Bubba Watson has a new putter in his hands, and the results so far have been amazing. Watson picked up his second win in two months on Sunday, taking the 2018 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play for his 11th PGA Tour title.
Throughout the week, Watson has credited Ping's team for helping him putt better. He ranked 12th in strokes gained putting for the week, which is markedly better than his middle-of-the-road season ranking and dramatically better than his near-the-bottom ranking each of the last two seasons.
Bubba’s one-of-a-kind @PingTour putter. Called PLD (Putting Lab Design). One off milled carbon steel Answer with 4.5 degrees loft and built out to 34.25” pic.twitter.com/YKuhRmJ3aE
— MattAdamsGC (@MattAdamsFoL) March 26, 2018
Watson has said his new putter is the combination of a pair of Ping models, saying they "welded together a couple of things."
"I let the Ping engineers -- the putting engineers take over my putting, and I just stick with it," he said Sunday, "I just listen to them and see what they say. And it's been good so far."
Watson's putter is a part of the Ping PLD series, which offers highly customized putter options for customers. This prototype putter has an Anser look, but it has 4.5 degrees of loft in a 34.25-inch length. Watson's added loft came as a consequence of adding more shaft lean in his putting stroke, requiring an increase from the 2.5-3 degrees he had on his previous putters. Watson has been experimenting with loft on this PLD carbon steel putter, originally built for putting maven Aaron Baddeley, since Pebble Beach, according to PGATour.com.
The Ping PLD (Putting Lab Design) program allows golfers to create their own putter designs online and have them custom made by Ping for $600 each.
