Odyssey launches putters with artificial intelligence design

Artificial Intelligence-fueled design is Odyssey’s new Ai-One and Ai-One Milled putters

By Tony Dear

Odyssey, the PGA Tour’s most-used putter brand, recently calculated that its staff players’ three-putts cost them a total of $25 million last year.

We don’t have a figure for how much their single-putts made them, but we’re guessing it’s substantial.

After a lot of nerdy number-crunching, Odyssey concluded most of these three-putts were caused by poor speed control. It stands to reason – if you watch two golfers putting for birdie from 40 feet you may find one’s first putt skirts by the lip and finishes a few inches from the hole while the other’s comes up a few feet short, despite the fact they each started their putts on exactly the same line. While the first guy made a solid strike off the putter’s sweetspot, the other missed it by a few millimeters. That guy is now in serious danger of three-putting while the other is already halfway to the next tee having nonchalantly tapped in for par.

Odyssey borrowed some of sister company Callaway’s AI tech to devise a putter that performed consistently no matter where on the face a golfer made contact. Callaway has been using AI to design its driver faces for over five years with AI’s capabilities allowing the company to create tens of thousands of possible scenarios very quickly. That allows it to identify the best solution in short order rather than over a period of several years with a less than dependable process of trial and error. The information AI provided enabled Odyssey to come up with an insert that would help minimize variations in the speed of putts coming off different parts of the putterface, and Odyssey found that putts with this new insert finished up to 21% closer to the hole. The company then came up with two versions of its new AI-inspired putter – the Ai-One and Ai-One Milled.

The back of the Ai-One insert is made of aluminum and features the contouring that make off-center strikes roll at much the same speed as putts hit solidly. The AI-made bumps and bulges can be seen through transparent covers (called Panlite – an automotive-grade polymer) either behind the putterface or – in the case of the Seven S, Seven CH, and Rossie S – on the sole.

The other side, the striking surface, is coated with the white-hot urethane polymer, meaning the Ai-One not only corrects poorly-struck putts but feels great too.
The Ai-One Milled insert is all titanium but, unlike the Ai-One inserts, is not made visible. No matter, the combination of milled precision/elegance and AI-designed, speed-correcting inserts should make the
Ai-One Milled a very highly-valued tool.

Ai-One
$300
Shaft – Stroke Lab 90
Removeable front sole weights (5, 10, 15, 20 grams)
Finish – Blue PVD
Five models:
Double Wide DB (double-bend shaft) – 20˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only
Rossie S (short-slant hosel) – 46˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only
#1 CH (crank hosel) – 47˚  toe hang, 355 gram head, right and left-hand
Seven S (short-slant hosel) – 40˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right and left-hand

Seven CH (crank hosel) – 10˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only.

 

Ai-One Milled
$450
Shaft – Stroke Lab 90
Removeable front sole weights (5, 10, 15, 20 grams)
Finish – Blue PVD
Eight models: (the ‘T’ stands for Titanium)
Seven T CH (crank hosel) – 22˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only
Seven T DB (double-bend shaft) – 0˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right and left-hand

Three T S (slant neck) – 44˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only
Eleven T DB (double-bend shaft) – 0˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only
Two T CH (crank hosel) – 45˚  toe hang, 355 gram head, right and left-hand

Six T DB (double-bend shaft) – 0˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right-hand only
One T CH (crank hosel) – 48˚  toe hang, 355 gram head, right-hand only
Eight T S (slant neck) – 36˚  toe hang, 360 gram head, right and left-hand

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Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

Tony Dear is a former teaching professional and First Tee coach, now a freelance writer/author living in Bellingham, WA. He can be reached at [email protected] 

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