shot is for the clubface to enter impact at the ideal point in your swing arc where it’s moving on a shallow — or even slightly descending — angle of attack.

Aiming left sets you up to achieve that proper angle of attack, time your swing properly and create crisp contact every time.

4. Finish low

While each of these adjustments puts you in position to execute this shot properly, Bennett says there’s one final swing key that every player should keep in mind to truly master McIlroy’s low-bullet drive: finish low.

“The most important thing is the intention for your follow through,” he says. 

Remember, this isn’t your stock driver swing. Instead of trying to “swing up” to launch it high, Bennett says to feel the opposite — groove the feeling of your clubhead staying low as it approaches impact and continuing low through the strike.

“It can help to think about getting your weight forward to keep the clubhead low, or you can also think about keeping the clubhead low which is naturally going to pull you onto your lead side,” he says. “Each player is going to have a different cue that resonates with them.”

One of the simplest ways to train that feel is with slow, deliberate rehearsal swings. Focus on keeping the clubhead low through the strike, extending down the target line rather than up into a high finish. You can even set your driver head a few inches in front of the ball and practice making a low, level exit to really ingrain the feeling.

However you choose to frame it, the objective is the same: control the bottom of your swing arc to control your ball flight. Do that, and you’ll be hitting low bullets like Rory in no time.