{"id":37865,"date":"2026-07-16T20:28:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T20:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/37865\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T20:28:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T20:28:12","slug":"blade-putter-numbers-continue-to-dwindle-as-cameron-smith-switches-to-a-mallet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/37865\/","title":{"rendered":"Blade Putter Numbers Continue To Dwindle As Cameron Smith Switches To A Mallet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cameron Smith has been regarded as one of the game’s best putters for many years now, but even the Australian isn’t partial to a change of flatstick.<\/p>\n

Throughout his professional career, he has used a Scotty Cameron 009M Tour Prototype, a blade-style putter that catapulted him to Major glory at St Andrews<\/a>, as well as multiple wins worldwide.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, at The 154th Open Championship<\/a>, a major change from Smith caught the eye of many… and it shouldn’t have been a surprise given the recent equipment trend.<\/p>\n

Blade putters have dropped in popularity on the professional circuits and, at Royal Birkdale<\/a>, Smith became the most recent player to move from a blade to a mallet.<\/p>\n

First reported by Inside Tour Golf<\/a>, the 32-year-old was seen using a prototype custom Scotty Cameron Phantom 3 model, which features in the traditional black finish that Smith has in-play.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Like his 009M Tour Prototype, it possesses a single dot alignment aid on the crown, with two sole weights present to help with the feel through the stroke.<\/p>\n

A compact, maneuverable mid-mallet that possesses soft, rounded contours, Smith isn’t the only player to put the Phantom 3 in-play, as Ludvig Aberg<\/a> also switched from his blade-style putter to the mallet flatstick.<\/p>\n

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As of writing, nine of the world’s top 10 use a mallet putter, with only Matt Fitzpatrick having a blade-putter in-play. In fact, with Aberg’s switch, 19 of the world’s top 20 now use a mallet.<\/p>\n

Firing a three-over-par 73 first round at Royal Birkdale, Smith lost 0.55 shots on the field when it came to Strokes Gained: Putting, making under 60-feet of putts holed.<\/p>\n

Speaking after his round, he stated: “I don’t think it was all really that bad. Got a lot of crosswinds off the tee and hit it into the rough by one or two meters a few times and ended up making bogey.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Cameron\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“It was tough out there, though. Yeah, I don’t really think I would change a whole lot to be honest. Just needed a couple of putts to go in that missed, and a couple more fairways would have been nice.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re like third or fourth group tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to getting onto some fresher greens.<\/p>\n

“They were getting pretty baked out and a little bit bouncy. Felt like you couldn’t really be aggressive. Looking forward to some fresher greens, hopefully see some putts go in.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Smith has been regarded as one of the game’s best putters for many years now, but even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3031],"tags":[3135],"class_list":["post-37865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scotty-cameron","tag-scotty-cameron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}