Adam Scott’s putter switch pays off on Friday at the 2019 PGA Championship

It’s not easy keeping up with what putter, or even what putting style, Adam Scott uses week-to-week on the PGA TOUR.

Since the anchored putting ban in 2016, Scott has been forced to find a different method from the one he used to win The Masters in 2013, where he anchored a split-grip long putter to his chest. It seems he’s still chasing something reliable.

In the last few years, Scott has switched between using a “broomstick” long putter (without anchoring it) and using a conventional-length putter. He also switches putter heads often, although he mostly opts for mallet styles.

Ahead of the 2019 PGA Championship, Scott, despite ranking 15th in Strokes Gained: Putting on the season, switched to a Scotty Cameron Futura 6M prototype, which he says is the fifth different putter he’s used already in 2019.

The prototype putter, which is nearly two inches shorter than the putter he used to win The Masters, is the original prototype of what later evolved into Scotty Cameron’s Futura 6M retail release.

"Through our work with Adam, his prototype evolved into the Futura 6M that was sold at retail, and contributed to the design and development of the new Phantom line,” said Scotty Cameron's Director of Putter Fitting and Player Development, Paul Vizanko.

Scott’s prototype putter measures 47.25 inches, and it has a 79.5-degree lie angle with 3 degrees of loft. The sole of the putter has two 10-gram weights behind the face, and 20-gram weights in the “ears” of the Futura putter that raises the moment of inertia and creates more stability.

“With Adam, it’s all about a fluid or flowing stroke, and this Futura design -- the combination of the length, loft, lie and weights under the face and higher MOI from the weights in the back -- results in better impact for him,” Vizanko said.

The switch paid off in a big way.

On Friday at the 2019 PGA Championship, Adam Scott made 165-feet, 2-inches worth of putts – the most feet of putts he’s ever made in a round on the PGA TOUR -- en route to a 6-under round of 64 that leaves him seven shots back in T2.

While the sheer length of putts Scott made on Friday was impressive, he did miss five putts within 10 feet on the day, including a two-footer on hole No. 17.

With a seven-stroke deficit heading into the weekend at Bethpage Black against a seemingly unflappable Brooks Koepka, Scott will need his prototype putter to stay hot from deep, and he’ll need to clean up the short misses to apply pressure.