There have been many game changers, like wooden balls to featheries, smooth gutties to patterned gutties, solid Haskells to wound Haskells, and dimpled wound balatas to solid cores. Wood shafts became steel and graphite, wood heads became steel and titanium. During the era of featheries irons were sparsely used (they damaged the cover), specialized pieces of equipment with no grooves., Now they’re full sets with grooves and cavity backs. We’ve gone from 13 rules to 34, along with hundreds upon hundreds of decisions that have changed the way we play the game.
Here are some of Adam Scott’s putting stats and corresponding rank on Tour:
2011 2010 2009 2008
<5’ 94.81/176 93.75/188 94.71/170 92.94/196
5-10’ 59.38/34 46.55/189 47.67/180 48.41/191
10-15’ 25.00/161 25.68/157 23.01/173 39.77/1
15-20’ 18.46/98 22.77/17 13.43/171 26.53/3
20-25’ 12.50/81 17.11/24 12.50/84 6.25/189
25’ > 5.99/54 6.28/52 5.97/71 6.16/62
Birdie or 30.89/43rd 29.52/56th 27.77/133rd 30.70/18th
Better
Conv.
When I read these I see a player who was on top of the world from 10-15’ and 15/20’ in ’08 but fell off the planet going forward. He had a couple of bright spots in ’10, from 15/20’ and 20/25’, but lost it again in ’11. The long putter has done little for him in all categories except the 5/10’ range.
His B orB conversion rate in ’08, ’10, and ’11 is fairly constant.
There’s nothing that’s going to harm the game (my opinion) in Adam Scott’s (or others) use of a long putter, although It may help Adam Scott a bit but only if he can get the ball between 5 and 10’ from the hole.
Similarly, a line drawn on a golf ball has little to do with changing the game. The most visible ‘offender’, Tiger, has seen his stats worsen in the >5’ category, and he hasn’t rubbed the line off his ball over the past 4 seasons.
’08 – 98.01% - 1
’09 - 98.08 - 4
’10 - 97.35 - 23
’11 - 96.70 – 60th
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