PHOENIX, ARIZONA - MARCH 29: Hyo Joo Kim of South Korea celebrates on the 18th green after winning the Ford Championship presented by Wild Horse Pass 2026 at Whirlwind Golf Club in Wild Horse Pass on March 29, 2026 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

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When Hyo Joo Kim captured the LPGA Tour’s 2026 Ford Championship last month, she did more than just secure back-to-back wins and yet another trophy to her mantle. She arguably ignited the next big revolution in golf equipment. En route to winning her ninth career tour event, Kim was armed for the second consecutive week with the brand-new L.A.B. Golf LINK.2.1 putter, a club that featured a distinct technological advantage: a Mitsubishi Diamana Matte Black putter shaft. Her victory validated a trend that’s been simmering beneath the surface of professional golf. While the driver often receives the lion's share of glory for its explosive distance and high-tech carbon crowns, the putter is where the financial rewards are truly earned. For decades, graphite shafts have dominated the woods and irons categories, yet the putter remained the final, stubborn frontier for traditional steel.

Roughly 20 percent of tour pros currently compete or experiment with graphite putter shafts at any given time. However, this particular Diamana model stands out because it was made specifically for the new putter through a bespoke co-development process with L.A.B. Golf, a high-end custom-putter company known for its radical "Lie Angle Balance" philosophy. By collaborating directly with L.A.B.’s engineering team, Mitsubishi experts were able to optimize the putter’s performance via a ground-up redesign of the shaft’s internal structure to match L.A.B.’s exact requirements for straightness, weight distribution and geometry. The result delivers ultimate consistency, ensuring that the putter head behaves exactly as intended throughout the entire duration of every stroke.

After an initial meeting, Mitsubishi officials traveled to the L.A.B. headquarters in Oregon. After identifying the target straightness, torque and frequency, they focused on the extremely specific shaft geometry that could maximize shaft performance – and quickly began producing prototypes that were ready for tour testing within about four months, a timeline that typically stretches beyond six months. This accelerated pace was fueled by a total commitment from Mitsubishi to solve the specific mechanical issues L.A.B. was facing. Mike Hearne, Senior Manager of Golf Sales at Mitsubishi, recalls the immediate feedback from L.A.B. after the first installation. Their representative called from the green, unable to contain his excitement, noting that while players often struggle with distance control when first experiencing the unique feel and sound of a L.A.B. putter, this was the first shaft that immediately dialed in that control. “We knew we had something special,” says Hearne.

To make this a game-changer, Mitsubishi employed a craftsman hand-roll process using full-length, high-strength carbon fiber plies in internal layers, to create a super smooth bend profile for the best-possible feedback and feel. The result is Mitsubishi’s lowest-torque, firmest-feeling putter shaft ever that achieves stability without sacrificing feel.

“The L.A.B. partnership is a natural extension of what Mitsubishi has always done at the highest level: applying material science to improve consistency,” says Chris Dunlap, Strategic Global Marketing Manager at Mitsubishi. “L.A.B.’s successful technology is focused on delivering a square face without manipulation, and that aligns directly with how we approach shaft performance by reducing variables and improving repeatability.” After all, if the shaft doesn’t twist and the head doesn’t rotate, the ball has no choice but to start on its intended line.

The early LPGA Tour wins – the very first two weeks the putter and shaft were available – is a powerful validation point, but not a surprise. At that level, players are hyper-sensitive to face control and the click or thud of impact. And when a piece of equipment performs, word spreads quickly through the locker room. As a result of Kim’s victory, Mitsubishi officials are already seeing increased interest from both LPGA and PGA Tour players.

From a product standpoint, the “secret sauce” comes down to materials and construction. Advanced carbon fiber, low torque profiles, and precise layup design allow Mitsubishi to reduce unwanted deflection and twisting during the stroke while maintaining a clean, consistent feel. “The goal isn’t to make the putter feel different, but rather to make it behave more predictably,” says Dunlap. “In many ways, we’re bringing the same consistency-through-materials philosophy that’s defined our Diamana and TENSEI wood and iron shafts into the putter category. The proper putter shaft plays a critical role in how the putter is delivered at impact – it stabilizes the face, improves start line consistency, and helps you find the center of the face more often…this leads to tighter dispersion and more consistent distance control.”

You can’t really blame golfers for ignoring graphite putter shafts for so long. Steel shafts have been manufactured the same way for nearly a century, so golfers just paid more attention to head shapes, alignment lines and weighting. But composites offers a level of customization that steel cannot. The primary differentiator for the Diamana is the sheet wrapping method it undergoes in the manufacturing process that allows engineers to layer different types of carbon fiber with precision.

Says Tom DeShiell, Manager, Product Development & Innovation at Mitsubishi: "We can vary the fiber type in specific areas, to change stiffness or optimize torque.” Plus Mitsubishi can place more material in specific sections – resulting in a shaft that’s lighter than traditional 135-gram steel options while remaining way more stable. For this specific putter, L.A.B. required very tight tolerances to maintain the face-balancing of its putters – right down to the shaft’s straightness. The result is a unique, 42-inch matte-finished shaft specifically tailored for L.A.B.’s needs. While longer than most putter shafts, it remains incredibly stiff and low-torque. For the golfer, this translates to a putter face that stays square to the path with minimal effort – providing a smooth, consistent feel that absorbs vibration at impact. It allows golfers to feel exactly where the ball is striking the face, fostering the connected feel essential to building on-the-green confidence.

As we enter this new era for the putter market, the success of this collaboration is already visible on global leaderboards. Mitsubishi, once a quiet player in the putter category, is now disrupting the status quo. In the past 12 months, the company had already built more putter shafts for tour pros than ever before, following the lead of stars like Collin Morikawa who have also explored the benefits of Diamana shafts. Now that Kim won two weeks in a row, nearly 30 tour pros have ordered her Links putter model with the Diamana Matte Black shaft. The message to all golfers is clear: the shaft in your putter matters just as much as the one in your driver. For those seeking the ultimate combination of stability, precision and feel, the Diamana Matte Black has set a new gold standard. In the long term, golfers will likely stop thinking of the putter as just a head on a stick and start viewing it as a complete, integrated solution where the shaft is the engine of consistency.