Odyssey Giraffe Beam: Are Long Neck Putters Right For YOU?

Odyssey Giraffe Beam putters are designed with a unique, long neck and crank hosel, giving them a distinctive, eye-catching look. The Odyssey Giraffe Beam putters also have a beautiful copper finish and AI-One face insert, but are long-neck putters right for you? In this video, I explain everything you need to know about the new Odyssey Giraffe Beam putters, what a long neck does to a putter’s performance, and more.
00:00 Giraffe Beam!
00:17 Familiar heads – longer neck
00:50 What does a Giraffe Neck do?
02:49 Ai-One Face Insert
04:07 Swing Weight Adjustable
04:43 Who is Giraffe Beam For?
05:15 My Experience with Giraffe Beam
10:10 Send Your Comments and Questions

hey everybody welcome back to the channel odyssey has a brand new family of putters that it has just released and no it is not zero torque this is not an addition to the square to square family of putters but it is definitely going to grab people’s attention when you show up on the practice screen say hello to the Odyssey AI1 giraffe beam family of putters now they’re going to be several different versions of the giraffe beam putters but all the head shapes are going to have several things in common and they’re all going to be shapes that are going to be very familiar to you you’re going to see heel toe weighted blades you’re going to see um compact mallets you’re even going to see a jailbird but what binds all these putters together is this super long extremely tall hence the name giraffe beam huzzle mechanism right here and what it does to the tow hang and the way that these putters are going to swing that’s going to really set it apart so now there’s nothing inherently new about having an extended length crank we’ve seen putters like this before for years and years these this is something that’s been out there for a while it’s definitely has an allure for a lot of different people they just like the look of it they like what it does from a balance standpoint and I’m going to explain that to you um but more than anything else I think there is sort of a mystique about the giraffe beams or the extended length uh crank hoszle what it’s really going to do is it’s going to create a face balance situation you can see that when I balance this putter up here it is going to make the face point directly up to the sky so this setup is going to inherently work best for players that have a relatively straight back straight through putting stroke now why does just simply lengthening out this beam create a face balance condition well if you take a look at the way that the shaft comes down here if you extended down the shaft line it would basically come right into the middle of the top line basically coming down right into here that is going to basically be creating this no towh hang situation when you have a beam that is lower down so this whole assembly would be lowered then the shaft instead of pointing directly into where you can see this white alignment line it would be going in more towards the heel side so more of the putter’s weight would be out towards the toe that is what creates the level of toe hang and makes the putter inherently want to open on your back swing and then need to be rotated released if you will on the forward swing and that type of action that type of balance is much more rewarding for players that have an arc in their stroke it can be a slight arc for a little bit of towang or for players that have a severe arc in their putting stroke ones that have much more to hang tend to work out best for them for players that might be using a mallet or have historically used a mallet because they wanted a face balance situation this is a way to get into different putting shapes different shapes of heads while maintaining that face balance which is going to again reward that straight back straight through stroke that is going to be really be the key and what is really driving the whole giraffe beam uh family of putters now from construction standpoint this is going to have an Odyssey AI1 face into it most of the AI1 faces we’ve seen before have come in two flavors either the gold toned ones which are the mil or the standard white hot version which is um usually white in this case it’s been colored black it does have grooves on the face but the real action can be seen in this window down here on the bottom of this number seven putter there are some areas of the face that are going to be thicker and some are going to be thinner and those thick and thin areas were created using artificial intelligence basically the Odyssey putter designers told supercomputers “We want to create a phase that is going to normalize ball speed across the widest possible portion of the hitting area.” And so basically you’re going to be the supercomputers slowed down and slightly thickened many of the areas that are going to be in the center and made slightly thinner the portions around the heel and the toe and that is going to do a really good job of normalizing ball speed so you get the the ideal roll out of the center but it’s going to take away less energy towards the heel and the toe so balls are going to tend to roll out the same distance across a greater area and according to Odyssey’s research that has really helped players decrease the amount of three putts and that’s really what it’s all about if you’re not going to make the putt you want to leave yourself a lot of tapins to avoid three putts no matter what level golfer that you are now you can see that there are a pair of weights in the bottom of this putter one in the heel and one in the toe those weights are not meant to be adjusted by consumers they’re really there for fitters so they can adjust the swing weight of the putter you want to put in lighter weights in longer putters and heavier weights and shorter putters to normalize out the overall swing weight but of course that can be adjusted based on a player’s preference as well if somebody really wants a heavier putter go ahead and throw heavier weights in there odyssey AI1 Japan putters are also going to come standard with the updated version of the Stroke Lab 90 shaft so this shaft is really going to be optimized to try and help people create a smoother more rhythmic putting stroke so when you put this whole package together you’re getting a face balanced putter really designed for players who have a relatively straight back straight through stroke you have improved distance control and ideally a reduction in the number of three putts and that is going to be coming from the AI1 face insert you’re also going to have the adjustability that’s designed into here to make sure that you’re going to be able to work with