This PING Putter's Hot Streak Continues At U.S. Women's Open

One of the most interesting things about following golf equipment is how putter trends come and go and come back again, with the most recent resurgence being center-shafted options.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, you couldn't walk into a golf store without seeing dozens of options of center shafted blades and mallets, but as the years went on, they slowly started to become much more of a niche product.

(This Macgregor putter was one of the most winning putters on the early and mid-2000s)

A big reason for this decline in popularity was the imergence of heel shafted mallets, mid-mallets, and oversized blades which were seen as better alternatives and designed to fit more arching strokes. Modern examples are the slant neck TaylorMade Spider, and the Odyssey Rossie S.

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It's also important to keep in mind - this was also the era before larger SuperStroke putter grips really tooks off at the professional level and were viewed as much more of a crutch for poor recreational golfers instead.

But as I said, what goes around comes around, and with the explosive rise of Zero (or Low)-Torque putters from companies like L.A.B., TaylorMade, PXG, and more, center shafted mallets are back, and growing in popularity once more.

Here's Where Ping Comes In

With much of the discussion, around Zero-Torque, Ping entered the center-shafted category a little differently and proclaimed they Ally Blue as On-Set but not Zero-torque.

Why No Zero-Torque?

Ping's design philosophy believes that the player should "pull" the center of gravity towards the target to maximize stability and forgiveness. This theory was something PING founder Karsten Solheim believed in very strongly.

The analogy Karsten would often use is that of a wheelbarrow and demonstrate that it's easiler to pull a wheelbarrow over a curb (because you are pulling the mass), rather than try and push the mass over.

My grandfather was a firm believer in the role the CG position plays in the performance of a putter, and we continue to apply that philosophy today in all our putter designs. Ensuring the proper CG placement relative to the shaft axis is critical to performance. Pulling the CG provides more stability through the stroke and helps keep putts on line and rolling into the hole.

And, it's this Ally Blue that has taken off, winning at the Truist (note that Kristoffer Reitan used the head model but a different hosel), and then Wyndham Clark used one at the Byron Nelson CJ Cup to win, and now this week at the U.S. Women's Open at Riviera, this hot streak continues with first round leader Jennifer Kupcho using her prototype Ally to take the lead heading into round 2.

There is still a long way to go to secure another win, but if this hot streak continues to Sunday, we could be talking about the next hottest putter in golf.