Tom Kim contending with new putter at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – This week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am isn’t the first time Tom Kim has used his new putter in competition. But it’s the first time the club has seen real grass.
Kim debuted his new Scotty Cameron Studio Style Newport 2 in Monday’s TGL match, where his Jupiter Links team beat Boston Common in overtime. Even with Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods alongside him in the arena, Kim may have been the star of the show after sinking clutch putts and responding with the same electricity he’s displayed in two Presidents Cup appearances.
From the artificial turf of the SoFi Center to the famed poa annua putting surfaces of Pebble Beach Golf Links, Kim has succeeded after returning to a blade putter, the same style that he has used in his three PGA TOUR victories.
Days after helping his team to its first TGL win, Kim is in fourth place at the halfway point of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, four shots behind leader Sepp Straka. Kim, who shot 65 on Friday at Pebble Beach, ranks fifth in Strokes Gained: Putting (+3.14) this week.
“I just felt like I needed something a little bit more consistent and something that I've won with,” Kim said Friday. “It's not exactly the same blade that I've been using, it's a little different. But I think transitioning from the mallet -- some of my lines, I started to really like a different type of line than I used to. Just kind of little adjustments. And obviously, the new face that they came out with is really nice, so it's been working well so far.”

Tom Kim rolls in 11-foot birdie putt at AT&T Pebble Beach
This year’s edition of the Studio Style putters features a new face insert made with Studio Carbon Steel (SCS) for a softer feel and a unique chain-link face milling pattern in the insert. Kim’s putter also has a unique alignment aid atop the face.
A white line atop the putterhead runs parallel to the face, with another shorter line perpendicular to it and pointing toward the target. Oftentimes, the white line parallel to the face will be put atop the front of the putter but Kim’s is on the back of the flange. During some testing in Southern California, Kim saw a putter belonging to PGA TOUR rookie Tim Widing that had the same lines atop the head and liked what he saw, said Scotty Cameron TOUR rep Brad Cloke.
Those alignment aids are suited for Kim, who recently stopped using the line on his ball to line up putts, Cloke said. It’s something Kim’s good friend Scottie Scheffler stopped doing last year as he sought to improve his putting Kim also switched to a thinner putter grip in this new putter. Both the thinner grip and return to a blade putter were intended to bring some feel back into Kim’s putting.

Tom Kim curls in 32-foot birdie putt at AT&T Pebble Beach
Kim had switched to a mallet putter, the Scotty Cameron Phantom 9.2 at the Olympics in August, but this week marks his return to the blade.
“What the blade does for him is it gives him some creativity back, some freedom in the stroke as opposed to getting so locked in and almost relying too much on a mallet itself,” said Cloke. “Sometimes a mallet can be a little bit of a Band-Aid for guys. They tend to lose face awareness, and that's what Tom was kind of getting into a little bit, of really losing kind of face awareness where the putter head was. Getting him back in a blade kind of got those feels back for him.”
Sean Martin is a senior editor for the PGA TOUR. He is a 2004 graduate of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. Attending a small school gave him a heart for the underdog, which is why he enjoys telling stories of golf's lesser-known players. Follow Sean Martin on Twitter.