Whether it’s due to coincidence or inspiration, here are the facts: Collin Morikawa used a blade-style TaylorMade TP Soto putter at the 2025 Masters Tournament, along with Tommy Fleetwood, who used a blade-style TaylorMade Truss putter. Rory McIlroy used a torched, mallet-style TaylorMade Spider Tour X putter to win. A week later at the RBC Heritage, the fifth Signature Event of the 2025 FedExCup Regular Season, versions of the TaylorMade Spider putter had made their way into the bags of both Morikawa and Fleetwood.

Maybe McIlroy’s success had something to do with the switches. Maybe not. But either way, GolfWRX.com spotted both players conducting early week testing with TaylorMade Spider putters at Harbour Town Golf Links. Both players ended up making the change for the first round, with Morikawa opting for a mallet-style TaylorMade Spider Tour V putter and Fleetwood using a custom, mallet-style TaylorMade Spider Tour putter

“The greens are tough (at Augusta National), especially if you don’t have a great week,” TaylorMade putter rep James Holley told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday. “(Fleetwood and Morikawa) hit the ball pretty well, and they putted OK. They just wanted to test some stuff this week.”

For Fleetwood, his testing sessions resulted in a wild cosmetic prototype design on a Spider X model.

Fleetwood’s testing sessions with Holley started out with a TaylorMade Spider 5K-ZT prototype putter, which has small milling marks on the crown near the face that help add an effective alignment feature. Fleetwood wanted that same style alignment feature, with lines running parallel to the target line at address, but on a Spider-style putter. So, Holley broke out the Sharpie markers.

“So Tommy, we started with the ZT, and that ZT we have kind of that top milling on the front with that, and he really liked that top milling, how that kind of framed the ball,” Holley said. “You know he uses his special ball, where the orange lines create that single path … so the milling kind of lined up well with that when he lines up the ball. We took a regular Tour, short slant putter that was completely blank, and I pulled out the Sharpie and did my best to kind of draw some stuff on there for him, and he liked it.”

Fleetwood himself also weighed in on what he likes about the new prototype.

“Have you ever seen the leading edge on the Zero Torque? It’s got a little milling on the edge as well as the top line,” Fleetwood told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday. “When I put it down, I enjoyed lining it up. So then we tried some Spider versions trying to get the same effect, basically. Do you remember Scottie had it with the Logan Olson putter on the top edge? It’s like the same concept really. It’s just like making the alignment really thick with the stripes. Literally just sit the putter down and line up the ball, and then go at it.”

It's tinkering season right now on the PGA TOUR after the season’s first major, and Fleetwood is certainly using the opportunity to experiment.

For Morikawa, his Spider Tour V putter is designed to allow for more face rotation throughout the stroke, mimicking the functionality of a blade-style putter, but with the forgiveness across the face of a mallet.

“Collin being in that blade putter, he prefers forward CG (center of gravity),” Holley told GolfWRX.com. “So this week I think he’s going to play Spider V – that’s our most forward CG Spider, with an L neck, his sight dot, and his spec.

"... He’s lining it up pretty good, and he really liked the face angle with that one. We did some other stuff with different Spiders, but, that one really resonated well with him.”

Morikawa’s head finish is what TaylorMade is calling an “oil can” style, and his putter comes equipped with a Mitsubishi Diamana P-105 graphite shaft and a SuperStroke Tour 2.0 grip.

Can Morikawa and Fleetwood channel the Spider success that McIlroy showed at Augusta National just last week?