Equipment
James Ingles resurrects custom putter brand
Everybody loves a comeback story. Ben Hogan post-1949. Tiger Woods post-2009. You remember the first act and are now given a glimpse at what a second act could become. It’s a chance to reimagine and build on success. While the reason James Ingles Putters has been placed on hiatus for the last five years isn’t exactly “rock and roll,” they are indeed back on the market and ready to deliver. If you’re in the dark on James Ingles Putters’ history and/or why they’re back, here’s the story…
James Ingles started playing golf when he was 14 years old in 1997, which was an exciting time in golf, especially in the world of equipment and putters more specifically. Around that time, he purchased a special edition Scotty Cameron putter, which was inspired by David Duval, who was his favorite player at the time. He rushed home excited to show the new flatstick to his dad. His dad proceeded to look it over and sort of brushed it off as just a machine-made, milled steel putter. There were probably thousands of others just like it.
That may be a curious reaction to most people, but as it turns out, James’ father has a unique frame of reference for this sort of thing. At that time in 1997, he happened to own Charles Hellis & Sons, a bespoke gunsmith in the London area (about 18 months ago he sold the business and retired). In his trade, no two items are alike. They begin with a quality forging and are then finished by hand to the customer’s specific requests. Shotguns from makers in and around London are known all over the world for their craftsmanship and attention to detail. It also happens that a lot of the steps in the gun making process actually transfer quite well to making putters.
In 2009, James approached the head gunsmith at Hellis and asked him if it was possible to make a putter in-house. That conversation started the development of James’ first putter, an 8802-style blade known as his 28g model. James uses the same forging house as Charles Hellis, which has been in business since 1904 and served many industries over the years. Hand engraving, when requested by the customer, is done by independent third-party engravers who also serve the local shotgun industry.
“I’d been around Hellis since my early teens, so I had at least seen and therefore had an appreciation for the machining and hand engraving that goes into shotgun manufacturing. I spent a lot of time on the aesthetics of that first putter because I really wanted to get that right. We knew there was going to be a fair amount of handwork involved in finishing the putter after the forging, but ensuring the overall shape of that forging was absolutely critical.”
It’s worth taking a quick pause to point out an important distinction. There are loads of high-quality CNC milled putters today, which are milled by a computer to exacting tolerances from a 3D CAD model (think Tyson Lamb, Logan Olson, and the like). The “old fashioned” way many putter makers (such as T.P. Mills and his contemporaries) would have crafted their putters would have been start-to-finish on a hand-operated milling machine. One of the things that sets James’ putters apart is that they are first forged into a rough shape (not dissimilar to the way many forged irons are made) and then milled by hand into the finished product. This isn’t to say one method is objectively better or worse than another, only that they perhaps may arrive at a different result and may be for different customers.
“When we first came to market, everything we sold was direct to the consumer. The golf industry was quite different in those days, so if you wanted to be competitive, you had to keep cost and margins as low as possible. Then we started to partner with Scratch in 2013, which made sense for a lot of reasons. Essentially, Scratch would work with the customer to define specifications and such. They would send us that information and we would make the putters. When Scratch went under in 2015, there were a host of other things going on in my life, though. My first child had just been born and I had a full-time career as well, so going back to the way things were didn’t make sense. I didn’t have the capability to have everything go directly through me anymore, so we made the decision to kind of shut things down for a while.”
For the last five years, James’ life has mainly been focused on raising his two young kids and making a living as a building surveyor. By his own admission, he hadn’t even been playing much golf and had instead taken up long-distance running. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic started taking hold, and he started to introduce his now-five-year-old son to golf.
“We had gone to the driving range and Jude was having lots of fun hitting golf balls. I also started to realize I could actually find the middle of the club face every now and again, so that was promising. I then took him to the local pitch-and-putt and all of a sudden, all of my enjoyment for golf really just started flooding back. I started an Instagram account for the golf business [@jamesinglesputters by the way] and posted pictures of Jude and I playing and also pictures of old putters I’d found lying around my garage. Loads of people started commenting and messaging and it just felt like there was some unfinished business there. Ultimately, I suppose that’s why we’re launching the business again and you and I are having this conversation.”
James Ingles putters have two main forgings that they can work from: the aforementioned 28g and also the 12g, a traditional heel-toe weighted blade design which can be finished in a number of ways depending on the customer’s preference. They are also capable of milling custom shapes from billet steel. In addition to putters, James will be doing many small runs of accessories such as putter covers, ball markers, and divot tools. All information can be found on his new website.
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Whats in the Bag
Matthieu Pavon WITB 2024 (May)
- Pavon’s WITB accurate as of the Wells Fargo Championship. More photos from the event here.
Driver: Ping G430 Max (9 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 6 X
3-wood: Ping G430 LST (15 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Black 7 X
Hybrid: Ping G430 (19 degrees)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 10 X
Irons: Ping i230 (3-PW)
Shafts: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 X
Wedges: Ping Si59 (52-12S, 58-8B)
Shafts: Nippon Modus3 Tour 120 X
Putter: Ping Cadence TR Tomcat C
Grip: SuperStroke Claw 1.0P
Grips: Golf Pride MCC Align
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Check out more in-hand photos of Pavon’s gear here.
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Equipment
Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter
Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.
This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.
Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.
The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.
Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.
- Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship
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Equipment
Club Junkie WITB, league night week 4: Some old, some new
We enter week 4 of Thursday night men’s league feeling a little more confident in the game. BK is hoping to go a little lower and reduce the mistakes out there with these clubs in the bag. Watch the video for the full breakdown of why these clubs are getting the starting nod this week!
Driver: Titleist TSR2 (10 degrees, neutral setting)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Diamana WB 63 X
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 (15 degrees)
Shaft: UST Mamiya Lin-Q M40X TSPX Blue 7F5
7-wood: Ping G430 Max (-1 degree, flat Ssetting)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 8 S
Iron: Mizuno Pro Fli-Hi 4
Shaft: Aerotech Steelfiber hls880 S
Irons: PXG 0317 Tour (5-PW)
Shaft: LA Golf A-Series 105 Low (4)
Wedge: Titleist Vokey SM10 (50-08F)
Shaft: UST Mamiya Dart V 105 F4 Wedge
Wedge: Ping S159 (56-10H)
Shaft: Ping Z-Z115
Wedge: Ping S159 (60-08B)
Shaft: Ping Z-Z115
Putter: PXG Battle Ready II Brandon
Shaft: BGT Stability Tour Spec One
Ball: Callaway Chrome Tour X
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JP
Oct 29, 2020 at 1:06 am
Where do I send the money?!?