Bettinardi 2027 Queen B putters: What you need to know
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Since its debut in 2012, Queen B has been a pillar of Bettinardi’s putter business. What separates it from the company’s other families is latitude. Queen B is where the brand pushes the limits on shapes and finishes that would look out of place elsewhere in the lineup, while still milling heads from a solid block of 303 stainless steel.
The latest Queen B Series uses that latitude more than most of its predecessors. The heads are coated in a French Gold finish, they tip the scales at 362 grams and they debut a supersized version of the face milling Bettinardi built its name on.
“Queen B has always given us the freedom to push the envelope with a more expressive Bettinardi design language,” said Sam Bettinardi, the company’s president.
The obvious question with a gold putter is whether it crosses the line from premium to gaudy. Bettinardi’s answer is that the details carry it, and there are more of them here than a quick glance at the finish suggests.
The lineup includes five configurations across three head shapes: Queen B 2 blade, the wide-body Queen B 6 in two neck options and the new Queen B 17 compact mallet, also offered with two necks.
PRICE: $500 each. Pre-orders opened Nov. 3 at Bettinardi.com, with in-store availability Nov. 19 at Studio B Oak Brook and authorized Bettinardi retailers.
3 Cool Things
1. Honeycomb, supersized. If you’ve owned a Bettinardi, there’s a good chance you’ve stared at the honeycomb pattern on its face. Founder Bob Bettinardi developed the hexagonal milling, and it has become as much a Bettinardi signature as any face treatment in the putter industry.
Macro Honeycomb blows that geometry up to a larger scale. The visual change is obvious at address, but the feel change is the bigger story. Bettinardi says Macro Honeycomb is now the firmest face it mills. Expect a sharper response at impact and a click golfers can actually hear.
That puts the Queen B at the opposite end of the spectrum from the soft, insert-driven putters that have dominated the conversation the last few years. It’s built for the golfer who wants to know exactly where the ball came off the face, and wants to hear about it, too.
2. The gold is the point. Each head is finished in French Gold PVD (physical vapor deposition, a thin coating bonded to the steel), with a polished face and sole breaking up all that gold and paintfilled engraving doing the fine work. Tilt the head and the color moves, which is the whole idea. It pulls your eye to the milled contours on each shape in a way a flat black or satin finish won’t.
Sam Bettinardi said the goal was a look that “feels rich and differentiated without being overstated.” Whether gold qualifies as understated is in the eye of the beholder. Then again, Queen B has never been the family for golfers who want their putter to disappear at address.
One practical note: PVD is durable, but it isn’t bulletproof. Bag chatter takes a toll on any coated finish, so it’s worth keeping a headcover on the $500 putter.
3. Three shapes, five ways to set up. Every head in the series weighs 362 grams. Most stock blade heads land somewhere in the 340s and 350s, so that’s on the heavy side, and the extra mass is there to quiet the hands and smooth out tempo.
The Queen B 2 is a wide-body take on a traditional blade, with a tri-sole design (the sole split into three planes to help it sit cleanly) and an over-hosel slant neck. The Queen B 6 sticks with the same wide-body outline as before and comes in a plumber’s neck (the classic Anser-style neck) or a spud neck (the shaft inserted straight into the heel). The goal is to offer two different looks at address and two different amounts of toe hang to match your stroke arc.
The newcomer is the Queen B 17, a compact mallet with a boxy, squared-off flange and sharp, angular lines, offered center-shafted or with a crescent neck. It’s the most modern-looking shape in the family, and the center-shafted version in particular will appeal to straight-back, straight-through putters who want a bit more stability without committing to a big mallet.