The Response ZT 615 by

MacGregor Golf MacGregor Golf is a sports equipment manufacturing company based in Albany, Georgia, which specializes in golf. MacGregor currently produces a wide range of golf clubs, bags, and accessories. The company roots can be traced to 1829, with the est ...

was a

putter A putter is a club used in the sport of golf to make relatively short and low-speed strokes with the intention of rolling the ball into the hole from a short distance away. It is differentiated from the other clubs (typically, irons and woods ...

which was used by

Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (; born January 21, 1940), nicknamed "the Golden Bear", is an American retired professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greate ...

to win the

1986 Masters Tournament The 1986 Masters Tournament was the 50th Masters Tournament, held April 10–13 at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Jack Nicklaus won his record 18th professional major with a historic one-stroke victory. He shot a final round ...

. Although the company had planned to sell only 6,000 for the year, the day after Nicklaus' victory they were deluged with 5,000 orders. They sold 300,000 that year. The putter was odd-looking, with an oversized

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

head. When designer Clay Long first showed it to Nicklaus in July 1985, he asked, "Is this a joke?" Nicklaus almost abandoned the club after missing the cut for the

Honda Classic The Cognizant Classic is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour in south Florida. It was founded in 1972 as "Jackie Gleason's Inverrary Classic". Prior to a schedule change in 2021, this was frequently the first of the Florida events in ...

that year, due to the large but lightweight club's sensitivity to wind gusts which caused him to miss a six-inch putt. However, he had the head weighted with lead for a heavier "feel" and went on to perform spectacularly with it in the Masters. "Once I got used to the lightness of the putter, I could make the ball roll over better with it," he said. "Why I'm not still using it, I don't have any idea. I should probably go back to it." "Oddly enough, it's the only golf club I won a major with that I don't have," according to Nicklaus. "One of my boys must have given it away. Someday, somebody will look in their garage and find my old putter." Nicklaus Golf Equipment manufactured a limited number of about 1,000 replicas in 2006 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the event; the new version sold for $199, compared to the original's price of $89.

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