This is from Jim Achenbach on Golfweek, who is covering the Senior Amateur at Kinloch, where Vinny Giles unloaded on the USGA for its inaction on belly putters. I think he is exactly correct, but he has more gravitas to make these statements, as a US Amateur champ, a four-time Walker Cupper and as the winner of the US Senior Amateur a couple years ago at Beverly CC. Here are the highlights:
“It’s been a good eight years that I’ve used a long putter,” Giles said. “I could go back (to a conventional short putter), and I wish the USGA had the guts to outlaw them (long and belly putters).
“We should not be able to putt with those things. We shouldn’t be able to putt with anything attached to our bodies.
“Why they’re so gutless, I don’t know. I want them to just say, ‘OK, we make the rules.’ If the PGA Tour wants to say, ‘We’re not gonna play by 'em, we’re going to bifurcation,’ fine, let 'em go.
“But we, as the USGA, should definitely outlaw those putters. There’s no issue, as far as I’m concerned. Nerves are part of the game. Crutches aren’t, and these putters are crutches.
“And that’s coming from somebody who uses one. It’s a lot easier for somebody who doesn’t use one to make that comment. I’m 100 percent in favor of a ban of them.”