Odyssey's Newest Putters Let You Look Under the Hood at the Tech
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The Ryder Cup was on the line. Spain’s Jon Rahm needed to win the 18th hole at Italy’s Marco Simone to rescue a halve in Sunday’s opening singles match with American Scottie Scheffler.
Team USA was surging. There was just enough red on the scoreboard for the Americans to believe in a comeback from five points back and for the Europeans to be worried. Rahm reached the par-5 18th green in two and faced an imposing 90-foot eagle putt.
In three days of memorable clutch putts, Rahm then stroked the Ryder Cup’s best putt that didn’t go in the hole. His lag attempt snuggled close to within nine inches and his birdie was conceded. When Scheffler missed a chip, Rahm took a crucial half-point away from the U.S. and Europe went on to win the Cup again.
Can you read too much into any one putt? Especially one that didn’t disappear into the cup?
Sure. But its backstory also shouldn’t be ignored. Rahm had put a new Odyssey AI-One putter into play at the DP World Tour's BMW Championship at Wentworth, England. The putter was designed by AI—artificial intelligence—to create consistent speed on a putt no matter where on the putter face the ball was struck. It’s the Holy Grail of putting, basically.
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Joe Toulon, a Callaway representative, asked Rahm about that Ryder Cup moment a few weeks later. Toulon told Rahm he obviously rolled a great first putt and must have hit it right on the center of the face, right?
“No,” Rahm answered. “I hit that one on the heel. I didn’t think it was going to get there.”
Wait a minute! Rahm mishit a putt from 90 feet and still cozied it up to within nine inches?
That could have been all Rahm. He has already proven he has what’s known as “the clutch gene.” Remember those big putts on the last two holes when he won the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines? Remember his gritty play when he won the Masters? There was Friday and Saturday at Marco Simone, too, where he sank some big putts and let’s not forget that 66-footer to beat Dustin Johnson in the 2020 BMW Championship playoff at Olympia Fields.
Maybe Rahm hit that Ryder Cup putt better than he thought. Then again, maybe the Odyssey AI-One putter deserves at least an assist. Didn’t it produce exactly what it was designed to produce—a mishit that rolled out to nearly the same distance as a purely struck putt? And in this case, from 90 feet?
Courtesy Callaway Golf
Here’s another shred of evidence: Rahm had no three-putts at Wentworth over four rounds the first week he used the AI-One. Then came the Ryder Cup and, well, you know the rest.
The putter ended up in Rahm’s bag thanks to a deep dive into statistics by Odyssey’s staff when Rahm met with them for his quarterly checkup/analysis. In robotic testing, it was determined that the AI-One rolled balls 21% closer to the hole, including off-center hits. So that number was applied to Rahm’s 2023 performance.
“For our tour players, we looked up a lot of data, kind of a ‘Moneyball’ approach,” said Luke Williams, senior director for Odyssey putters. “We looked at a player’s putting stats and said if we applied this AI insert technology to your putter, if you hit every putt the exact same way with the same read, your proximity to the hole would be closer. For Rahm, it would’ve reduced his three-putts from 23 to 12 this year. Those three-putts cost him $2.5 million.”
The extra made putts would have improved his strokes-gained putting average by 0.2 and jumped him from 23rd to 8th in the Tour’s statistics. Those numbers are attention-getters. “Tour players are looking for fractions of strokes of improvement,” Williams said. “There’s a fine line between making a cut and missing, winning and losing or finishing top 10 or top 30. If we can help them find one-quarter of a stroke per round, that’s massive.”
Distance is more critical than direction in putting. A putt hit exactly the right distance will end up fairly close to the cup barring a complete misread or a spasm during the stroke. (Or a stroke during the spasm? That’s never happened to you, right?)
“This technology serves you better when you get farther from the hole,” Williams said. “It’s about leaving shorter second putts. Everyone knows that feeling when you hit a putt on the toe and you’re thinking, ‘Go, go, go, it’s not gonna get there!’ If we can get those lag putts closer, we reduce the number of three-putts.”
Does that sound like it describes a certain 90-footer or what?
The Odyssey AI-One solution included multi-material construction, proprietary contours on the aluminum back of the putter face’s urethane insert. The putter comes with two different inserts—the AI-ONE, a mold insert with a grooved urethane layer that delivers the same feel as the company’s best-selling White Hot inserts. The other one, the AI-One Milled, has a titanium insert paired with a stainless steel head for a firmer feel.
“The story of the AI-One is the insert, the insert, the insert,” Williams said.
A second story is cosmetic. A transparent window on the bottom of the putter head allows you to peek inside, sort of like looking under the hood of a sports car. You can’t see much, really, but it’s another never-before-done wrinkle that adds to the club’s premium feel. The window is made of Panlite, an automotive-grade polymer, and is available only on the AI-One, not the AI-One Milled.
A third story is that Rahm used the AI-One Rossie S, a rounded mallet, at the Ryder Cup, and that a tour player wielding a mallet putter instead of a blade is no longer unusual. In fact, it’s the new norm. (Get the AI-One Rossie S for $299)
“About 72 or 73 percent of our putters in play on tour are mallets,” Williams said. “For all manufacturers, that number is in the mid-60s. It’s a trend that is growing.”
The AI-One comes in seven head shapes, including the Double-Wide DB, a heel-shafted blade; the #1 CH, a traditional blade with a cranked hosel; two versions of the #7, a mallet with two fangs in back—the S model has gooseneck hosel and the CH has a cranked hosel; the 2-Ball and the Jailbird Mini. All seven are already in stock in the AI-One Milled version. Three AI-One models, including the 2-Ball, will become available in February. The AI-One, $299 suggested retail, and AI-One Milled, $449, can be found in major retail outlets such as PGA Tour Superstore.
Here’s one more piece of evidence. Sam Burns, another Callaway player, had used the same putter since he got in tour in 2017. Each year, he tries out the newest models but politely says no thanks and sticks with the one he brought to the dance.
An AI-One #7 S putter was waiting for him Monday in Atlanta before the Tour Championship. Burns picked it up, liked the feel, practiced with it for a few hours on East Lake’s putting green and immediately put it in play that week. He kept using it during the Ryder Cup.
The use of artificial intelligence to design things will only continue to grow. But really, while Callaway had already used AI for a few years, initially to design driver faces, who thought it would be used to design putters? Drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and irons, sure. But putters?
“Creating a putter was a little different than creating the other clubs where you try to maximize distance,” Williams said. “Nobody brags about how far they hit their putter.”
Obviously, AI designs are going to increase in golf. And in every other manufacturing process. Is this the first sign that Arnold Schwarzenegger was right, that the machines are going to rise up and defeat us?
“This is the friendly kind of AI,” Williams said. “Not the sinister kind from the movies.”
The following message is just in case: Machines Welcome Here.
(You can’t be too careful.)