Odyssey Triple Track #7 and Stroke Lab Women’s Putters

Today, Odyssey announces their Triple Track #7 and Stroke Lab Women’s putters.

The #7 represents a natural and welcome extension of the Triple Track putter line while the Stroke Lab Women’s putter line continues Odyssey’s tradition of making putters to meet the needs of female golfers.

Though this is not a huge release for Odyssey, there are some key elements worth exploring with both of these offerings. Let’s start with the new Triple Track #7.

Odyssey Triple Track #7

Triple Track #7 features our innovative Triple Track Technology for improved alignment in the #7, which is our most popular head shape on Tour. It also feature our Stroke Lab shaft to improve tempo and consistency and our Microhinge Star insert for a putter that delivers exceptional alignment, consistency and performance.

The #7 head is one of the iconic Odyssey putter shapes so it makes sense they would want to get a version out there that features Triple Track technology. Yes, when I say technology, I am talking about painted-on Triple Track lines.

Be that as it may, the simple Triple Track alignment system is potentially game-changing for golfers who just don’t feel confident aiming the putter. The belief is that when you combine the Triple Track putter with the Triple Track ball, it is tough to feel lost over a putt in terms of direction. Sure, your read may still suck and you probably needed to hit the ball a little harder but at least the ball went where you pointed it.

Do The Lines Help?

At the start of the year, I was very curious about how this technology would play out with the golfing public. Would golfers embrace the three lines? Will they then also buy more Callaway Triple Track balls? Does lining everything up slow putting or speed it up by eliminating indecision at address?

I don’t really have an answer for obvious reasons. The 2020 golf season has been anything but typical. I don’t know how many Triple Track putters Odyssey has sold so far but I’d not be surprised if the number is an order of magnitude off of expectation. You can’t really quantify public acceptance of a product if said public has not had a chance to purchase said new product.

Perhaps the release of the Triple Track #7 (and #7S) will be just the thing to rekindle curiosity about Triple Track. If these putters start showing up in bags this summer, then we can circle back on the topic of Triple Track effectiveness and market penetration.

Stroke Lab Women’s Line

Stroke Lab Women’s Putters (available in the #7, #1 and 2-Ball) provides Stroke Lab weighting, our White Hot Microhinge Insert provides great feel, the high contrast creates easy alignment, and the components and length are specifically designed to help improve your performance.

The Stroke Lab Women’s putter line is just that – a Stroke Lab putter line geared toward the female golfer. You may be wondering what makes a putter a “women’s putter.”

In this case, it is really three different things.

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First of all, you will see that the color of this line differs from the original Stroke Lab line. Black and yellow has been replaced with blue and silver. The Stroke Lab grip is slightly smaller and the available models are 33”/34”. As such, they’ve been designed with the typically smaller female golfer in mind.

Offering an incarnation of a putter line with different specs for women is not a new concept at Odyssey or other companies for that matter. There was a women’s version of the White Hot Pro, White Hot RX and, I believe, the Divine line was circa White Hot or White Hot Ice. Regardless, they have been making women’s putter lines for a while as have PING, TaylorMade and others.

Do We Need Women’s Putters?

The more I think about this putter line, the more I wonder why it is necessary.

Sure, you have a line that would physically be more comfortable for golfers of smaller stature. Funny thing, though, is that not all women are smaller in stature. No more than all men are of larger stature. Naturally, as a company making products, you play the percentages. But if the main putter line includes a range of lengths and weights, do you need the sex differentiation?

Maybe it comes down to paint. Women’s putters are usually brighter colored, featuring pastels and arguably less aggressive aesthetics. This also seems flawed to me. I find the blue and silver coloring of this new Stroke Lab putter to be way more attractive than the black and yellow men’s (?) putter. Moreover, I’m sure the converse is true for some women.

Maybe my being-male biased causes me to miss the point here. Maybe putter lines such as these inspire more women to play golf and help them to have more fun. If so, they should be considered a vital part of the golf landscape. Such is not the case if they only pigeonhole women golfers.

Y Chromosome Biased

Again, I’m a male and maybe I just don’t get it. If you are thinking this, I’d encourage you to give this article by Anya Alverez a read. She explores essentially this exact topic, What Exactly Makes a Women’s Golf Club a Women’s Golf Club?

The only other similar example I can think of is how the Bettinardi Queen B line was originally marketed as a women’s putter line. As it turned out, men liked those putters, too. Consequently, Bettinardi has removed the sex-specific aspect from the Queen B line. Smart marketing move. You can probably sell a whole bunch more putters if you target all golfers rather than some golfers. I’m sure there are men who are drawn to the blue and silver aesthetics. However, some of these men would never buy a “women’s” putter.

