The Fat Lady

According to bobbygraceputters.com, the Fat Lady began as a prototype introduced in 1994. That same source is the origin of the putter's best known story: Nick Price tried it during warmups and used it for the final two rounds of the PGA Championship, which he won wire-to-wire. Whether the putter belongs to that result or simply happened to be in Price's hands that week isn't something we can settle here, but it's the story the maker's own site has built the model's reputation on.

The commercial aftermath is reported the same way. Bobbygraceputters.com states that 27,000 orders came in the week after the Championship, a figure worth reading as the maker's own account of demand rather than an independently verified sales number. The site's opinion page frames the appeal in personal terms as well, saying Price "became so excited by the feel and results he enjoyed on the practice green, he immediately replaced the putter he had been using," and other commentary tied to the model credits it with a run of good form that carried Price to the world number one ranking.

The line's own later reporting suggests it didn't stop there. A 2011 note on bobbygraceputters.com credits Ross McGowan with winning the Madrid Masters 2009 using "our original Fat Lady Swings putter," adding that "although it has been 16 years since this putter came out, it is still winning major tour events around the world." That same note has the putter following McGowan to a second place finish and, in the maker's words, "his largest paycheck ever in Dubai at the World Championship." Taken together, the record on the original Fat Lady is built almost entirely from the maker's own telling, spanning from its 1994 prototype origins to a tour win still being cited more than a decade later.