What you need to know: Odyssey is expanding its racket lineup with four model ranges that are refurbished, upgraded or all-new. Included are extended models of its White Hot OG line from last year, a new face-to-face rebuild to the sole of the Toulon Design family and two new shapes that take on the idea of how well-designed similar hammer and blades can actually be. The dominant theme across all models is that tolerance, contrary to much conventional wisdom, may have something to do with how close the center of gravity is to the face rather than how close it is to the butt.
the price: Odyssey White Hot OG, $230 (steel) / $280 (StrokeLab); Odyssey Eleven, $300; Odyssey Tri Hot 5K, $400; Odyssey Toulon Design, $450. All rackets are available for pre-order on January 14th. It is expected to be sold on February 4th for retail.
deep diving: What we thought was true about speculators has changed a lot over the past decade. It was a time when we thought only real hackers used a hammer, whose forgiving designs made up for those lousy hits. Now, most of the seven weeks of the top 10 players in the world use the sledgehammer.
What this shift in thinking has really shown us is that tolerance and stability, technically under the so-called “moment of inertia,” are vital to achieving consistency that leads to a more successful posture, whether it’s on push days on the tour or in the grilling room .
But what can change the most in speculators is the nature of the “tolerance”, particularly as to where the center of gravity should be. We’ve seen real hints about it with builds like Cleveland’s Frontline and TaylorMade’s Spider FCG. For the longest time, the thought has been to push the CG away from the face to get the best performance on off-center hits.
Now, Odyssey, the No. 1 putter brand in golf, has delved into the idea of tolerance and stability, and the primary result is two new putter lines, one Hammer (Eleven) and one blade (Tri Hot 5K) both incorporating each forgiving one with the control of the other. This look continues, too, with a new hammer in the White Hot OG lineup and revised faces and sole weight in the sleek, milled Toulon Design lineup.
Essentially, the entire 2022 Odyssey roster doesn’t largely reflect how hammers make better hammers or better blades, but rather how to make both hammers and blades better mallets. The switch appears to make off-center strikes close to the same distance as center strikes, while at the same time reducing the way off-center strikes end to the right or left. The answer is not to push the CG too deeply and at the same time enhance off-center stability, said Patrick Dawson, senior director of research and development at Odyssey. This is not a contradiction in terms.
“It appears to be the classic club designer’s problem: do you want the velocity of the ball, or do you want the lateral angle or the lateral bending force?” He said, referring to the idea that keeping the ball velocity across the face and minimizing lateral rotation solves the problems of placing the twins in distance and direction. “Well, in the racket space, we really think the lateral angle is going to be what causes someone’s shots to stop working. So if you can get a big gain in moment of inertia at the same depth as the CG, you’re really cooking with fire. Because now you’re getting On some extra velocity ball power, you keep all the lateral angle power you have and the result is something very unique and special.”
The result is the Eleven, a larger CG forward hammer with a high MO, and the Tri Hot 5K, a traditional-looking blade with an MOI in line with or even higher than most top-end hammers. Both rackets get that perfect combination of high stability and forward CG with extensive use of multiple materials. The Eleven, shaped like a trapezoid with a face wider than the rear circumference, uses eight distinct parts and includes hot white polymer inserts on the face, plus a heavy dose of steel on the top and front, aluminum on the back and sides and thermoplastic urethane bricks in the middle to produce a very stable head design. . The CG is forward, so off-center hits show less dispersion due to less lateral bend but better ball velocity due to all that heft in the heel and toe for stability.
Of course, getting into this shape is not just a science. Also players’ reactions to the hammers, Odyssey general manager Shaun Tolon said he’s been studying the prevalence of hammers in the round and why some players switch back and forth between hammer and blades.
“What we see is when the CG tends to go back too far on the rackets that have a relatively high MOI, it can be very difficult to rotate them far enough on the way back into the box,” he said. “It takes a lot of energy from a golfer to be able to overcome these two forces, and you end up with the wrong bias to the right.”
The Eleven aims to fix this effect with a more advanced Center of Gravity. Like all Odyssey rackets, it has a graphite-steel combination Stroke Lab shaft, which raises the balance point near the hands for improved stroke repeatability. This newer version features a shorter steel section at the tip and a stiffer profile with a lower overall weight for greater stability.
So if Eleven shows a lot of the face control advantages of a typical blade through the blade’s shallow CG-like location, can the blade develop some hammer stability? Enter the Tri Hot 5K, five recognizable blade styles that specifically use steel, aluminum and tungsten to produce a true blade shape with MOI numbers higher than many common hammers (above 5,000g-cm², which is also higher than many drivers for perspective). The Tri Hot 5K, which also uses White Hot polymer inserts, features a steel hose and face area, then 121 grams of tungsten goes through the front at the heel and toe behind the face. The trailing edge is made of lightweight aluminum and then another pair of 28g tungsten weights in the heel and toe ports in the sole. Almost half of the racket’s total weight is high-density tungsten.
Other Odyssey speculators draw from some of these lessons, too. Toulon Design Ground Rackets have been completely redesigned in two main ways to help the ball speed up consistency. First, the diamond-shaped grinding pattern, including the horizontal lines that divide each diamond, extends across the entire face for a consistent roll and feel. All blades and hammers of the Toulon Design line have shifted from the center sole plate to the heel and toe weights positioned forward toward the forward CG position.
“With mill paddles, the focus has always been on shaping or materials, but where we’ve always thought we can make a difference, it has been to provide a level of technical performance to this category so that we can make these products truly perform at the highest level not just from milled paddles,” Tolon said. , but it is speculative in general.” “But this is the highest level of performance ever.”
The new assortment includes three familiar hammer blades, three traditional hammer and two new modern hammer shapes, Daytona Beach and LeMans.
Lest we forget in this new thinking about tolerance, there are new Home Office variations that have been added to the White Hot OG lineup. The range introduced last year is growing with the double-fanged wide blade and three new versions of the double-fanged No. 7 (including the No. 7 bird with a rear bridge joining those parallel wings). The White Hot OG line also adds three women’s lengths and weights to the popular #1, #7 and 2-Ball hues.
White Hot OG pricing is $230 (for steel), $270 (stroke lab); Eleven, $300 Tri Hot 5K, $400; and Toulon Design, $450. All Odyssey models will be available for pre-order on January 14 and will be available for retail on February 4.
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