Odyssey Ai-ONE putters

Golfweek’s David Dusek reviews the new Odyssey Ai-One putters. Odyssey has developed two new putters, the AI One and the AI One Milled, which use artificial intelligence to normalize ball speed across a larger area of the face. This technology was presented to John Rom and Sam Burns before the Ryder Cup and Tour Championship respectively, and both players switched to the AI One putter. The AI One putter has a white hot insert with grooves on the front, while the AI One Milled has a gold toned insert with milling marks across the face. Both putters have weights on the bottom for fitting purposes.

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Everybody hates three putting from recreational golfers to the most elite Putters on the PGA tour people despise three putting it’s like giving away Strokes on the green but what’s really interesting is that very few players misread a pot left or right by up to say four or five ft but they will very

Oftentimes blow a pot four or 5T past the hole or leave one really really short which led the folks at Odyssey to try and develop a new way to try and help people improve their performance on The Greens the result of all of their work is these two Putters right here the

New ai1 and the AI one mil and while from the front they may look like a lot of Putters you’ve already seen they have something very very interesting on the inside that can potentially help you three putt a lot less often now I’m going to start by talking about the

Standard ai1 and as you can see from the front it has a white insert and yes this is a white hot insert that’s been around for over 20 years it’s extremely popular it has a very soft feel to it it creates a very pleasing sound in this particular

Case there are a series of grooves on the front of that insert but the real story in the ai1 is on the back you see underneath the urethane coating on that insert is an aluminum piece that has been shaped using artificial intelligence the folks at Odyssey programmed up those supercomputers to

Try and basically normalize the ball speed coming off of mishit putts you see when you strike a pot in the middle of the hitting a you’re going to get the ball to roll out the ideal amount but most players very often are going to be M hitting pots just a little bit towards

The toe or just a little bit towards the heel even the best Putters in the world Miss hit putts so what the AI face does in the ai1 putter is try to normalize the ball speed across a larger area of the face and the computers did that by

Making thicker areas and thinner areas in the back of the insert so the ball again gets normalized gets the same speed across a much larger area and when that happens theoretically you’re going to get better distance control because you’re going to get the same amount of

Roll from putts struck in a larger area of the face this is the technology and this is the story that John ROM was presented with a few weeks before the rider cup and is the reason why he went and made a putter change for the first

Time in a while he had been using a standard Odyssey Rossy Potter that in his case had a uh hinged micro hinged face insert well he was presented with the information about how much better this insert the ai1 insert performs the fact that according to odyssey’s research golfers tend to have a 20%

Shorter leave distance when they don’t make the pot using this putter insert well Rah was presented with that information and told that had he had an ai1 insert in his putter it would have been anticipated over the course of 2023 that he would have gone up in his

Performance in terms of Strokes game putting from ranking number 23 at the time of the presentation which is fantastic into the top 10 and he would have three putted less often that would have translated in terms of dollars to winning about2 to2 and5 million dollar more prize money by taking out those

Three pots and turning them into two pots that immediately got rah’s attention and that is the big big reason why he made the switch before the Ryder Cup and Rome now while there are many players that really like the white hot insert and certainly are going to be

Very interested in trying out the ai1 insert technology many of them also really prefer the feel and the sound that’s going to be created from a classic M Potter And for those players they are in luck because there is a mil version of the ai1 putter it’s going to

Be very easy to tell the two Putters apart because the standard ai1 Putters have that white hot insert and the mil Putters are going to have this gold toned insert where the marks across the face are very very easy to spot as see also decided in the mil version not to

Include the window on the back so you’re not going to be able to see the AI face you’re not going to see in the mil putter the different ridges and grooves and and thicker areas and thinner areas on the back like you will see it in the standard ai1 from a fitting standpoint

Both Putters have weights on the bottom that are not really designed to be adjusted by consumers but they are there for fitters so that they will be able to swap out those weights and put in heavier weights or lighter weights based on either a player’s preference or on

The putter overall length I think can get a swing weight just where it needs to be and as I’m sure you can probably anticipate there are going to be several different head versions of these Putters both the standard ai1 as well as the ai1 mil that are going to be available from

Heel toe weighted Blades of various sizes and thicknesses to relatively compact mid mallets and larger Mallet Putters as well so now you know why John ROM switched Putters and went to a new Odyssey ai1 Putter right before the Ridder cup as well as Sam Burns he put

An odyssey ai1 number seven in play at the Tour Championship it was this technology that really spurred them to making those changes thanks a lot and I look forward to seeing you soon