Gear: Cobra Vintage putters
Price: $249 each with KBS CT Tour 120 shaft and SuperStroke Zenergy Pistol 1.0 grip
Specs: 304 stainless steel heads with variable-loft, Pebax insert and adjustable sole weights.
Available: February 23
Who it’s For: Golfers who want help creating a consistent roll from a traditional putter with a soft feel.
The Skinny: Cobra’s second-generation Vintage putters retain their classic shapes, but a new insert helps them deliver a softer feel at impact.
The Deep Dive: The just-released Cobra 3D Printed family of putters is about as space-age putters get, but Cobra has new offerings in 2024 for players who want a classic-looking flat stick, the Vintage line.
Cobra’s Vintage line first appeared in 2021, and from a shaping standpoint, the 2024 offerings are very similar. The Sport-40 and Sport-60 are traditional heel-to-weighted blades that would look right at home in the bag of a PGA Tour player, while the Nova, with its wing-style extensions in the heel and toe, Stingray mallet and the semi-circular Cuba mallet will look familiar to most golfers too.
The most significant upgrade Cobra gave the Vintage putters is a new variable-loft Pebax insert. The hitting area is divided into four regions, with the top having 4 degrees of loft. Each segment of the face goes down in loft by 1 degree until you reach the bottom of the face, which has just 1 degree of loft. The design is meant to present the same loft to the ball on every stroke, even if your hands press forward slightly at impact or you swing up into the ball.
The technology comes from Cobra’s partner, L.A. Golf, and Cobra designers have used it in the past, but the addition of a lightweight thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) in the insert helps impact feel softer, especially compared to the firmer-feeling face of the 3-D Printed putters.
The body of each Vintage putter is metal injection molded (MIM) using 305 stainless steel, and each head has an adjustable weight in the heel and toe areas. Golfers will not be able to remove the weights, but fitters can swap the weights – which range from 5 grams to 25 grams – to change the swing weight of the putter based on its length and a golfer’s preferences.
Below are several looks at the Cobra Vintage putters.
