Hot Tech: Mickelson’s Versa Alignment Aid

When Phil Mickelson delivered “the best round I’ve ever played” to win the British Open, he did it with help from the distinctive alignment aid offered by Odyssey’s new Versa line of putters.

The core feature of the Versa line is “a high-contrast alignment” pattern, consisting of parallel lines that provide vivid feedback on the face angle in relation to the target line. Unlike traditional sight lines, the Versa lines run perpendicular to the target line.

Why is this so helpful? Because if your face angle is square to your line at impact, the ball travels down the intended line. But if the face angel is even slightly off square, the ball veers off line.

In the words of Odyssey, “The black and white contrast lets your eyes key in on the linear designs and highlights the face angle all the way through impact.”

But something else you should know is that the Versa pattern comes in two configurations: black with white in the middle, or white with black in the middle (as pictured above).

We caught up with Odyssey tour representative Johnny Thompson at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in February, and here’s what he told us: “What I’ve found on tour is that players who tend to use the face to align themselves, they all of them love white-black-white because now, when they look down there, the black kind of deletes the back half of the putter from the eye. Now all they see is this very thin white line, and that becomes a lot easier to align.”

Meanwhile, he added, players who tend to use an alignment cue away from the face of the putter, such as the 2-Ball alignment feature or other sighting aid, gravitate toward the black-white-black configuration. “They’re used to pulling their eyes back off the face for alignment help, so that middle white line becomes their focus.”