2023 Bettinardi Studio Stock 35

The Studio Stock 35 arrived as the newest head in Bettinardi's 2023-2024 Studio Stock line, a compact mallet built around widened shoulders. The maker's page describes it plainly: "This compact mallet offers a fresh look with widened shoulders that distribute weight evenly toward the perimeter of the putter, increasing MOI (Moment of Inertia) and making the putter more forgiving for off-center strikes." That combination, a mallet's forgiveness with a blade's sightline, is the putter's stated pitch, and the maker adds that it "offers the feeling of a blade putter with the look of a mallet." Per the maker, it's milled from 303 stainless steel at the Tinley Park, IL facility, finished in Diamond Blast/Polish, with a 3 degree loft, 70 degree lie, 3/4 shaft offset, and 1/3 toe hang, weighing 358 grams. It carries the Roll Control face milling that runs across the whole 2023-2024 Studio Stock family.

Pluggedingolf.com's review called it a beautiful compact mallet with good forgiveness, praising the Roll Control face for enhanced top spin and describing the feel as wonderful. That same outlet reported the head as very compact, much shorter heel-to-toe than an Anser, with a front-to-back dimension roughly twice that of one, and noted it does not carry Bettinardi's trademark honeycomb milling, instead relying on extremely fine mill marks on the Roll Control face. Fairwayjockey.com's reporting lines up on the shape, calling it a compact mallet with a bit of offset and weighting distributed toward the perimeter for higher MOI. Where the two accounts diverge is on the fine print of offset: pluggedingolf.com specifies 3/4 shaft offset, while fairwayjockey.com simply calls it a bit of offset.

Criticism centered on the headcover and the head size itself. Pluggedingolf.com's review flagged the velcro closure in place of a magnetic one as a shortcoming, and pointed out that the smaller head can lead to three-putts on longer putts if struck off-center, a tension worth sitting with given the same review's praise for its forgiveness on center-ish strikes. The reviewer also described its impact sound as a very dull "tock," a detail that's worth noting for anyone weighing feel and feedback alongside the numbers above.