SMALL BATCH PINEHURST

Our mission in the creation of our latest Small Batch design was to
pay tribute to one of the greatest golf tournaments ever contested –
the 1999 United States Open at Pinehurst’s famed No. 2.

It has been 25 years since the duel of the 1999 US Open reached the 18th
green with everything hanging in the balance. Many have called this US
Open the most exhilarating ever. The scenes after the winning putt fell are
etched into the fabric of professional golf. In this small batch creation, we
aimed to capture the grace and spirit of the champion at one of the most
iconic venues in American golf.

We started from there.

THE '99 CHAMPION

The ’99 champion used a variety of putters throughout his magnificent career, but he is best known for using a center shafted blade and it was the model used to win at Pinehurst.

We certainly wanted to pay tribute to this style of putter but we also pulled inspiration from several of the putters he used over the years to create Small Batch Pinehurst.

As always, we look to create a piece that is in beautiful proportions and is in harmony for size. This means the top line, blade length, and width – including the shoulders – must be in perfect proportions. This putter had to be purpose built to be a center shafted putter, meaning we could not simply take a design that would work well with a plumber’s neck.

THE HEAD

The key to this design was the top line – specifically its shape, its width and the shape and blend of the hosel as it meets the topline.

We spent hours upon hours designing, redesigning, and repositioning the hosel to get it just right. We landed the hosel slightly rearward on the top line to give the golfer an unobstructed view of the full leading edge and to make it simple to align. The goal of this part of the design was to keep it
simple, clean and uninterrupted.

We took that philosophy as we created the back shoulders and cavity. Most center shafted putters suffer from very low inertia and we knew we could improve this. Our back design was inspired by another putter the ’99 champion had occasionally used – though we changed it quite dramatically.

Carving massive amounts of weight from the center and moving it to the toe and heel helped make it more forgiving, but we continued to push. We also slightly increased both the blade length and the blade width to make this one of the most forgiving designs we’ve created to date.

The performance of Small Batch Pinehurst is phenomenal, but as important is the putter’s overall appearance. We spent even more time shaping the shoulders into a slightly concave shape from the top into the back of the sole. We then added our slow-machined milled micro grooves to complete the package.

Finally, the Toulon back cavity logo is in a simple and clean new art deco inspired script, paint filled in white against the Midnight Blue finish.

The face mill pattern was chosen for its artistic flair – and with the addition of the small tuna overmill creates just the right amount of auditory feedback and outstanding, pleasing feel.

THE SOLE

The ’99 champ famously wore his trademark knickers, but he also had a penchant for color. He was also a student of the game and loved its history. We fell in love with his love of tartan. We took this opportunity to create our own tartan and mill it slowly into the sole of the putter.

To fully honor his love of color we painted a small area of the tartan in our creamy yellow, vintage blue and vintage orange.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Material – 904L Stainless Steel Body / 6061 Aluminum Sole Plate
Face Mill – Fine Double Fly Cut with Small Tuna Overmill
Finish – Midnight Blue
PVD
Grip – Custom Toulon Collection Dark Blue Pistol
Shaft – Chrome Stepless Steel
Headcover – Toulon Small Batch Leather
Head Weight – 355g
Toe Hang – C/S
Loft – 3°
Lie – 70°