Were the Cameron Phantoms a flop!?!

im curious why these didn’t go over well at all. I’ve had a X7.5 and a X7 and feel wise they are great fairly easy to line up. Seems like stores are clearing them out and you can find them on EBay for a song. Never saw any guys on Tour rolling one although there may have been a few this year if the season wasn’t shut down. Surprised they didn’t do well

The Phantom line I thought would appeal to all the Odyssey 7,7s and Toulon Las Vegas lovers. Would kinda frame the ball similar.

I think the simplest way a lot of people look at big, elaborate looking mallets is: does the performance (feel, alignment etc etc) outweigh the looks?

Maybe the answer here was no? Although most of the shops around me, this line seemed to sell well.

I wonder if they used white lines instead of the fluorescent yellow maybe they would've sold better.

They totally would have. The black paint fill one they released in limited numbers looked good. The aluminum face isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either.

I putted with them in store a bit and kinda liked it them but never enough to pay retail for one, maybe heavily discounted and used but there will always be that "Scotty Tax" that you'd have to pay.

I honestly think he should have done the X5 as it's a very popular shape and the X12 since everyone is doing that shape now, do it in 303 or a 303 and aluminum combo like he's done before but with the 303 face not the aluminum face and it could have done decent.

It was more a line that no one asked for but Scotty felt was needed and yeah it kinda flopped.

Everything Cameron has done outside of copying the Anser and Anser2 has been a flop....In my humble opinion.

A flop from a sales perspective or a flop as in you don’t like them?

Both.

The Phantom line was probably one of his worst endeavors. One of the true signals he's lost touch and is just a name more than ever.

Another reason is the materials and sound. They went with aluminum and SS mixture in some of the parts instead of full SS which made a funny sound.

Funny enough though, I play a Phantom X5 because it's in my opinion the best iteration of the Futura X5 shape which is similar to the Odyssey #7 that I like.

I saw a few players using the X5, probably because as mentioned above it appealed to the Odyssey 7 users. I was intrigued by the X12, but once I got a chance to roll it there was just way too much goin on with that putter to concentrate on the ball. Since the whole line is built on basically the same shape, if players didn't like one version they were not gong to like any of them.

So I can only share my experience. I don't know if it translates to the bigger question, but....when I first saw the phantoms I was super excited. Playing a mallet Scotty already, I was chomping at the bit to go try them.

But then I did, and I found the feel to be the same or maybe a bit worse than my current Scotty. I was really disappointed. There was just nothing in them to justify spending $, and frankly I think I liked the feel less.

That was my experience

Yes, the phantoms were definitely a flop. You will likely see them for sale for $249 new next year on discount sites like budgetgolf and others. I'm guessing they cut WAY back on production though since it's a 2 year cycle and they haven't been moving. Luckily the special selects have made up for their lack of succcess. I fully except 1 piece mallets on the futura line next March in a more traditional color.

I don't think they were a terrible flop aside from sales numbers. I don't think SC mallets sell nearly as well traditionally as the blades and others, so perhaps a misguided move diving so deeply into mallets. I liked but didn't love them, and to be honest the Transformers looks and lime color scheme were too much for me to look past; SC has yet to realize that lime green isn't a thing anymore. I also think they made waaaay to many offerings for a mallet and left the consumer confused as to what the differences were. You don't need 5 different yet fairly similar mallet headshapes in a lineup, as well as their higher flow counterparts. Even going back to the GoLo and Kombi lines that they touted so heavily, they only had a few shapes of each with some clear differences between. This was just too much, they could have saved some of these shapes for releases over the coming years.

I have the phantom x6. I hate the yellow lines so I repainted it red. It looks much better now. I don't use it much, but I always get complements on it.

Here's my problem with the phantom line: they all sound and feel different. Each model has different amounts of aluminum in different places so each one is different. Some feel good, others are harsh, some are soft.

I didn’t care about the colors as much, but what I disliked was also the weighting. I like a heavy putter and play the Cameron with 4 weight ports, two in the bottom, two on top. That lets me add a bunch of weight. Oddly, none of the phantom mallets offered 4 weight ports. Even the biggest 12 didn’t.

The aluminum alloy doesn’t allow for a true 1.5 / flare / flow neck, which is where the market is.

Many of the aftermarket putter mods companies won’t touch them for such work. Something about the aluminum not being able to bond.

i have an X6 str I am looking to change the paint fill on. Did you have any issues using acetone or paint stripper on the aluminum finish?

None at all. The aluminum is anodized. As long as you don't use easy off oven cleaner, you're good. LoL!!

I just stripped the yellow off mine and did a silver color. Used acetone and testors model paint.

I’m not really a fan of the newer Cameron mallets. I recently tried out just about all of them. I bought a new squareback select. With the adjustable weights you can get them dialed in any way you like. I have an old phantom which has an aluminum face and I love the way the ball comes off the face. I refinished it last year and use it more than any other putter I have.

Thank you! That’s what I figured as I have never found a finish that the acetone/ citristrip ruined but didn’t want to ruin a brand new putter.