Kevin Burns entered the golf industry offering club repairs from his Californian garage in 1989 but just two years later he set his sights on designing and creating some of the best putters in the world. While Kevin Burns Golf may not be a household name, the brand has seen plenty of success on tour with the putter used to claim multiple PGA Tour victories and notably the 1999 Masters, where Jose Maria Olazabal used the Signature Series 9304 putter to help slide on the coveted green jacket.
While the company's putter designs and the materials used have moved on a little in the last 25 years, can they be used in another major championship and how do they fare against some of the best putters I have recently tested? I took the 9307 putter to the course to put it through its paces and find out.
While it feels like the majority of putters launched within the last year have been larger mallet putters, I’ve always loved a bladed putter and over the past 15 years of my golfing career, I would say just two of those years I have had a mallet putter in play. It’s purely a matter of personal preference on what suits my eye and feels good in my hands. You may think because of its smaller size creating a good-looking bladed putter would be easy but ensuring the proportions are right with the shoulders, bumpers and blade length is not an easy task. Kevin Burns appears to have mastered this, however, and this 9307 putter may be one of the best-looking wands I’ve ever had the pleasure of looking down on behind the ball.
As someone who relies on the topline of a putter for alignment, I was pleased to see it was fairly thick without shrinking the flange behind the ball. I opted for a single sightline on the top which is one of the options when designing a fully custom build on the Kevin Burns website. There is the ability to choose length, loft, head weight as well as neck style, face style and even logo and engraving options.
These putters are the true definition of custom-built and you can tell from the beautiful precision-milling how much time and effort is spent on each one. As the necks are screwed into the head, you can purchase additional neck styles later down the line if your stroke changes or you want to eliminate a consistent miss without having to purchase a whole new putter.
While I love the concept of this, I can’t help but feel the screw on the bottom detracts from the looks of the sole ever so slightly, resembling the looks of demo putters I have seen in the past. The good news is that from every other angle that matters, while you are playing or looking at the putter, you would have no idea this is the case.
Each putter in the 2025 Kevin Burns putter lineup is precision-milled from a single piece of 303 stainless steel and for an extra $100 you can choose to have the pyramid groove design put on your putter. The brand claims these grooves create the smallest impact ratio of any putter on the market, which promotes a near immediate roll and reduces energy transfer to the ball. The result - probably the best feeling putter I have ever rolled. It’s like butter through impact, impeccably soft and because of the rapid roll rather than any initial skid, my putts seemed to be extremely accurate.
The standard milled version is similar too but still softer than the likes of a Scotty Cameron Newport or Odyssey Ai-One Milled putter, yet slightly more clicky in sound than the pyramid groove design. Burns was the first person to incorporate a copper insert into putters in 1996 and so this new groove design is his modern alternative to create the same feel but in a far more durable design.
I tested putts from all ranges and while I felt as though I was able to hit my start line regularly from inside 15ft, it was the beautiful balance and weighting of the putter that meant my tempo remained consistent and allowed for better distance control with my lag putting. The ability to expertly balance putters goes right back to Kevin’s start in putter design, acting as a pioneer in utilizing tungsten weighting in putters. In his 2024 lineup, the putters feature removable weights so you continue to dial in your putter after purchasing the head. While the 9307 putter doesn’t feature dual-weighting, some of the other blade offerings such as the 9306 do. The toe weight is slightly heavier than the heel weight to ensure the sweet spot is perfectly center-balanced.
It’s been hard to fault the Kevin Burns 9307 putter in any way. The sensational feel and feedback from the face and precise weighting allow for ultimate performance while the exceptional craftsmanship and design of the putters provide an ultra-premium look. The design of my putter came to a total of $599/£484 and while that may seem a lot for a putter, remember on average half our shots taken on the course occur on the greens and the price is comparable with some of the best golf drivers released this year.
