Studio Stainless Big Sur

The 2003 Big Sur carries the Studio Stainless designation, the family it moved into after the head redesign that Scotty Cameron's site dates to 2002. The maker's page for this year describes it plainly: "The Big Sur was re-designed in 2002 and became part of the Studio Stainless Series in 2003." The head is milled from 303 stainless steel, and the specs on record match the maker's page exactly: 48 inches in length, 80 degrees of lie, 4 degrees of loft.

What carried over from the 2002 redesign is the thinner profile and the stiffer, proprietary single bend shaft with no offset, along with the thicker walls at the hosel that the maker credits for improved sound and feel, a quality the page says is "especially" pronounced with the switch to Studio Stainless material. The split, round grip that came in with the 2002 version stayed in place here as well.

Set against the rest of the Big Sur's record, the 2003 Studio Stainless version holds its length and lie steady with the 2002 Pro Platinum that preceded it, both at 48 inches and 80 degrees, a firm break from the earlier 1998 and 2001 Classics, which ran shorter lies and, in one case, a much shorter 35 inch length. The loft at 4 degrees also matches 2002 rather than the 4.5 degrees the original 1998 Big Sur carried. The through line across these years is the long, pendulum-length shaft built for a particular stroke, with 2003 marking the point where that concept met a stainless build and the Studio Stainless name.