How new AI-crafted putter helped Wyndham Clark win AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Wyndham Clark made history Saturday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am by firing a course-record 60 at one of golf's most historic courses. After the tournament's final round was canceled by the severe storms that hit California the following day, that incredible round also earned him his third PGA TOUR victory in less than a year.

What you may not know is that Clark was using a new putter – and a new driver – during his record-breaking performance.

From afar, it may have appeared that Clark was still using the similar-looking Odyssey Jailbird mallet putter that he rode to victory at the 2023 U.S. Open, but in reality, he was using a brand new Odyssey Ai-One Jailbird Cruiser, which displayed some significant changes compared to his U.S. Open-winning flatstick. (In case you forgot, Clark and Rickie Fowler helped re-popularize the original Jailbird mallet putter that was first released to the public in 2014, which set off one of the top-10 gear stories of the year.)

The new putter helped to match his new putting stroke.

Recently, Clark started working with putting coach Mike Kanski, who’s the head instructor at Phil Kenyon Putting, and he works with PGA TOUR players such as Nicolai Højgaard and Matt Wallace.

Clark says he met Kanski through friends, and he spent several hours working with him on his putting on the Sunday before the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. During the session, Clark and Kanski tested out nine different putters, looking for the right fit.

“I’ve got to give some credit to my team,” Clark said on Saturday after his historic round. “I worked with a guy by the name of Mike [Kanski] … just met him this week. I flew in early Sunday [to Pebble Beach], and spent about three, four hours with him. I had nine putters on the putting green, and I’ve been using kind of the putter that Rickie [Fowler] 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.”

Among the nine putters in question was a new Odyssey Ai Jailbird putter, equipped with no alignment line on the crown, whereas Clark’s previous U.S. Open-winning putter had three small dots on the crown.

Additionally, while Clark was using a 39-inch putter in 2023, his new putter at Pebble Beach measured merely 35.75 inches, to help better fit the new cross-handed grip style he used during the week.

“So basically I brought these putters and we resulted to changing no line on the putter,” Clark explained. “I went a little bit shorter, and I went from being conventional to cross-hand. A lot of big changes, but when you were as – when you’re in a spot where I was mentally in putting, you kind of need a change, just something totally different so you couldn’t complain or have those same feels that I had in previous tournaments. So yeah, a lot changed, but I think not having the line on the putter’s been the biggest thing for me.”

Aside from the length, and removing any alignment lines or dots from the crown, Clark’s new head also has a face insert designed by artificial intelligence. To help golfers achieve more forgiveness and speed control on their putts, Odyssey’s new line of Ai-One putters use new-age face inserts with varying levels of thickness.

The putter wasn’t Clark’s only change this week at Pebble Beach, either. He also switched from Titleist’s previous TSi3 driver — which was released to the public back in 2020 — into a new Titleist TSR3, which debuted in late 2023. Clark won both the Wells Fargo Championship and U.S. Open in 2023 using the TSi3 driver. However, since the end of 2023 he switched back and fourth between the new TSR3 and older TSi3. Clark settled with the TSR3 and it paid off at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

In addition, he made another recent switch, upgrading from Vokey SM9 wedges into Titleist’s new Vokey Design SM10 wedges two weeks ago at The American Express.

While Clark’s equipment equation was a bit confusing at the start of the week at Pebble Beach, it all equaled out to a victory and the new Pebble Beach Golf Links course record.

What a start for the Clark-Kanski duo, and Clark’s new look on the putting greens.

To see in-hand photos of what else Clark had in the bag at Pebble Beach, head over to GolfWRX.com.