Very near the geographic center of North America sits Badlands National Park in Southwestern South Dakota. The land is rugged and earned its name from the Lakota Native American tribe who frequently traversed the area. The Badlands is a region of extremes – from bitterly windy and cold in the winter to unforgivingly hot in the summertime. Despite it all, wildlife flourishes. You’ll see bison and antelopes and if you look up you’ll see golden eagles, revered by the Lakota for its strength and courage.
As we designed and developed Badlands, we sought symbols of center-ness. It was a center-shafted putter designed for center-face strikes and we wanted a name to symbolize this center. All roads, paved or not, led to Badlands.
The body shape for Small Batch Badlands was driven by a growing trend on tour. There have been many center-shafted putters in play but over the past few years they have been primarily mallets. Starting at the first event of the year, a center-shafted blade was used to win in Hawaii in record fashion.
That piqued our curiosity and led to many inquiries from Tour players and customers alike about the merits of such a design. They were easy asks and we began work on Badlands.
The key to a design like Badlands lies first in designing the hosel and specifically how it enters the head and top line. After speaking with players, it became clear that we had to eliminate onset to create a full view of the ball from address. Working on that first we also decided that we would need to create a little bit of toe hang. By moving the hosel slightly heelward, we greatly improved the look from address and it helped us create the toe flow we wanted – about 25 degrees. Badlands is a putter designed for players that want face awareness through the stroke and want to create a bit of arc.
We also wanted to create a softer feel but it needed to be a satisfying milled click at impact with a sound that wouldn’t linger too long. There were two ways for us to get there. Badlands uses a new material we’ve come to love – 316L Stainless Steel – because it helped us create the softness we sought. A long-time favorite material used by many of the most renowned Swiss watch makers, 316L provided the first part of the sound and feel equation.
The second part was to dial in the more audible click we sought. For that, we developed a new face mill pattern of a series of very shallow tool paths. The resulting visual shimmer effect helps bring up the sound and feel right into the area that we wanted.
The body design is a favorite of ours. Badlands began with inspiration from our Austin model. The classic wide cavity Dalehead style helps to create visual space for the top line and center shaft design. Badlands invites the player to engage in a little toe flow. We love the way the organic design of the Badlands shape complements the flow.
Simple, yet purposeful and detailed, Badlands features our gold sole weights bringing the total weight to a modern 350 grams. Slow milled and lightly polished, the sole features an engraved eagle that oversees the area. With a designed 2 degree draft angle, Badlands soles perfectly square allowing for a very simple alignment using both the top line and flange line.
The rest of the package includes our loved slow-milled Dark Chocolate finish over our new 316L stainless steel. Sunset orange, cream and a touch of gold give Badlands the feel of a setting sun over the untamed land.
Paired with the tour winning KBS Stepless CT Tour chrome shaft and our custom Sunset Orange Pistol midsize grip, the ensemble is complete.
Small Batch Badlands is a tour inspired and tour winning shape that explores the incredible feel of 316L stainless steel. Beautiful, elegant and driven by the movement of tour.
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