TP Reserve | The Story Behind TaylorMade’s New Premium Milled Putters
TaylorMade has a history of dynamic putter designs that push the boundaries of technology, performance and material usage. But for so many golfers, nothing beats the look, sound and feel of a milled putter artfully designed for a singular purpose – delivering the perfectly struck putt.
"It's as much, if not more, art than science. Not only with the finished product, even the act of reading a putt. The line, the speed. The little imperfections that sometimes you see on a green, or the eight different lines that can lead to the same place," says Brian Bazzel, TaylorMade's Senior VP of Product Creation. "We wanted to create designs that speak to the golfer – because we know having a putter you believe in is critical for finding success on the greens."
TaylorMade has toiled with the idea of creating premium milled putters for decades. However, it's such a nuanced product category that it requires total commitment every step of the way.
"With TP Reserve, we've finally committed ourselves to it," says Senior Director of Product Creation for Putters Bill Price. "These fine-milled putters open an all-new category in the world of TaylorMade. It's about the precision, craftsmanship, exactness and performance embodied by classic shapes."
The pathway began years ago, as the team understood that achieving the highest level of detail requires time, patience and dedication to the subtle. Painstakingly exploring every design element fell on the shoulders of Reed Potter, the lead engineer on the TP Reserve project.
"Down to the 10th of a millimeter," he describes. "It's like a piece of jewelry. We're zooming down to a level of what no one can see with the naked eye, literally debating whether to make a topline 7.9 or 8 millimeters. Ultimately, every detail was determined to exceed the expectations and demands of the most discerning putters in the world."
Milled putters unlock an unmatched level of detail and precision compared to casting – a manufacturing process used to create clubheads that involves pouring molten metal into a pre-designed mold to form the shape of the head. While casting takes less time, it leaves a rough texture along the surface, which needs to be polished off, introducing variability and inconsistency. The milling process, however, allows us to preserve the intended geometry and details in each clubhead with exacting precision.
In the milling of each TP Reserve putter head, our team obsessed over every element. From selecting the right bits to milling at the proper speeds and angles to ensuring precise stepover distances – every decision was made in the pursuit of perfection.
The TP Reserve collection is the first line of TaylorMade putters without a face insert in nearly a decade. On our iconic Spider putters, the face insert primarily helps maintain premium sound and feel. Our design team leveraged learnings and data on inserts to shape the face of TP Reserve putters.
"Every golfer is conscious of sound and feel when it comes to their putter; that's why we were hyper-focused on those two categories in the development of TP Reserve," says Paul Demkowski, Senior R&D Manager for Putter and Wedge. "We utilize a fine-milled linear groove pattern on the face that reduces the surface area of impact for a softer feel. The linear pattern also improves sound and feel consistency whether you strike it high on the face, low, toe ward or on the heel. Either way, the premium sound and feel will remain constant."
The family of TP Reserve putters has six different head shapes, with certain models available with multiple hosel options. The complete family of products is outlined below:
This is our most traditional Tour-inspired shape. It's defined by precise edges and sharp lines that help frame the ball. A thin machined 8mm topline pairs with a longer blade length (compared to TP Juno) to create a classic putter made for golfers who prefer an arced putting motion. There are two hosel options within the B1 series: B11 has an L-neck hosel while B13 has a short slant that creates 57° of toe hang – the most of any TP Reserve model.
With smooth, flowing lines, the B29 model produces exceptional feel and consistent rolls. It draws inspiration from the TP Soto and features the flow neck hosel, with machined bumpers to achieve softer edges.
Engineers reinvented this classic TaylorMade shape by shaving away material behind center face to create perfectly balanced wings on the heel and toe – dispersing weight to the perimeter for enhanced MOI.
Compared to the original TP Del Monte, which was 104mm from heel to toe, the B31 is 110m to create a distinctive look with more stability. The B31 model features a wide-body construction, with the widest thickest of any blade in the collection. It also includes a sole plate to dial in sound on this larger blade design. It comes in a traditional L-neck hosel.
M21 was inspired by the TP Bandon. Both designs within this family (M21, M27) deliver high MOI performance and elegant aesthetics. The models feature a combination of soft edges and a blend of machine marks with sharp geometric lines that reflect the technical precision of this classic wing-shaped mallet.
M27 has a new shorter length single bend design, making the point where the shaft bends closer to the putter head. This reduces offset and produces minimal toe hang. Each model has a premium sole plate that helps optimize both sound and feel.
New to the TaylorMade family, M33 features a rounded modern shape with machine milled outside edges. Fitted with the small slant hosel, M33 has the most toe hang of the TP Reserve mallets at 33°.
M37 features a short-length single bend design that positions the shaft bend closer to the putter head. These are the only TP Reserve mallets with a sightline on the top as well as two in the back cavity.
M47 is a blend of a blade and mallet crafted into a flawless piece of performance steel. It has the widest topline of the three TP Reserve mallets and tiered thickness along the outside edges. It is the most classic design among the new mallets.
"True TaylorMade loyalists have been asking us to get into this category for a long time," says Price. "They've seen what we've been able to do with Spider, and now they want to know what we can bring forward with classic shapes."
"We want to prove to the world that we're capable of elevating this category to levels that it maybe hasn't seen in the past," continues Demkowski. "We have a new level of seriousness in the milled putter space, and we're excited to show what we can do from a precision and detail standpoint."
The TaylorMade team recognizes there are golfers in the world who walk by the putter rack, grab one, take a few practice putts and go on their way. They might look at a milled putter and think, "Looks like any other blade."
Then, there are those who inspect the hosel. Who eye the texture of the grain and the flow of the lines. Who scrutinizes the width of the topline.
"And those are the people TP Reserve is for," adds Bazzel. "There are golfers who appreciate knowing someone took the time to perfect every little detail. That someone took the care to measure everything and obsessed to get it exactly right. This collection speaks to that player."
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