I’ll Say It: We’re Living In A “Golden Age” Of Extremely Affordable Putters

In addition to loving the game of golf, I love to cook. My favorite chef of all time is Jacques Pépin. If you aren’t familiar with Pepin, I highly suggest you become so. To keep things brief, he’s easily one of the greatest chefs of all time (the greatest, in my opinion). Part of his magic and appeal is his approach to cooking. A self-described “miserly” chef, he believes in wasting nothing and that good food doesn’t need to be pretentious or expensive. He’s absolutely right.

I forget where I read it years ago but when asked about his favorite cookware brands and utensils, he essentially said the brand didn’t matter. Cookware, to him, was just a set of tools, and a good tool was a good tool regardless of price or pedigree. That doesn’t mean premium brands are good or budget brands are automatically bad. It means that across the wide pantheon of stuff, you can find quality tools anywhere if they do the job well.

This is the precise philosophy I’ve taken into putter shopping and it’s been a fun journey. As you already know, the Wilson Buckingham was our top mallet putter last year and it’s $140. For all intents and purposes, that’s a “cheap” putter, and let me tell you, it’s a great putter. At the moment, I’m gaming the Tour Edge Exotics Wingman 801 Slant– another sub-$200 option. At $170, it’s $30 more than the Buckingham, but I’d say they’re firmly in the same class ($30 is negligible nowadays). Long story short: I love it and in a day where golf equipment is crazy expensive, we’re living in what I call a golden age for high-quality affordable putters.

At the moment, you can find awesome putters from Cleveland, Wilson and Tour Edge all for under $200. Follow Jacques Pépin’s cooking philosophy: understand that it doesn’t matter how much you spend on your tools, especially if they’re high-quality. At the moment, we have more affordable putter options than ever and I think that might be a bit of a response to the ever-expanding price of golf clubs (but who knows?). Whatever the reason is, I love the affordable choices and a lot of other golfers should, too.