James Holley, TaylorMade’s Senior Tour Representative / Global Sports Marketing, joins Mark Zecchino and Adam Scully on Golf Talk Canada to break down the Spider ZT, Spider ZT Counterbalance, and Spider ZT Long models. Learn what makes these putters different, why Tour players are impressed, and how the game-changing tech can help your stroke.
This video features…
⚙️ TaylorMade Spider ZT tech explained
⛳️ Tour player feedback
📍Differences between the ZT, Counterbalance & Long models
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James Holly from Tailor Made now joins us. Welcome to the show, man. Thank you, James. Thanks for doing this. I mean, we hold we just had a full conversation. Last two, three minutes of our chat with Mac was about center shafted putters. My first job in the golf industry learning about center shafted putters back in 1990, but this is a whole new I mean, how exciting is it for you to enter the world of zero torque now and having a win already on? Yeah, I think it’s great. Um, you know, it’s pretty popular thing out on tour right now. It was great to get a win with Brian Harmon. I gave him that putter Tuesday. Really put it in play. Yep. Wow. Um it’s good. I think with ours it’s a little different. We kind of went multimaterial. So we have that heavy steel front and then aluminum back. So we were able to get that shaft closer to the face. So it’s your hands sit in more of like a normal position that you’re used to. Um, some of the offset onset putters look a little bit closed at a dress and we worked really hard on that sole to get it to sit nice and kind of be able to be whatever lie position you normally would play it. It’ll kind of rock and the face will stay square. So, I think it’s been great. You know, the tour usage has been great. Um, we have 20 spider wins, I think, since 2024. A lot of that’s, you know, with Rory and Scotty, the su success they’ve had. Hard hard to pile up the wins when those two guys are rolling spiders. Oh my god. Totally. And there’s so much tech with these new line of putters. We have true path alignment and I m I understand it’s been reimagined here in Spider ZT. Is that right? Yeah, we have this kind of milling in the front to kind of frame the ball really nice. And um this back area and kind of the contrast between that silver front and the black back gives you a nice alignment at address. And uh like you talk about with pure roll. I think that’s the biggest thing especially in an onset putter to get that added benefit of forward roll with our insert is really key. Um you know you tend to play this onset putter the zero zero torque putter a little bit more forward in your stance and with that onset you tend to launch the ball a little bit high. So with our insert you get consistent launch and distance control. So, is there a standard of a lower loft just on the face versus some of the other Spider lines? Like right off the rack a few years ago, boom, boom. Is this a couple like say call it two degrees less loft? Yeah, it’s two and a half. So, same as all the other spiders. Um, just that insert, you know, gives you consistent launch and spin because of the marketplace and where, you know, everybody’s been going. Obviously, as soon as you say spider, you start thinking immediate success. I mean, based on the top two players on the planet already, but it goes well beyond the top two players on the planet. I mean, I remember Jason Day, you know, when he was number one in the world living and dying with his spider. You know, obviously the biggest moment in Canadian uh golf history on Canadian soil was Nick Taylor with his spider. So, Spider has a certain tour standard in the consumer’s mind is up here. And then there’s like a little shift in the marketplace where people are thinking zero torque and all this stuff’s kind of going out on out there. So from start to finish, from a conceptual moment where it’s like, okay, Spider’s going to get in the zero torque game, where does that start? How long from start to finish? How long have you been playing around with the concept, the ideas before we get this product? Yeah, it’s definitely over a year from kind of the initial thoughts of how we wanted to do it. And we didn’t really want to, you know, just copy somebody else. We really wanted to put our spin on it and keep, you know, what everybody loves about Spider with the shape, the high MOI, the stability, our insert, of course. Um, you know, it’s a lot of testing, especially on tour. You know, we brought out three different soul designs for this to get it to sit right and tested it with a lot of different players to get it to look right. And I think, you know, that kind of just speaks to the success we’ve had so early on it, you know, getting a win with Brian Harmon and the LPJ with Hon Rue. Um, it’s just all that process of kind of doing it right from the start and, you know, we were a little bit late to the game obviously, but, you know, we’re all sold out online with our first initial run of it. So, I think it’s been great, which is so exciting. And I’m currently on tailormadegolf.ca right now, and I’m seeing a couple different models. We have the Spider ZT, the ZT Counterbalance, and the ZT Long, which which is great. What were some of the reasons to bring the long putter to marketplace? Yeah, I think you know, especially with tour adoption, it’s a very popular thing and especially with zero torque, right? The idea with zero torque is to have that face stay very square to your path. So, the putter kind of almost putts itself. You don’t have to manipulate that face. So, especially in the long style putter. I think to me, especially for my game, like I’ve gravitated towards using that long putter with zero torque. Um, because you know, you’re kind of split hands, you want the putter to do more of the work and that longer style. And then with that counterbalance, kind of same thing, right? You got the weight above your hands, the putter is kind of swinging itself almost. Wow. How long since uh the Scotty putter change? About 14 months. Yeah. Switched at Arnold Palmer last year. So, that sounds about right. 