Sorry for soapboxing here. However, most courses are moving away from the concept of men’s and women’s tees. Instead of the starter checking chromosomes, golfers are told to play the tee that fits their game. Shouldn’t golf companies follow that lead?

Releasing Today!

Triple Track #7 and the Stroke Lab Women’s putter line will be in shops near you on June 4. That’s today!

The pricing on both the Triple Track #7 and the Stroke Lab Women’s putters starts at $249.99. If your shop is open, these putters should be there.

Remember, I’m waiting to hear your Triple Track findings. Did you try it out? Did it work for you? Feel free to give me your take on the pros and cons of branding putters as “women’s putters.” If I’m way off base on this, enlighten me.

For more information, head to Odyssey.com.

The post Odyssey Triple Track #7 and Stroke Lab Women’s Putters appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

One-Year Wonders: The best out-of-nowhere great years in modern golf history.

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Submitted June 03, 2020 at 08:15PM by PrincessBananas85 https://ift.tt/2U7BMHc

Tommy Armour gets Spicy with 303 Milled Series Putters

The original Tommy Armour (winner of the 1927 U.S. Open, 1930 PGA Championship and 1931 Open Championship among other titles) may or may not have been the stereotypical “dour Scot.” But if he was, he would be dismayed to discover how the new Tommy Armour milled putters got their names. (More on that later.)

Rest assured, however, that the “Silver Scot” would have approved of the product itself.

PEPPERS and WHATNOT

New from Tommy Armour, the 303 Milled Series Putter comes in four head shapes, each identified with the name of a different hot pepper.

The Trinidad is Tommy Armour’s classic blade with a “plumber’s neck” hosel. The strong toe-hang balance should suit players with an arc-style stroke. The Habanero is a wide-blade head with a slight toe hang for players with a slight arc. The new Datil is a mid-mallet with slight toe hang and the Serrano is an alignment putter for those with a “straight-back, straight-through” stroke.

Each putter is 100-percent CNC-milled with a silver milled top line and a brushed satin sole. The forged 303 stainless-steel heads feature a proprietary Speed Balance Technology milling pattern that Tommy Armour claims to improve distance control by 60 percent. The face pattern utilizes a 0.8-millimeter milling path intended to create more surface area towards the toe and heel to counteract off-center hits and equalize energy transfer across the face.

Suggested retail is $249.99, but through 10PM Pacific Time, it’s only $169.98.

That’s a long way from $99.99, which is where Tommy Armour’s Impact Series putters sit. Before you pooh-pooh these reasonably priced putters, remember the line won unprecedented back-to-back Most Wanted awards from MyGolfSpy.

Going the other direction, price-wise, it’s also a long way from what you would pay for other 100-percent CNC-milled putters with similar manufacturing standards bearing more famous, ego-boosting brand names. Want a new 2020 Scotty Cameron? Don’t choke on the $400 sticker price.

THE NEW TOMMY ARMOUR

All things considered, this new line of putters deserves your consideration.

But first, clear your mind of preconceived notions about Tommy Armour clubs—unless those notions go way, way back to the iconic 845s irons, released in 1987.

Earlier this year, MyGolfSpy’s John Barba did a deep dive into the company’s rise and fall and subsequent resurgence as the house brand for DICK’S Sporting Goods.

“You could write a business-school case study on the 845s and how it made Tommy Armour a major force in golf,” he wrote. “You could also write a case study on how the 845s, quite unintentionally, led to Tommy Armour’s downfall. It’s a lesson in how tremendous success often sows the seeds of failure.”

David Michaels is Senior Product Manager for DICK’S. “Tommy Armour hit a home run with the 845s and rode that for years but then it got sold a couple of times, including to Sports Authority who put the name on every single piece of opening price-point piece of crap: zinc irons, aluminum heads, you name it.”

In his view, Sports Authority tried to ride the Tommy Armour name recognition. Ride it they did—right into the ground and, in the process, totally devalued the brand. When SA went bankrupt, DICK’S purchased its private-brand names and customer database.

“To golfers who have been around awhile, the Tommy Armour name represented a nostalgic premium brand,” says Michaels, who has been in the golf business for almost 20 years. “We wanted to try to restore the luster.”

