I have reviewed hundreds of golf clubs in my time at Golf Monthly but I don’t recall ever having put pen to paper about a chipper. That all changed last week when the new Odyssey Chipper arrived and I duly took it to my home club’s short game area to really put it through its paces.
I wouldn’t consider myself an especially bad chipper but having suffered on and off with the yips down the years (chipping one handed in a medal was a particular low point) I can see how, rather reluctantly, a club like one of the best golf chippers could provide some respite for those who become particularly anxious around the green with a traditional wedge in hand.
The design of this particular club is very clever. It has a large footprint behind the ball with three white lines on the flange that amplify where the face is aiming. While the sole width looks generous, it is actually stepped like on the current Callaway Apex UW club, to reduce the amount of sole that comes into contact with the ground.
Arguably the two most interesting features are the grooved polymer face insert which softens the feel and the longer, almost putter-style grip, which allows for you to adjust the playing length to execute shots in a manner that feels most comfortable for you.
My first impressions at address were that this is arguably as user-friendly to the eye as it gets. The white face insert frames the ball very well and the spongy grip creates a nice sensation in your hands. A great start, but from here it goes mostly downhill.
The Odyssey Chipper comes with 37° as standard, which is roughly comparable with my 8-iron, with which I happen to play chip-and-run shots when I have lots of green to work with between my ball and the flag.
I don’t mean to be flippant, but if you’re unable to nudge a ball forward a short distance with an 8-iron perhaps golf isn’t for you. From experience, it is on higher flighted shots with more loft and a longer swing where yippers really start to struggle. The Odyssey Chipper will not help you here. Every shot I hit with it came out extremely flat with minimal spin and plenty of release. Opening the face did little to raise the trajectory or spin and actually hindered my ability to get under the ball.
Clean contact was certainly easy to achieve, helped by the lie angle which encourages you to employ it much like you would a putter, although it is not completely duff proof. In fact I was reminded of my short game frailties a few times when I drop-kicked shots with the chipper barely half way to my intended target.
The chipper fared a little better on longer chips and pitches. I can see the appeal from between 25-40 yards from a tight lie and in my testing, it collected the ball cleanly and once I judged the landing spot and released nicely down to the flag.
Out of any sort of rough, however, this club struggled. You need more speed to get it through the grass, but this just resulted in hot shots rolling off the other side of the green. Finesse is not this club’s forte.
I’m fully aware that this club is not aimed at low handicappers, more at golfers who are at the point of desperation with their short game and that it will likely improve results overall in this case. But if golfers become too reliant on it, their short games will become so one-dimensional that any up-and-down scenario, from the rough or that requires some degree of height on the first shot, will leave a lengthy putt (or maybe another Chipper) at the other end, such is the performance the Odyssey Chipper provides.
As you can probably tell, it’s not for me, nor would I recommend it to beginners learning the game, but if all else has failed and you need a quick short game fix, the Odyssey Chipper is worth a go.
