Self-proclaimed 'putter nerd' Kevin Streelman changes into a Swag Golf prototype

This week at the 2019 Desert Classic, two-time PGA TOUR winner Kevin Streelman will have a new Swag Golf Handsome Too proto putter in the bag that’s the product of “close to 20 iterations” of prototypes built to his demands. Streelman, from Winfield, Illinois, also has a freshly signed partnership with the Chicago-based company.

In April 2018, longtime high-end putter distributor Nick Venson, who has represented both Scotty Cameron and Bob Bettinardi during his career, launched his own putter company called Swag Golf. As you may surmise from the name, and the company’s catch phrase “Don’t give a putt,” Venson is looking to do things a bit differently than other companies in the putter industry. But that’s not just due to the loud staff bag colors and edgy putter headcovers seen on PGA TOUR practice greens; it’s also the philosophy behind the putter manufacturing process.

This week at the 2019 Desert Classic, two-time PGA TOUR winner Kevin Streelman will have a new Swag Golf Handsome Too proto putter in the bag that’s the product of “close to 20 iterations” of prototypes built to his demands. Streelman, from Winfield, Illinois, also has a freshly signed partnership with the Chicago-based company.

In April 2018, longtime high-end putter distributor Nick Venson, who has represented both Scotty Cameron and Bob Bettinardi during his career, launched his own putter company called Swag Golf. As you may surmise from the name, and the company’s catch phrase “Don’t give a putt,” Venson is looking to do things a bit differently than other companies in the putter industry. But that’s not just due to the loud staff bag colors and edgy putter headcovers seen on PGA TOUR practice greens; it’s also the philosophy behind the putter manufacturing process.

For his side of the story, Venson explained how the partnership came to fruition, and how Streelman is a major tinkerer with a demanding eye.

“Kevin was just looking to try something new and needed some very specific tweaks,” Venson said. “As a tinkerer, he really wanted to try some things that aren’t typically things that you would go and machine into a head. He would maybe chop a neck off and weld it into a different position, or do some things like over-polish something to make it look thinner than it is. I told him ‘I’m willing to start from scratch and engineer anything that you want into a head.’ And that’s really what we did. We probably made close to 20 iterations of different heads; real small, very minute tweaks to 1/100s of an inch on toplines, radiuses, soles. Do things to make it the way he wanted it to look. And because of that, he ended up picking one that he really liked, and we were able to sign a contract with him.”

Streelman’s first go around with a Swag putter, actually, was at the 2018 RSM Classic where he debuted a mallet-style “Savage” prototype putter, which had a “different offset,” according to Venson. “Typically you don’t find the type of offset in a blade-style putter that he wanted,” said Venson. “So I basically had to re-engineer the head and figure out how to make the amount of offset and still keep the weight, and still do some other tweaks to get it to where he wants it to be.”

This week at the Desert Classic, after much back-and-forth to get the design right, Streelman will put the blade-style “Handsome Too” custom model, with a double fly-milled face into play.

“Actually we’re on the second-to-last version because he actually made one more tweak so we have to change the weight on it again,” Venson said. “But it’s going to look exactly the same, we’re just going to change the weight.”

Alas, the duo has reached a partnership, and Streelman has a putter built exactly for him… right down to the putter cover. The Chicago-area-native not only loves putters, but he loves deep-dish pizza.

“The best headcover in golf right there, Chicago-style deep dish pizza,” Streelman said. When I asked his opinion on the longtime NYC vs. Chicago style pizza debate, he answered, “Chicago style and it’s not even close. New York style is like greasy cardboard. Chicago style has some integrity and class to the pizza.”

As an east-coaster myself with a New York City-style pizza bias, he’s wrong about the pizza, but at least he likes the headcover!