MyGolfSpy’s Chris Nickel concurs. “Tommy Armour wants to be a serious player in the equipment market and this is another step in that direction. We’ve covered why Tommy Armour metal woods and irons are, from the design/manufacturing/materials standpoints, equal to, if not better, than higher-priced competitors.”

Tommy Armour 303 – Milled Mystique

As is often the case, two minds are better than one. Michael’s associate, Chris Karis, played an integral role in the creation of the 303 Milled Series.

“It was a fun project,” he says. But not perhaps for whatever reasons you might be thinking.

“We inherited a certain brand equity with the name Tommy Armour and we would be asked by brand loyalists when we were going to make a higher-end putter. These were guys who understood the value of a milled putter but who wanted one with the Tommy Armour name on it.”

The bonus was that they were getting that quality for substantially less than comparable products on the market.

“What if you could get the same performance from a putter but pay $250, not $400?”, Michaels asks. “All we ask is for golfers who are looking for a premium putter to give ours the ‘taste test’.”

According to Karis, the Tommy Armour 303 Milled Series putters offer quality and performance—“and a story worth telling.”

WELL, DO TELL…

MyGolfSpy is pleased (“honored” is too strong) to reveal a previously untold story which, in the immortal words of MGS colleague Chris Nickel, involved some “good ol’ barley-inspired creativity.”

“I’m not sure even our boss knows the real story behind the names of the putters,” Michaels says.

So, in what hopefully is not a career-limiting move, Michaels and Karis shared the back story with MGS.

The genesis of the “pepper” nicknames began after another long, sweaty day at Golf Galaxy’s annual golf expo in Orlando, Fla.

“It’s like a mini PGA Merchandise Show,” Michaels explains. “We invite all our key partners like Titleist, Callaway, PING, TaylorMade, Mizuno, Cobra, DICKS’S, and so on to a three-day cram session to see, try and talk about all the significant new stuff coming out.”

Like any trade show, the days are long and repetitive, with presentations, face-to-face conversations, demo outings. Naturally, one expects to “decompress” after such days, right?

“There was a Chili’s just down the road and that was our spot,” says Michaels. While familiar with the chain’s trademark baby back ribs, the group was pleasantly surprised—to put it mildly—to discover a nightly 2-for-1 drink special. A generous gesture, to be sure, and an offer the group could not refuse.

It opened the taps, literally, for that “barley-inspired creativity.”

“We knew the new putter line was going to be awesome,” says Michaels. “We know we can build premium golf products rivaling the best in the world from the design, craftsmanship, and manufacturing standards.

“But the question we were asking ourselves was, ‘How do we bring these to life?’”

On that fateful night at Chili’s, that question was asked yet again. The group tossed around the idea of coming up with labels that would be sort of an inside joke with a tie-in to the setting for this brewski-fueled brainstorming session.

After several suggestions (one idea was to call the new putter line “2-4-1”), someone came up with the idea of using the pepper logo as a theme: “Heating up on the putting green” … Smokin’ hot” … You get the idea.

While the putters themselves are good looking, the headcovers are outstanding. Although Michaels and his team tried to find a way to have the covers on the clubs in the putter corral in stores, that wasn’t possible. Too bad, because the covers are works of art on their own merits in bright yellow, orange, green or red, with the chili pepper logo.

If the time you spend giving the 303 Milled Series the “taste test” is as enjoyable as the time I spent interviewing Michaels and Karis, then it’s worth the investment.

“We’re just a couple of guys from Pittsburgh who want to offer golfers a quality product at a good price and have some fun at the same time,” says Michaels.

And maybe a pint or 12 along the way.

Tommy Armour 303 Milled Series Putters – Pricing and Availability

Tommy Armour 303 putters are available now. The standard retail price is $249.99. Through 10PM Pacific Time tonight, the price has been reduced to $169.98.

For more information visit click here.

The post Tommy Armour gets Spicy with 303 Milled Series Putters appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Annika Sorenstam on breaking gender—and scoring—barriers, being golf buds with Tiger Woods, and her new quarantine hobby.

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Submitted June 02, 2020 at 05:05PM by PrincessBananas85 https://ift.tt/3091JcS

A Tuesday Tee off! Casual bogies to birds! Check it!

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Submitted June 02, 2020 at 10:51AM by CFLiP1515 https://ift.tt/3cqjc3k

Best cleat wrench?

My father seemed to find it painful to change the cleats on his shoes. I noticed he uses Black widow cleats but don’t know about his wrench. Is there a best wrench that doesn’t hurt?

Submitted June 01, 2020 at 07:02PM by chawan_mantis https://ift.tt/3cpiAej