I looked up the putter of every player in the world top 20
- Putting
- Tour
- Equipment
Which putter is each of the world's top 20 using right now? And how good is their putting, in numbers? Here it is, with nothing guessed — published data only.
As of: world ranking from OWGR week 39 of 2026 (27 September), statistics from the PGA Tour 2026 season, putter models from each player's WITB (What's In The Bag) coverage.
One thing before we start. This article covers only the top 20 in the world ranking. Twenty is not a number you can draw statistical conclusions from. The brand-by-brand comparisons in particular come down to a handful of players each.
So nothing here is a claim that a particular putter holes more putts. Read it as a record of what this one small group is using right now.
Putter usage ranking
Counted by brand:
| Rank | Brand | Players | Who (by world ranking) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TaylorMade | 7 | Scheffler (1), McIlroy (2), Gotterup (7), Fleetwood (9), Morikawa (11), Rai (16), Bridgeman (20) |
| 2 | Odyssey | 5 | Burns (8), Schauffele (10), Si Woo Kim (14), Rahm (15), Åberg (18) |
| 3 | Scotty Cameron | 4 | Young (3), Henley (6), Rose (17), MacIntyre (19) |
| 4 | Ping | 2 | Clark (5), Hovland (13) |
| 5 | Bettinardi | 1 | Fitzpatrick (4) |
| 5 | L.A.B. Golf | 1 | Spaun (12) |
Seven of the top 20 — better than one in three — are on a TaylorMade Spider. Narrow it further and the Spider Tour X, with four players (Scheffler, McIlroy, Gotterup, Morikawa), is the most-used single model.
Sixteen of the twenty are on a mallet. The only real blades are Fitzpatrick's Bettinardi and Åberg's Odyssey Ai-One #1. At the top of the game, putter choice has leaned clearly toward high moment of inertia.
Model by player
| Rank | Player | Putter |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | TaylorMade Spider Tour X |
| 2 | Rory McIlroy | TaylorMade Spider Tour X |
| 3 | Cameron Young | Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.5R Tour prototype |
| 4 | Matt Fitzpatrick | Bettinardi DASS BB1 Flow |
| 5 | Wyndham Clark | Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset |
| 6 | Russell Henley | Scotty Cameron Phantom T5 Tour prototype |
| 7 | Chris Gotterup | TaylorMade Spider Tour X |
| 8 | Sam Burns | Odyssey Ai-One #7 S |
| 9 | Tommy Fleetwood | TaylorMade Spider Tour |
| 10 | Xander Schauffele | Odyssey Toulon Las Vegas prototype |
| 11 | Collin Morikawa | TaylorMade Spider Tour X |
| 12 | J.J. Spaun | L.A.B. Golf OZ.1i HS |
| 13 | Viktor Hovland | Ping PLD DS72 prototype |
| 14 | Si Woo Kim | Odyssey (O-Works / prototype) |
| 15 | Jon Rahm | Odyssey White Hot OG Rossie prototype |
| 16 | Aaron Rai | TaylorMade Spider Tour V |
| 17 | Justin Rose | Scotty Cameron Phantom T5 Tour prototype |
| 18 | Ludvig Åberg | Odyssey Ai-One #1 |
| 19 | Robert MacIntyre | Scotty Cameron 9.5R custom |
| 20 | Jacob Bridgeman | TaylorMade Spider Tour |
Tour players change putters mid-season. Morikawa went through several in 2026 alone, and Åberg has been reported testing a Scotty Cameron. Treat the table as a snapshot from late September.
How good is their putting, in numbers?
Rahm plays on LIV and has no PGA Tour statistics, so the averages below are from the other 19.
| Metric | Average of the 19 | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Putting average | 1.731 | Putts taken on greens hit in regulation |
| One-putt percentage | 40.76% | Share of all holes finished in one putt |
| Three-putt percentage | 2.31% | Share of all holes taking three putts or more |
| SG: Putting | +0.211 | Strokes gained per round against the field |
A 2.31% three-putt rate is one in roughly 43 holes. Over 18 holes that is 0.42 — in other words, one three-putt every 2.4 rounds. It is an order of magnitude away from the amateur experience.
The one-putt figure, at just over 40%, may look lower than you would expect. That is because these players also hit a lot of greens, so a large share of their putts start from long range. Hit more greens from further out and your one-putt percentage naturally falls.
