Brandt Snedeker is one of the best putters in golf, and has been for a very long time. Since 2009, he's finished inside the top 8 on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting six times, and outside the top 10 five times (including this year so far, when he's 12th). His worst finish in the category was in 2014, when he was 28th on Tour.
In an age where golfers change putters almost as often as underwear, Snedeker's trusty Odyssey Rossie II model is exceptionally un-pristine. Frankly, it's a relative mess, its plating chipped and dinged from countless jostlings in the bag and jolts in air transit. The electric-blue grip is half-greyed with wear. We avid players who have a closet full of failed experiments, and fast-burning love affairs with putters gone sour can feel only envy at the sight.
An appreciation tweet for Sneds Odyssey Rossie. pic.twitter.com/8y8snZF62X
— David Horlander (@dhorlander) February 4, 2020
Never mind that Snedeker is a long-term known quantity in professional golf. No golfer in his or her right mind would challenge the owner of such a worn wand to a putting contest. Shiny new flatsticks are fun to look at and break in, but there's something about the patina on putters of long tenures, like those Corey Pavin, Scott Verplank and Steve Stricker have won millions of dollars with. Jordan Spieth may be just 26 years old, but his trusty Teryllium Scotty Cameron must be at least 50 in putter-years. By that same token, Tiger's own Scotty must be older than Methuselah, not to mention richer than Croesus.
This upcoming 2021 season I'll be replacing my trusty Odyssey White Steel 2-ball CS putter I won back in 2004 with a new 2020 White Hot Odyssey XG 2-ball CS putter I bought last year. For some unexplainable reason I was reluctant to pull the old one from the bag last year and put the new one into play.
I have in my bag a Wilson 8813, it is not one of the originals. I bought this one new when Wilson reissued it in the early 90's. I started to worried that if something happened to it, I wouldn't be able to putt. To solve this problem about 10 years ago I took to eBay and found one. When it arrived it looked like it had never been used, so now it is on display in my den. I get a lot of comments. A lot of can I look at that? And a lot of how can you putt with this? I wouldn't use anything else, and if something happens, I have a back up!
Like Cory Paven I to have an old Bulleyes that I have had since high school. I'm 75 yrs. young. Bulleyes putters are really the only putter Cory has ever used I think But I have changed so many times it's crazy. But every now and then I go back, there is just something about the feel that you keep coming back.
I have the same putter. Several buddies have suggested I should sleep with it.