a fitter to get the swing weight optimized as well so like I said there are going to be several different head styles that are going to be made available in the giraffe beam family of putters from classic heel toe weighted looking blades to compact mallets like this number seven obviously Odyssey made this putter available to me i was able to take it out in the putting green and put it through its paces and the first thing that I noticed right away is I absolutely adore this sort of deep copper tone to it it is one of the most pretty aesthetically pleasing putters that I’ve seen and I love the fact that Odyssey went and took really had a little bit of fun with the whole idea of the giraffe beam the head cover that comes with this putter has a giraffe print all over it it is a magnetic putter cover so I know a lot of people ask is it velcro is it magnetic it is magnetic so you can drop this and stick it onto the side of your irons and it will stay a fix right there in your bag um they do have some sort of fun giraffe print on the bottom sole there is a small giraffe that’s right there so Aussie had a little bit of fun with it even the grip that comes standard with this putter has a giraffe print on it so that that’s kind of cool they just basically went in all in on the whole concept i personally have a slight arc to my putting stroke so a putter that has face balance something that is designed again for that straight back straight through stroke is really not ideal for me personally um but I did go ahead and try and hit some putts with it and I found it to be feeling just like the traditional AI1 putters that I have tried before with one exception the sound is different and I don’t know why that is but the sound when I was hitting putts immediately I noticed was a little bit more of a hollow sound a little bit more of a thud kind of a sound it didn’t have a really crisp sound and I’ve been putting recently with a number of different mil putters which obviously I know are going to have a sharper more metallic sound by design and that’s really no no mystery this putter sounded different though to me than the other AI1 face inserted putters that I’ve been trying for the last year and a half close to two years at this point it wasn’t offputting but it was not what I expected and for that reason when I initially was stroking and hitting different putts I was coming up short because sound and feel are so closely equated if I hear a more muted sound a duller sound a less pitchy kind of sound to me then it sounds like the ball is going to travel out less far and once I got over that and once I started making a slight compensation and it took me about 10 minutes so I do not think it’s a big deal then the putter behaved exactly like the AI1 insert putters that I have tried in the past and that’s a really good thing i felt my distance control was very good with these with these putters i like the number seven design and style i think that lining up this putter with this single alignment line on the top line and then these two white lines here that bracket the golf ball in the address position I think this is a cinch to line up i personally would go with a slightly larger grip than the grip that came standard but that’s completely subjective if you grips are something that’s really easy to change if you’ve got a putter grip that you like obviously you’ll be able to put it on here as well if you like the the you know the giraffe uh themed putter grip and it sort of fits your hand knock yourself out i think that’s great for me personally I would go with something a little bit larger in diameter i have large hands and that’s just what I’m comfortable with now when I did stand over the ball and I did look down in the address position you don’t notice the extended beam this is not something that you’re really going to notice or um that it’s going to be eye-catching when you look down at the golf ball it basically molds away when you’re looking at the golf ball um I think with this colorway especially the white of a traditional golf ball is really going to stand out really really cleanly um so if you’re worried that maybe because it has this extended crank hoszle that all of a sudden it’s going to look off-putting it won’t i really don’t think that that’s going to be an issue for anybody the reason why I wouldn’t put this putter or another giraffe beam putter into my bag again I think is the most important thing for everybody to realize this putter needs to fit your stroke and for me personally I don’t think it fits my stroke because as I said at the beginning I have an arc in my putting stroke i had to consciously try and go ahead and make a stroke as I was doing this and I don’t want to do that i want to make my natural putting stroke and find a putter that naturally fits the way that I want to putt and for with this one just knowing that I have this face balance condition and that this putter from a balance standpoint from a waiting standpoint wants to go straight back and straight through it made me sort of a little bit more careful with my stroke i found that my stroke didn’t flow as much because I need something that’s going to match my stroke if you out there have a relatively straight back straight through stroke or you have something that has less arc this putter could work for you it’s really designed for that type of player and there are a lot of people out there who do have a straight back straight through style putting stroker they aspire to have that if that’s the case this putter could totally work for you and again like I said aesthetically this is one of the prettiest number seven version uh putters from Odyssey that I’ve ever seen it’s just a gorgeous um honey coppery color the white really stands out i I just absolutely adore the look of it and I like again the little bit of fun that Odyssey is having with the idea of giraffe beam so I think that’s probably just about everything that you need to know about the Odyssey AI1 graft beam family of putters but if you do have some questions about it please feel free to drop them in the comment area below i do try and answer my comments uh whenever possible i do try and monitor my comment areas if you have any questions with regard to Odyssey putters or putters in general I’m here to help you try and make better decisions when it comes to your golf equipment so please feel free to reach out and use me as a resource anytime and once again if you got some good information out of this video it would be super helpful from me if you would smash that like button as well as subscribe to my channel it helps me out tremendously thanks very much and I look forward to seeing you again really soon