In the end I was hooked. I had tried to persevere with my Ping Anser or the Odyssey ProType Tour #9 milled model but I was lacking confidence and to be honest had been looking for a new spark for a while. I knew my wrists tended to breakdown in the stroke if I didn't work on it regularly and wanted something to keep them quiet. I am not a big fan of these super size grips and so was interested to see how a heavier putter would help. If you are after a perfectly balanced putter that will improve your stroke with greater stability through impact, then you need the impressive Odyssey Tank Putter. A big statement but it really does what it says on the tin.
The counter balance stability weighting system is 30g in the grip end combined with a heavier head of 400g to create quiet hands through impact. The quieter your hands are the less likely you are to twist or flick your wrists through impact making you putt more purely and more consistently. That is what the teaching pros and magazines all tell you but in reality it really works. I picked it up from the club pro as he opened the shop on Saturday morning and was making the first putt in anger on the first green some twenty minutes later.
For the technically minded amongst you, another reason this putter achieves a superior level of stability is through the total club MOI. The putter has a total club MOI that is 34% higher than a standard putter with a 19% increase in total club weight.
The Tank putter features the new and improved White Hot Insert. According to the marketing suits at Odyssey this insert has been highly engineered for a more consistent sound, feel and tour proven performance. I have to say that it definitely isn't as soft as the milled face of the ProType but it isn't as firm as previous incarnations of this insert. The RRP is £139 but a little bit of looking online found it on sale cheaper and credit to Ali White, the club pro at Royal Ascot, he managed to price match the lowest price on the internet.
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| The Tank #1. Heavier than a lot of others on the market |
So what's the verdict. Well first round out I found that I got a bit lazy with the stroke and expected the weight of the putter to do all of the work and forgot that I had to do something at my end. As a result a lot of early distance putts came up several feet short. The feel though was satisfying. On the plus side I was holing out these tricky three footers. From close distance it was a case of back and through.
It must have helped as I managed a respectable 36 points in the Saturday roll up and managed to take the money. I found a degree of consistency in my game sorely missing in recent weeks and there were precious few moments of concern. The tempo was smooth and the "monkey brain" conspicuous by its absence.
Frustrated by the lack of distance control so obvious at the demo day I took the putter onto the practice green on Sunday for a vigorous getting to know you session. Remembering that the idiot holding it had to do some work; they haven't got an automatic version, I worked on a short back and through stroke. My putting stroke had always been a little long, arguably longer than necessary and I'd been told numerous times that there was a degree of de-acceleration. With the Tank, the heavier head and counter balanced grip does make it much easier to make a shorter concise stroke and I could feel the tempo was more even.
I was happy with the shape of the putter and had wanted to go back to a bladed face which is why I'd been playing with the Anser 2 and the #9 model had fallen from grace. The insert is still firm and there is a nagging worry in the back of my mind that on a course with much quicker greens than Royal Ascot where I usually play, that the heavier putter may struggle. I've only had the one full round so far but the initial reaction is positive and I think this one is a keeper.
Eye fit ? Putter stability !? Dear Lord it sounds like the marketing guys got stuck into you ! Good luck with the new stick though
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