When it comes to the putter, players are always experimenting and tinkering to find the best numbers for their game. It's an area that is crucial to excel at if you are wanting to save shots when out on the golf course.
If you were to take a look at the best putters on the market, it's likely that Scotty Cameron would be near the top of that list, with the brand used by a number of Major champions including a certain Tiger Woods.
There are a vast number of Scotty Cameron's on the market but, in the case of Justin Thomas, he is using a one of a kind model to great use at The Open Championship, with the American starting strongly on day of the final men's Major in Royal Troon.
Sitting solo at the top of the leaderboard, @justinthomas34 fired off a 62 with eight birdies during the opening round of the @scottish_open today trusting his new Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.2 Tour Prototype putter. #scottycameron pic.twitter.com/NKPK9HV9a6July 11, 2024
First put in the bag at last week's Genesis Scottish Open, the two-time PGA Championship winner led after day one at The Renaissance Club and, despite a poor finish to that event, has opted to keep the Scotty Cameron model in the bag for this week's Open Championship.
The model in question is the new Phantom 9.2 Tour Prototype, which actually found its way into Thomas' bag after some inspiration from good buddy, Jordan Spieth. Essentially, the putter was first designed for Spieth to use but, after Thomas stayed over at Spieth's and picked up the model, he loved it and introduced it into his bag.
"Yeah, it came about, as funny as it is, I saw Jordan and Paul Vizanko at Scotty Cameron had made one for Jordan, just to have for him to mess with and something for him to see how he liked it," explained Thomas after his Scottish Open first round.
"I happened to be staying with Jordan a couple times over that stretch when he got it and I picked it up and I thought it looked amazing. I thought it felt great. Talking to Paul about it there were a lot of characteristics in the way the putter was built that helped a pretty good amount of my bad tendencies, I would say in my stroke or they just are able to help that and so I asked him to make me up one and send me one. Yeah, it feels great you know, performed well its first day and hopefully, it performs well the rest of its days."
It's no secret that JT has sometimes struggled with his putting, with the 31-year-old often seen switching between the Phantom X 5 Tour and Proto heads. Such was the state of his putting, which put the American outside the top-150 of the PGA Tour's Strokes Gained Putting stats, Thomas even experimented with a new model that belonged to top-ranked amateur, Gordon Sargent.
In terms of differences to other putters Thomas has used, the Phantom 9.2 Tour Prototype features a similar shaped head to the Phantom 9.5 with slightly more rounded edges. The American had even introduced a new driver last week, opting for the Titleist GT2 driver with a Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.
