Zero-torque putters have officially taken over

The putter is the club golfers change least and trust most — which makes the speed of the zero-torque takeover remarkable. What began with L.A.B. Golf's lie-angle-balanced designs, engineered so the face barely twists through the stroke, is now a category every big brand has rushed to answer, from TaylorMade's Spider ZT to Odyssey's Square 2 Square line.

The appeal is genuinely mechanical rather than marketing. A conventional putter wants to rotate open and closed through the stroke, and on short, nervy putts that rotation is the difference between holed and lipped out. Take the twist away and the face simply returns to square — far less for your hands to manage when the pressure is on.

It will not suit everyone. The heads are big, the looks divide opinion, and a player with a sweet, repeating arc may gain nothing. But if your misses leak left and right, it is the rare upgrade where the hype and the physics actually agree.

It is now mainstream enough that you can try several on the same practice green in an afternoon — and most golfers who do don't hand them back.