How To Create A Murdered (Blacked-Out)Putter

We love the look of murdered out (black) putters we've seen during PGA telecasts and posted on Twitter & Instagram and decided we wanted one of our own. The only problem is we don't have any putter refinishing skills or equipment. Well with this conversion method you don't need any of those tools or skills to create your very own murdered out flat stick. Here is what you will need to for this project.  

Materials Needed:

Putter with black head

5/8" Black electrical shrink wrap tubing

Black putter grip

Heat gun or blow dryer

Fine sand paper

Regripping kit (utility knife, piece of 2 sided tape, mineral spirits, vice)

Instructions:

Since we just got some new demo MLA putters in stock, we decided to use our old Tour Series XDream for this project. The black face lends itself well to our project and, as you will see later, matches up perfectly to the grip we chose! Golf Gear Box sells the full line of MLA putters here.  

The first step is to remove your old putter grip using your utility knife. You can replace the razor blade with a hook blade, but it's not necessary. Just be careful and push the blade away from you when cutting the grip.

Next, use your heat gun to loosen the old grip tape and peel it off. We got our heat gun at Harbor Freight for $8.99 using their 20% off coupon. If you don't want to invest in a heat gun, a blow dryer on high may be adequate. You will also want to remove any manufacturer stickers that might be on the shaft.

Then, using your fine sand paper, go up and down the shaft to make sure it is smooth. Any nicks, dings or remaining tape/stickers will show under the shrink wrap.

Once the shaft is smooth, cut your shrink wrap (We found ours on Amazon Here) approximately 1.5-2" longer than your putter shaft. Feed the putter shaft through the shrink wrap getting as close as possible to the head of the putter and 1" longer than the grip end of the shaft. 

Now use the heat gun to gradually shrink the wrap. Be sure to spin the putter to shrink the full circumference as you work your way up the shaft. Continue until the shrink wrap is tight all the way around the club. It should look like this when you're finished.

We had a very difficult time getting the wrap to meet the putter head perfectly without leaving some of the chrome shaft exposed. We took a small ring of shrink wrap, placed it over the existing wrap where it meets the head and shrunk it on the shaft. This gave the wrap a much cleaner, finished look at the bottom.

 

 

Now we need to add our new grip, any black grip will do. To give our putter a really mean look, we decided to use this limited edition skull grip from SuperStroke. We also liked how the green accents in our grip matched up to the green paint on the bottom of our putter. 

Measure your tape so it's at least as long as your putter grip. Then place your tape on the club and carefully roll it around the shaft making sure there are no wrinkles. Twist the excess tape, and stuff it into the end of the shaft.

Pour mineral spirits all over the tape. Fill the inside of the grip with the liquid, keeping your finger on the hole at the end of the grip. Then, pour the contents of the grip over the tape and quickly, yet smoothly, push the grip onto the shaft. 

Here's where we ran into trouble. The wrap plus the layer of tape was too thick for the grip to go on the shaft. Luckily, our Twitter buddy, Enrique, bailed us out by suggesting we remove the shrink wrap from the putter 1/2" shorter than the grip and push like hell! As instructed, we removed the tape, cut the shrink wrap back 9.5" because our grip is 10", re-taped the shaft and pushed like hell! It went on with some major oomph! 

Finally, take your normal putter stance and gently twist the grip until it's lined up with the head. Let it dry for an hour and you've just built one badass murdered out putter!

 

Wanna get started on your own murdered out flat stick using one our MLA putters? For a limited time take 15% off all MLA Putters >$199, use code "DAD" at checkout. Offer expires 6/17/18.

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