TaylorMade Spider Tour Black Series putters

Gear: TaylorMade Spider Tour Black Series puttersPrice: $349.99 eachSpecs: Stainless steel and aluminum head with grooved face insert

Who it’s for: Golfers who prefer a larger alignment aid and a soft-feeling insert on a mallet putter.

What you should know: The three different Spider Tour Black Series head shapes are identical to the previously released Spider Tour putters, but come standard with a black finish, shaft, and grip.

The deep dive: The most influential mallet putters of the last decade have been the TaylorMade Spider putters, compact mallets that blend forgiveness with a roll-enhancing grooved face insert. The Spiders have come in a variety of colors over the years, including red, which was the color of the Spider putter Jason Day used in 2016 when he led the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting with an average of 1.13. Dustin Johnson used a black Spider to win the U.S. Open, Rory McIlroy used a silver-toned Spider X to win the FedEx Cup, and Scotty Scheffler used a Spider with an L-neck hosel to win the Masters and nearly $30 million in prize money in 2024.

Coming on the heels of the release of the TaylorMade Spider Tour X Black Proto putter, the Carlsbad, Calif-based equipment maker is now offering its newest Spider family, the Spider Tour Black Series, which is comprised of three heads– the Spider Tour, Spider Tour X, and the Spider Tour S – in both traditional lengths and counterbalanced, extended-length models.

• Spider Tour Black, with a small slant neck

• Spider Tour Black CounterBalance 35’’, with a double-bend neck

• Spider Tour X Black, which comes with either a small slant neck or an L-neck hosel

• Spider Tour S Black CounterBalance 38’’, with a double bend neck

• Spider Tour S Black Long, which is center-shafted

Like the Spider Tour putters released in the summer of 2023, each Spider Tour Black Series putter is designed with a stainless-steel and aluminum frame to reduce weight in areas of the head that don’t impact performance. Weights in the back heel and toe areas help to enhance stability on off-center hits.

The hitting area is covered by a Surlyn Pure Roll insert that features grooves that point downward at a 45–degree angle and encourage the ball to start rolling instead of skidding after impact. Behind the face, a polymer piece shaped like accordion that TaylorMade refers to as a Hybrar Echo Damper soaks up excessive vibrations that are created at impact to improve sound and feel.

Each of the new Spider Tour Black Series putters also has TaylorMade’s True Path alignment system on the top, and against the black chassis of the head, it really stands out and makes aiming putts and aligning the face much easier.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: TaylorMade Spider Tour Black putters build on Spider popularity.