NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Wyndham Clark and Rickie Fowler stirred up one of the biggest equipment stories of 2023 when they played their way into the final pairing at last summer’s U.S. Open using Odyssey’s distinctive Jailbird mallet putters.
Clark won that major at Los Angeles Country Club, but until two weeks ago at Pebble Beach his putting had been nothing much to write about. Putting issues since LACC had consumed a lot of Clark’s attention to the point that he showed up at Pebble with nine putters trying to figure something out with a Phil Kenyon protégé whom Clark knew only as Mike.
“Sorry, don’t know his last name; just met him this week,” Clark said after his course-record 60 on Saturday vaulted him to victory when the final round of the tournament eventually was canceled because of severe weather. “I flew in early Sunday, spent about three, four hours with him. I had nine putters on the putting green and I’ve been using … the putter that Rickie and I have been using, kind of started using that last year and I’ve really struggled on the greens since the U.S. Open.”
Mike Kanski is the head instructor at Phil Kenyon Putting, and he works with tour players such as Nicolai Højgaard and Matt Wallace. After the long Sunday session with Clark, they opted for a new Odyssey Ai-One Jailbird Cruiser, which looks similar to the Jailbird model Clark had been using but had some significant differences.
The new putter removed the alignment cues on the crown instead of the three-dot line atop his former model. It is also more than 3 inches shorter (35.75 inches) than his previous 39-inch model, a length that better fit the new cross-handed grip that Clark started working on last fall but had not used since college. The Ai-One Jailbird Cruiser also has a face insert designed by artificial intelligence to deliver more forgiveness and speed control.
“A lot of big changes, but … when you’re in a spot where I was mentally in putting you kind of needed a change, just something totally different so you couldn’t complain or have those same feels that I had in previous tournaments,” Clark said. “So, yeah, a lot changed, but I think not having the line on the putter’s been the biggest thing for me.”
The results paid off with a magical record-setting Saturday round in which he made 190 feet of putts.
Though his putting stole the show, Clark also switched this season into the new Titleist TSR3 driver (9 degrees) and the new Vokey Design SM10 wedges (P, G and S). He ranked 11th in the field in strokes gained off the tee and third in driving distance (310.1). He hit the fairway on Pebble’s par-5 18th to set up a chance to shoot 59, but his 26-foot eagle putt came up short.
“Once I hit the fairway on 18, I knew I was going to have a chance to hopefully try to shoot that special number,” Clark said. “I gave it my best shot.”
Scott Michaux