{"id":1167,"date":"2012-12-16T19:40:04","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T19:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaystuller.com\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2013-05-10T18:14:02","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T18:14:02","slug":"the-usga-can-pry-my-cold-dead-hands-from-the-end-of-my-belly-anchored-putter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/golf\/equipment\/1167\/the-usga-can-pry-my-cold-dead-hands-from-the-end-of-my-belly-anchored-putter","title":{"rendered":"The USGA Will Have To Pry My Hands Off That Belly-Anchored Putter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Since long-shafted putters have been around for decades, help older golfers with bad backs and yippy hands, and are even gaining currency among young guns on the PGA Tour, outlawing the so-called \u201canchored\u201d putting style makes about as much sense as Prohibition.\u00a0 And as the Ken Burns series on PBS illustrated a few months back, that smooth move did not exactly lead to a more sober, fair and orderly society.<\/p>\n

Seriously, the USGA and R&A must be facing issues more pressing, and even existential, than anchoring a long putter against one\u2019s chest or belly.\u00a0 The health and future of the sport remains dicey.\u00a0 Major initiatives are under discussion to make the game friendlier and less-hostage to rules as inscrutable as the Internal Revenue Code.\u00a0 So why ban a club that may<\/em> make the game slightly easier for some<\/em> players, and most particularly now?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as if the Blue Coats didn\u2019t have their chance back in the day, before belly putters became as prominent as Malbie\u2019s Gut.<\/p>\n

Former USGA Technical Director Frank Thomas, who made rulings on equipment for more than a quarter century, once said that he did indeed want to ban them.\u00a0 In an interview with TravelGolf.com, <\/em>Thomas lamented that: \u201cOf all the decisions I made, that was the one that was overruled, unfortunately.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 But earlier in December, the former Commissioner of Conformation apparently changed his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that there is a problem with anchoring a club while making a stroke,\u201d Thomas said on his Franklygolf.com<\/em> web site in December. \u201cThe statistics used to determine the best putters do not indicate that there is any advantage gained when using a belly or long putter.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the argument against long putters endures, however tainted by hypocrisy that could almost<\/em> shame a Congressman.\u00a0 The gist is that holding the butt end of the shaft against one\u2019s sternum or stomach enables you to make a more stable and consistent pendulum stroke, which is ostensibly an unfair advantage against someone crouched over a regular-length stick, gripping the club only with the hands.\u00a0 As putting guru Dave Stockton recently observed: \u201cI never understood how they could make it legal to anchor it on your body . . . when they outlawed Sam Snead\u2019s croquet style with nothing anchored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rhode Island-baserd PGA Teaching Professional and Putting Guru Norm Albergio, who has studied and custom-fit putters for more than 15 years, insists that the length of the putting shaft, and any anchoring, makes little difference.\u00a0 \u201cIf anyone has an advantage from long putters, it\u2019s because the heads are heavy.\u00a0 It\u2019s the weight that helps with the stability of a stroke.\u201d \u00a0Cleverly, and to avoid lawsuits, the rule makers have not proposed to make long clubs illegal, just the anchored stroke.<\/p>\n

Blue Coats Losing Control of the Game<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One hopes the USGA and R&A get reasonable during the period of comment on the proposed ruling, and the years before it\u2019s officially implemented. But I think their hypocrisy is driven by the sense that the ruling bodies are losing control of the game.\u00a0 Helpless to bring golf back to an earlier Golden Age, they\u2019re trying to force some kind of change, any kind of change, simply out of desperation.<\/p>\n

A recent Google Consumer Surveys study found that 72 percent of golfers claimed they never read the USGA\u2019s Rules of Golf, and didn\u2019t care.\u00a0 More than 60 percent took mulligans and claimed long kick-in putts as good. If playing in a competitive sanctioned event, or against friends for serious money, most golfers will follow the rules closely. In casual play we\u2019ll even hit from behind trees or out of buried bunker lies if it\u2019s fun and can be done safely<\/em>; if not, we use a foot wedge and no one gives a rusty you know what, except for the self-appointment moralists, who may be offended by the aesthetics of long putters.<\/p>\n

Indeed, with his left arm sticking out like some giant chicken wing that escaped Col. Sanders, Adam Scott used a 49-inch putter during a runaway four-stroke win at the 2011 Bridgestone Invitational. \u00a0Precocious Keegan Bradley and Webb Simpson are winning with long putters.\u00a0 Granted, the stiffness of the anchored stroke makes some golfers look like a mechanical stork.\u00a0 But even conventional putting has often brought out the Inner Furyk; think only of Jack Nicklaus and that slightly open stance, tucked-in back elbow and distinctive crouch that suggested severe stomach cramps.<\/p>\n

But does the anchored putter really<\/em> convey an illegal advantage? Els once contended it takes nerves out of the game.\u00a0 Phil Mickelson says it helps with short putts.\u00a0 Others swear it calms the yips.<\/p>\n

The true advantage of a belly putter is that enables old guys to practice without a debilitating backache, the great hazard of the practice green.\u00a0 And it\u2019s practice that makes for better performance, not the putter.\u00a0 If the Grand Poobahs of golf ban the anchored stroke and inadvertently also outlaw practice, then only golfers who practice will be outlaws. \u00a0For me to change, the USGA and R&A will need to send a team of their thugs to pry the belly-anchored putter from my hands. \u00a0Resistance for a good cause is never futile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since long-shafted putters have been around for decades, help older golfers with bad backs and yippy hands, and are even… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":1168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[1027937,698603,90633,698727,2868,699098,354,699317,294749,4579,1975,2844,158,648123,699587,89813,697873,6474,697984,788,698250,83,1583],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-equipment","tag-pga-tour","tag-travelgolfcom","tag-keegan-bradley","tag-franklygolfcom","tag-frank-thomas","tag-google-consumer-surveys","tag-sam-snead","tag-col-sanders","tag-norm-albergio","tag-webb-simpson","tag-rhode-island","tag-bridgestone-invitational","tag-jack-nicklaus","tag-rampa","tag-n","tag-dave-stockton","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-adam-scott","tag-ken-burns","tag-ernie-els","tag-pbs","tag-usga","tag-prohibition"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2012\/12\/Belly-putter-anchored-jpg.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}