Player by player
| Rank | Player | Putting avg | One-putt | Three-putt | SG: Putting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Clark | 1.690 (1st) | 44.73% (2nd) | 2.28% | +0.384 |
| 20 | Bridgeman | 1.693 (2nd) | 44.15% (6th) | 1.30% (3rd) | +0.757 (1st) |
| 1 | Scheffler | 1.694 (3rd) | 42.02% | 1.64% (9th) | +0.574 (6th) |
| 14 | Si Woo Kim | 1.710 (5th) | 41.67% | 2.01% | −0.174 |
| 11 | Morikawa | 1.711 (7th) | 39.70% | 1.88% | +0.106 |
| 6 | Henley | 1.715 (9th) | 42.64% | 2.03% | +0.481 |
| 19 | MacIntyre | 1.720 | 42.30% | 2.22% | +0.489 |
| 13 | Hovland | 1.722 | 42.57% | 2.45% | +0.188 |
| 8 | Burns | 1.728 | 40.47% | 1.80% | +0.627 (4th) |
| 18 | Åberg | 1.728 | 39.11% | 2.25% | +0.199 |
| 9 | Fleetwood | 1.734 | 40.17% | 1.58% (7th) | +0.065 |
| 7 | Gotterup | 1.734 | 40.59% | 2.34% | +0.299 |
| 2 | McIlroy | 1.739 | 40.12% | 2.67% | +0.243 |
| 17 | Rose | 1.752 | 38.45% | 2.56% | +0.019 |
| 4 | Fitzpatrick | 1.757 | 39.10% | 2.78% | +0.161 |
| 12 | Spaun | 1.759 | 38.29% | 3.00% | −0.349 |
| 3 | Young | 1.762 | 41.11% | 2.99% | −0.159 |
| 16 | Rai | 1.771 | 36.83% | 3.41% | −0.062 |
| 10 | Schauffele | 1.772 | 40.50% | 2.78% | +0.169 |
World ranking and putting rank do not line up at all. Young (3rd in the world) and Schauffele (10th) are second-last and last here on putting average, and four of the nineteen are losing strokes on the greens. That many players are winning with their ball striking.
Meanwhile Bridgeman, 20th in the world, leads the entire tour in SG: Putting. Putting alone does not decide a world ranking.
The most-used model, best-ranked owner — how Scheffler strokes it
The highest-ranked of the seven TaylorMade Spider users is world number one Scottie Scheffler.
For years Scheffler's putting was described as the weak part of a brilliant game. The turning point was starting work with putting coach Phil Kenyon, after which he climbed into the top tier of the tour in putting average.
The claw
The biggest change is the grip. He adopted a claw: the right (lower) hand turned palm-down, holding the club between thumb and forefinger. Reports have him using it in particular inside 15 feet (about 4.6 m).
The point of the claw is to make it physically impossible for the right hand to push. On short putts, the urge to hole it sends the right hand through, the stroke accelerates, the face closes and the ball is pulled — that is the classic miss. Put the lower hand in a position where it cannot push, and that move largely stops happening.
What the left hand is doing
There is something going on in the left hand too: the index finger extends down the grip — the so-called "Fitz grip", common among Kenyon's players. It stabilises the muscles of the left wrist so that the putter and the left arm move as one unit.
In short, everything about Scheffler's method points the same way: take the wrists out of it. Choosing the Spider Tour X, a high-MOI mallet, points the same way again.
The lowest putting average, best-ranked owner — how Clark strokes it
Averaging putting average by brand gives this:
| Brand | Mean putting average of its users | Players |
|---|---|---|
| Ping | 1.706 | 2 |
| TaylorMade | 1.725 | 7 |
| Odyssey | 1.734 | 4 |
| Scotty Cameron | 1.737 | 4 |
Ping comes out lowest, and its highest-ranked user is world number five Wyndham Clark. (As noted at the top, Ping has two users here; this ordering is dominated by how few players each brand has.)
Rather than which brand is "better", what is worth looking at is what the lowest-putting player in that group is actually doing.
A 400-gram head
Clark's putter is the Ping Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset: 38 inches, 3 degrees of loft, and a head reported at around 400 grams. Typical putters are 340–360 g, so this is heavy. He also has lead tape on the sole, counterbalancing a long, oversized SuperStroke grip.
A heavy head makes the putter hard to move with the hands. The problem Scheffler attacks through his grip, Clark answers with mass.
Onset
The other feature is the onset: the shaft axis sits behind the face but ahead of the centre of gravity. Ping describes this as producing a stroke where the head is pulled through rather than pushed.
Clark changed completely once this putter went in. At the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May 2026 he posted +12.565 SG: Putting for the week — a level with no real precedent on tour — going from one of the worst putters out there to one of the best.
What the top 20 actually show
The choices are all over the place: heavy mallets, blades, zero-torque designs. Nothing in this group points to a model that holes putts for you.
What they do share is that each has found his own way to take the wrists out of the stroke. Scheffler does it with a grip, Clark does it with weight — the same problem, different answers.
And then there is that 2.31% three-putt rate. The gap is not really made by holing putts; it is made by not missing badly. Get the speed right and three-putts disappear.
How much your own putt breaks, and how hard to hit it, you can work out with the Putt Break Calculator: enter the slope and the green speed and you get both as numbers.
Sources: OWGR world ranking (week 39, 2026), PGA Tour official statistics (2026 season), and players' WITB coverage. Putter models change frequently, so the current situation may differ.