GOLF.com: Wyndham Clark's Ping Putter Deal Pays Off Immediately With U.S. Open Title

A Sponsorship Deal Perfectly Timed

Wyndham Clark claimed his second major title at the 2026 U.S. Open, and at the center of the story is a putter he initially put in play with no contract attached.

After his deal with Titleist expired at the end of 2025, Clark spent the early part of 2026 testing drivers and putters as one of the Tour's most prominent equipment free agents. He cycled through a L.A.B. Golf DF3 and a Bettinardi before walking onto the Ping Tour truck in Houston in March — and leaving with a Scottsdale TEC Ally Blue Onset.

The Putter and the Philosophy

Unlike zero-torque designs such as the L.A.B., Ping's Scottsdale TEC places the shaft directly in front of the head's center of gravity. This "pulling" design creates stability through mass distribution rather than shaft neutrality. Clark gravitated toward the Ally Blue Onset — a slightly more face-balanced option with 5 degrees of toe hang — after finding it corrected a persistent left miss.

His final build mirrored the counterbalanced Odyssey Jailbird he rode to his 2023 title: a 400g head at 38 inches with a long SuperStroke grip, achieving that heavy feel through a combination of tip weights and lead tape.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Since making the switch, Clark's SG: Putting jumped from 155th (-0.725 strokes/round) to 43rd (+0.239 strokes/round) on the PGA Tour. At Shinnecock, he ranked 4th in the field in SG: Putting — a critical margin in a grueling major.

Ping formally announced the putter-only deal — the company's first such arrangement in over 50 years of Tour sponsorship — just days before the tournament began. Clark delivered a major title almost immediately.

Strokeslab Perspective

This is the first major win for a Ping putter since Bubba Watson at the 2014 Masters — a 12-year drought ended in emphatic fashion. Whether the Ally Blue Onset sparks the same retail frenzy as the Jailbird did in 2023 remains to be seen, but the timing of Ping's deal will go down as one of the savviest sponsorship moves in recent gear industry history.