Scotty Cameron mallet putter ranges will benefit from going in a more futuristic direction from now onwards under the stewardship of design guru Austie Rollinson, who crafted some of the best Odyssey putters for over 25 years and will be looking to make his mark with the 2024 Phantom range.
It combines the premium look and feel you expect as well as the excellent attention to detail with some pretty outlandish head shapes and alignment features. The 9 shape is a mid-sized, angular mallet putter with two cavities and a dual line alignment system, meaning this is a pretty drastic departure from what we’ve seen before among the best Scotty Cameron putters. There are two neck options but both have new shaft designs that mean the bends always point down the target line.
Down behind the ball the two lines positioned close together really work as a track system to help you see where the club face is pointing. The compact size, especially from heel to toe, means it doesn’t look cumbersome, but there’s enough real estate to give you confidence that a mishit will be forgiven - some the most forgiving putters do.
The two things that impress after you take hold of the putter and hit a putt for the first time are the grip and the feel. The new Full Contact grip is a paddle style grip with a flat front section for your thumbs and parallel sides. It instantly feels very comfortable - it perhaps could have been a little softer, although the chain link texture is said to be more reliable in all weather conditions - but the shaping will be spot on, or very close, for most golfers.
Off the face, there’s still a generous amount of audio feedback but there’s definitely a softer sensation than where we were with the previous Phantom X line. This is likely down to the deeper milling pattern on the face as well as the addition of extra dampening material incorporated behind the face between the steel and aluminium sections. This all combines to create a balance of speed and softness that hit all the right notes for me, while remaining slightly towards the firmer side on the feel spectrum.
The roll on the greens is very smooth and I really noticed how stable the clubhead was. I’m prone to the occasional toe strike when putting from long range but the ring-weighted Phantom 9 did a great job of masking this unwanted tendency. In fact, I scared the hole way more than I was expecting from 30 feet and up and during the round I put this putter in the bag I knocked in a couple of nice 15-footers, which was a bonus. The weights on the sole have moved closer to the face, which could well contribute to this more solid, stable feel and resulting consistency of roll out from long range.
Admittedly this putter has a premium price tag but it certainly offers the user-friendly performance and functional design features that justify it, along with the fact it’s a Scotty Cameron putter that looks beautiful from every angle. The choice of shapes available on the Phantom range is wide, becoming even wider in the May with the addition of the 11 and a new 11 Long Design option for those that like that counterbalanced feel popular on tour. If you're looking for a bit of everything, this particular model is sure to be among the best putters money can buy this year.
