Justin Thomas was not thrilled with the way he was putting at the end of 2016. He was striping the ball off the tee and from the fairway, but his putter was holding him back from contending and winning more.
He wanted a change, and after rummaging around on the Titleist PGA Tour van, he spotted a Scotty Cameron Futura X5.5. Having always played a Newport-style blade, it was visually a departure for Thomas, but he liked it. Eventually, Cameron welded a small slant neck onto a Futura X5.5 putter, Thomas put it into play and a few months later he won the 2017 PGA Championship with it.
If you have thousands of dollars to spend on a putter, for years you have been able to buy a Scotty Cameron prototype putter at the Scotty Cameron Studio in Encinitas, California, or on eBay. This is different: Starting on Sept. 22, for $850 you can get one of 2,020 limited-edition Scotty Cameron Inspired by Justin Thomas Phantom X5.5 putters at select Titleist authorized golf shops.
Like Thomas’ actual putter, the Scotty Cameron Inspired by Justin Thomas Phantom X5.5 has a milled 303 stainless steel face and wings that extend back from the heel and toe areas. A portion of the sole has been milled out and replaced by a 6061 aircraft aluminum soleplate. That shifts more of the club’s overall weight to the perimeter for increased stability.
Close Up: See all of Justin Thomas’ Titleist clubs
The club comes standard at 34.5 inches with 10-gram weights screwed into the heel and toe areas of the sole, just like Thomas’ putter. The hand-welded neck is also there.
While Scotty Cameron putters designed for the PGA Tour typically are stamped with a Circle T logo, these putters are adorned with a unique Circle JT logo on the milled face and the sole.
“This was an extremely cool project for me to work on with Scotty,” Thomas said in a media release. “In the beginning, I was only thinking it would give me something different to look at for a couple weeks. Yet here I am, four-something years later and still using it. So, I guess it’s worked out pretty well.”
