New Equipment
The brand of putters Bryson DeChambeau uses releases expanded putter lineup
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: SIK Golf, the putter company whose designs feature faces where the lofts descend in one-degree increments from top to bottom to produce more consistent launch (and roll) regardless of how inconsistent the stroke is, launched a new Matte Black series to its line of putters. The option will be available on all five of the company’s heads.
Price: $500-$630 (standard and armlock-weighted heads). Available immediately.
THE DEEP DIVE: SIK Golf, the putter company whose name stands for “study in kinematics,” produces putters where the face is designed to produce consistency where there is none.
Its “descending loft technology” features four one-degree loft increments on the face, starting at 4 degrees at the top of the putter descending down to 1 degree at the lowest part of the face. The theory is that players routinely produce inconsistent downward and upward paths to impact leading to different contact points. The loft changes are designed to match up with the contact points. A higher face impact is the result of a downward stroke path or delofting motion, so the extra loft counteracts that stroke’s effect. Conversely, a lower face impact is from an upward stroke path that adds loft so that area of the face has the least loft. The goal is to produce a consistent launch angle for better roll consistency and distance control.
“A lot of the things we’ve done over the lifetime of this company have been about educating, and we’re also the ones learning,” said Stephen Harrison, CEO and founder. “Working from the ball back has always been the key to our success, and we’ve found that the difference in the launch of the ball translates to the overall speed, and that really determines the overall break of a putt. If you can control that launch angle, your putting is just always going to be that much better off.”
SIK’s lineup of five stock models now will be offered in a Matte Black series. Those include the classic heel-toe, plumber’s neck blade (Pro), the similar-looking but shorter blade length and heavier overall weight (Jo), the wide-body blade (DW), the half-moon standard mallet (Sho) and the X-wing mallet with high moment of inertia for stability on off-center hits (Flo). All SIK putters are milled from 303 stainless steel.
In addition all models are offered in an armlock option, the style played by Bryson DeChambeau, whose rank in strokes gained moved from 145th to 10th since adopting the technique. Harrison is a believer in the armlock style’s efficiency and consistency, and he thinks putting analysis tools like Quintic have revealed things about putting that just weren’t able to be seen before.
“One other thing people have been telling us is because of the length and the upright lie angle with the armlock putters, they can putt all day long and not have to worry about back problems or fatigue,” Harrison said, noting that he thinks it’s not a difficult transition from traditional putting. “I think there are some misconceptions about setup. We simply put the putter in the address position where a traditional putter would be so you’re seeing the exact same thing at address, and then we just lean the putter so it’s up against the forearm and our loft is built into the hosel. So then you’re really locked in and we’re talking about again eliminating a variable.”
SIK’s “descending loft technology” will be part of a new line of putters from Cobra announced last week, a result of the relationship between DeChambeau and the two companies. The first joint effort between the two companies was a prototype 3D-printed Supersoft 35 putter introduced late last year. The two companies are expected to introduce putters later this summer.
The new SIK Matte Black series putters are available at retail immediately with pricing set at $500-$630 depending on the model and whether they are standard lengths or an armlock setup.