Are Blade Putters Poised for a Comeback in 2025?

Whether it be on the PGA TOUR or in golf retail stores, over the last half-decade mallet putters have become the predominant putter style in golf. What used to be seen as a bit of a crutch for those who might struggle on the greens has become just another part of the gear landscape with more alternative versions showing up on what feels like a monthly basis.

As the industry has shown over the last few years, mallet sales outnumber blades roughly 2-1, and overall the same can be said for wins on the PGA TOUR. The only place this relationship is inverted is at the men's major championships with blades and mallets coming in at close to 50/50 over the last five years.

This brings us to 2025, where so far mallet wins still outnumber blades 5-to-4 over the first 9 events of the season, but if this continues it will be a shift in the current trend.

The difficult thing to figure out so far is why.

Blade putters haven't become dramatically more forgiving, and when it comes to alignment they are still limited by their smaller geometry. What I do believe for the time being is that putter trends tend to be cyclical and right now a few more players are using blade putters and those players have also happened to snag a few wins along the way.

The outlier from last year who helped one mallet putter rack up a ton of wins is Scottie Scheffler who secured each one of his wins with a TaylorMade L-Neck Spider, but he certainly wasn’t the only one to with with it.

To find out the likelihood of blade putters taking a bigger percentage of wins in 2025 let's look at some of the rankings around the world of golf to see if they have a chance, or if the start to 2025 is just an outlier.

Official World Golf Rankings as of Cognizant Classic

Scottie Scheffler - TaylorMade Spider L-Neck (Mallet)

Rory McIlroy - TaylorMade Spider (Mallet)

Xander Schauffele - Odyssey 7 CH (Mallet)

Ludvig Aberg - Odyssey Versa One (Blade)

Collin Morikawa - TaylorMade Soto (Blade)

Hideki Matsuyama - Scotty Cameron 009 (Blade)

Wyndham Clark - Odyssey Ai One Jailbird (Mallet)

Justin Thomas - Scotty Cameron Phantom (Mallet)

Tyrrell Hatton - Ping PLD Oslo (Mallet)

Tommy Fleetwood - TaylorMade Truss Soto Prototype (Blade)

With six of the worlds top-10 players choosing to use a mallet over a blade, the data suggests that mallets certainly have the edge in this group. The only thing to note is that Tyrrell Hatton doesn't play on the PGA TOUR but he is eligable for all the majors.

Also (and although this is more opinion than measured fact) Bryson DeChambeau could easily be considered a top-10 player in the world and he uses a LA Golf blade putter.

Strokes Gained Putting

*Accurate as of the most recent event played

Aldrich Potgieter - Scotty Cameron 009 (Blade)

Brandt Snedeker - Odyssey White Hot Rossie (Mallet)

Christiaan Bezuidenhout - PXG Battle Ready Bat Attack (Mallet)

Frankie Capan III - TaylorMade Spider (Mallet)

Lee Hodges - Scotty Cameron Golo Prototype (Mallet)

Will Chandler - Odyssey 7 Crank Neck (Mallet)

Brendon Todd - SIK Pro C (Blade)

Harris English - Ping HoHum (Mallet)

Harry Hall - Odyssey Double Wide (Mallet)

Sami Valimaki - Odyssey 2-Ball (Mallet)

FedEx Cup Rankings as of Cognizant Classic

Ludvig Aberg - Odyssey Versa One (Blade)

Sepp Straka - Odyssey Stroke Lab Tuttle (Mallet)

Hideki Matsuyama - Scotty Cameron 009 (Blade)

Thomas Detry - Odyssey O Works 7 (Mallet)

Nick Taylor - TaylorMade Spider (Mallet)

Rory McIlroy - TaylorMade Spider (Mallet)

Maverick McNealy - Toulon Hollywood (Blade)

Justin Thomas - Scotty Cameron Phantom (Mallet)

Harris English - Ping HoHum (Mallet)

Joe Highsmith - Scotty Cameron 009 (Blade)

As of the Cognizant, there are only two players inside the top ten of the strokes gained putting category using a blade putter and four inside of the FedEx Cup top-10. When looking at the OWGR the trend of mallets over blades also still reigns supreme.

Probability would likely mean that mallets will once again come out on top as the most winning putter style on the PGA Tour but each week is a fresh start and this will be something else we will continue to follow for the 2025 PGA Tour season.