14 months and almost 14 wins practically. I was just going to so I had to ask because you know it was a big story for us on Golf Talk Canada because I’m a huge Scotty Sheffller fan because I love how he just simplifies the game and every everything looks so easy to green. There’s no trap doors or swing changes or swing gurus. You know, I love his quotes. Oh, I just show up at a tournament. I’m looking for a feel. When I find a feel on the range, I go play golf. I’m like it’s beautiful in its simplicity. But watching him through 23 turn like a seven win season into I think a two- win season that year was hard to watch. And then he makes the switch and then basically the rest is tiger. Yeah. How gratifying knowing that it was the spider. It is that simple to meet that spider change that hits the switch. Right. And I think the big thing with him like you talk about keeping it simple was that the true path on that spider with the white and the long line is what really freed him up. He didn’t feel like he had to line up the ball at all. He was more athletic over it. And yeah, I mean, it just kind of speaks towards, you know, the technology and the product. And, you know, when you have a guy that was hitting it that good and so close and, you know, he did win early in the year with Logan Olsson putter. It’s now part of the tailor made brand. Um, but switching to that spider, you know, you could just see it kind of freed him up and a lot of wins. Yeah. Fun to watch. And Scotty and Rory have sort of been tied now. I mean, they know each other well. They played in that match together last December and now Rory’s had an historic start to the season. What was it like for you to see the wins that Rory has had so far already this season highlighted of course by tapping in with the spider putter from two feet to make history, right? Yeah. It’s great. The Rory’s, you know, kind of the same thing, right? Was kind of in a blade and then was a big switch to the spider and I think was uh, you know, kind of convinced Scotty to use the spider and like, hey, you know, I don’t know why you’re not using this. Pretty easy. I think it’s it’s really a story too unlike the rest of their game. Right now we do see guys going to sevenwood. Scotty and Colmore Cow’s got a ninewood on the bag one. So it’s not that they’re not doing it to make the game easier on themselves. Uh but you know obviously they play a lot of forge blades and things like that. Things that you wouldn’t see in our bags uh necessarily ours being Adam and mine. Although we you know we have tinkered with those things. We have we have I still have a P7 MBS because it’s a left-handed blade. So, you know, I still have those in and out on occasion, especially in the shorter irons. Uh, but where I was going with this, it’s not that they can’t be brilliant putters with a blade or something like that. It’s about like increasing your chances and making the bad days better, isn’t it? Right. It’s about the consistency. Um, you know, and especially like working with Tommy Fleetwood, too. He’s been a blade user. We switched him into a spider at um Hilton Head right after the Masters. And just to get that consistency with speed, you know, on the longer putts and inside of 10 feet with a kind of bigger soul, bigger footprint to help you line up, you know, everybody’s good days are going to be good, but it’s, you know, about how good your bad days are. And, you know, we see that with like Scotty, right? Totally. Now, you mentioned earlier Brian Harmon. He received the putter on Tuesday and he won that week. You don’t do you see that often where guys put a putter in the bag immediately upon seeing it? Um, not too often with Brian. you know, he’s been in an OCB spider, so kind of like a bigger one, right? He won the open with that. And especially at the beginning part of the year, he was struggling a little bit. So, we brought out kind of different variations of that putter at kind of different face angles and stuff. And um you know, having this come out, we got some lefty parts in, right, cuz he’s a lefty and we had one and I had one built kind of to a little bit different specs. I wanted to try something a little different than what he was at because, you know, if you do the same thing over and over again and you’re not getting the results, you might as well change it up a little bit. So, we went a little bit more upright on his um he battled a little bit of a right aim and then he would kind of push the ball online. Um and you know, like we’re talking about when your good days are good, he put it good, but when he was off a little bit, um he struggled. So, with the ZT and that soul, you you know, it really sets up really great. You can’t really manipulate it, right? So, he lined this up right out of the box really well and then trusted it. For him, I think his quote was it was pretty point and shoot. He didn’t have to think about it. So, it was it was cool to see. You know, you give guys putters during the week and you know, if it looks good and you know, it’s hard to trust a lot of times. They need those reps back home to really put it in play. And then when he put it in that week and you know, he ended up winning was great. Great. I think it him winning with that putter immediately like that. I think that is such a says so much because if you think about his career with that OS putter that he’s had in the bag forever and a day like I can’t remember the year that came out something like 13 or 14 I believe that putter came out and and what he did at the open championship with that putter that’s like one of the best performances we’ve seen with a putter in modern history for him to go like that put it in and win I I mean that’s about as good of a commercial as you can possibly have right unbelievable so well uh James I know You’re a very busy man. Thanks so much for taking time today. I have one more important question, James. Can you get that man right there? Can you send him a 38 in counterbalance left-handed putter? Because I heard in the Canadian marketplace, we’re not going to see that in quite some time. Lefty, you know, you might have to qualify for a PJ tour event. And then if you go out there, I’ll bring you one cuz I’m at like 20 a year for PJ Tour. If I just come find you, will you give me one? Maybe I’ll bring like a a Harman reject and it’ll fall off the truck or something. Perfect. You know what? I’m totally I’m not above being a Brian Harmon reject. I’ll take that. We can add that to your resume, Mark. That’s awesome. But James, thanks so much for taking time and really enjoyed the story. It’s another home run by Tailor Made and all the best here going forward. Cool. Yeah. Thank you.
