{"id":7371,"date":"2017-11-08T20:49:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T02:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=7371"},"modified":"2017-12-21T16:43:24","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T22:43:24","slug":"on-finding-a-new-putter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/equipment\/7371\/on-finding-a-new-putter","title":{"rendered":"On Finding a New Putter"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Putters<\/a>\n

I was halfway through the golf season this year before I buckled down to finding a new putter. I\u2019d been sort of searching since the end of last season, ever since my putter grew legs and walked away from the Brattleboro Country Club. Unless I left it leaning against a tree deep in the woods someone must have retrieved it, but it was never turned into the pro shop. Ever since I\u2019ve been glancing stealthily at players on the practice putting green to see if they had a guilty aspect or, more tellingly, my old putter in their perfidious hands. No luck.<\/p>\n

Putters are the most individual clubs in our bags, usually the only one with a singular name as it\u2019s not part of a set of fairway clubs or irons that are probably signified by some weird number anyway\u2014the PU-007, the SCKX 99, the WTF Tour Series.<\/p>\n

Some players give their putters names\u2014most famously, perhaps, Bobby Jones, who basically used only two putters in all his major wins, Calamity Jane and Calamity Jane II. Such long relationships with putters aren\u2019t unusual. Nick Price once said, \u201cI curse the day the head of my putter fell off. It\u2019s kind of like losing one of your best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/a>

Gary Player<\/p><\/div>\n

(I confess to raiding Jim Apfelbaum\u2019s wonderful 2007 compendium The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations<\/em> for some choice nuggets here.)<\/p>\n

Gary Player and Ben Hogan were on even more intimate terms with their flat sticks. Player said, \u201cIt\u2019s a marriage. If I had to choose between my wife and my putter, well, I\u2019d miss her.\u201d Hogan noted that, \u201cSelecting a putter is like selecting a wife. To each his own.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other end of the spectrum are players (or announcers) like Gary McCord, who said he preferred to use different putters in tournaments. \u201cI go into the pro shop and select a putter off the rack, take it out, use it, and then take it back.\u201d McCord clearly has a fear of putter commitment: \u201cYou can\u2019t get too close to a putter, otherwise it will get you.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it does get you\u2014well, rare is the golfer who has never helicoptered a putter. When he was asked at one tournament why he was using a new putter Craig Stadler said, \u201cBecause the last one didn\u2019t float so well.\u201d<\/p>\n