Tiger Strikes Again with Method Putter

After winning his fourth tournament of the year on Sunday, Tiger Woods is on a tear in 2013, and he’s doing it with a Nike Method 001 blade putter that he first started toying with back in 2010 at the British Open.

At that time, Woods was in the throes of personal and professional turmoil, and he was about to embark on a new swing as well. At the time, the Nike Method was a relatively new putter line, and some suggested that Woods ditched his trusty old Scotty Cameron putter partly out of gratitude for Nike’s willingness to stick with him while other sponsors were bailing.

But then Woods returned to his Cameron halfway through the British Open. That was hardly the endorsement Nike would have been looking for…

The truth was that Woods was lost on the greens, and searching for a way back. He later switched to another Method model, a half mallet with full toe hang. His stroke was getting stuck, and he said that he switched to the mallet to help with the release of the putter head.

In time, Woods returned to the Method 001 blade. He has since stopped playing musical putters, and seems to have found his “groove” with the 001. Right from the start, it looked like Nike was aiming for Woods with that model. They’d been unable to pry the Cameron out of his hands, but if there was ever a putter that was going to prompt a switch, this was the one. Simply put, it was a bit of a dead ringer for his Cameron. The switch may have come in fits and starts, but now it appears to be permanent.

The Nike Method putter features PolyMetal Groove Technology. The putter features a lower loft to get the ball rolling quickly, but the rebounding qualities of the polymer elevate the launch angle. According to Nike, this generates “a faster forward roll at impact for increased accuracy and less skid.”