[Jud_T]

In light of today's article in the NYT about the long putter controversey and the impending decision from the USGA & R&A,  I was wondering;  would Tom Watson have won the Open in '09 if he'd used a broom?  There's few things I've been more certain of in my life than the fact that he had no prayer of making that final putt as he stood over it.  Would Ernie have won last year without a broom?  Will there be an asterick next to his victory in future histories? Will the decision just ban anchoring or limit putter length?  I think Johnny Miller would be the first to admit that he never would have won the AT&T late in his career without one.  Will Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott go the way of Betamax, Newspapers and non-inclusionary Republicans?  Thoughts?

[Mark Buzminski]

This is not about the length of the putter. It is about anchoring the butt of the club into a third fixed pivot point.   It clearly stabilizes the club and the stroke ceases to be a 'swing' and becomes more of a 'pivot' action unlike any other action in golf.   For this reason, anchoring should be banned.  

As for Watson, the question seems moot - he is adamantly opposed to long putters.  What I wish is that Watson had used a wedge or something and chipped his third shot from just over the green.   I never liked the choice of the putter there, and you're right, that par putt was never going in.  

[Jason Thurman]

What if he had just taken one less club on the approach. That shot was damn near perfect and just went about 3 feet too far. I'm too young to have been any big Tom Watson fan, but I still hate thinking about anything that happened after the first 71 1/2 holes of that tournament.

Mark, isn't putting already unlike any other action in golf? Bent elbows, no cocking of the wrists, no turning of the hips, etc. I'm not necessarily opposed to a ban, but I haven't heard a compelling argument against anchoring. Honestly, the best argument might just be Mike Davis' "We think it looks stupid" argument.

[Mark Buzminski]

Yeah, Watson pured that approach shot.  He hit it too well, alas.  RE. the ban - a fixed pivot and a free stroke are not the same thing.  A putt with a short putter is still 'stroked' in the same sense as any other short.   Bent elbows, no wrist cock, no hip turn?  It's the only way you can stroke the ball a matter of a few feet or even inches for that matter with any modicum of control.

[Morgan Clawson]

2009 was quite a year.

Kenny Perry almost won The Masters.
David Duval almost won the US Open.
Tom Watson almost won the British Open.

Any 1 of the 3 would have been pretty remarkable.

And Tiger stumbling to lose to YE Yang at the PGA Championship was pretty remarkable too.

[Ted Sturges]

My take on this is that the USGA is going to render themselves irrelevant, which will be sad.  The PGA tour after all does not have to follow the rules put forth by the USGA or the R & A.  What if they simply say, "no...even though the USGA has banned the long putter, we're still going to allow it"...(which they have the right to do...it's their golf organization).  What will happen if the best players in the world are allowed to use it, but the hacks of the world (if they want to follow the "rules" of the USGA) are not?  And all us hacks watch a lot of golf on TV.  My guess is that the USGA will have chosen the wrong battle and will have rendered themselves irrelevant. 

The battle they should have fought was over the golf ball.  Alas...that ship has sailed...

TS

[Garland Bayley]

... but I haven't heard a compelling argument against anchoring. ...

Anchoring was never a component of the golf stroke. Why? Because there never used to be agronomic practices that made it even imaginable that anchoring would be a useful method. It was only the increasing of green speeds that made this perverted stroke useful. The USGA is not going to make a rule about how you grow and maintain grass on the green, so they must control the implements and the way you use them to outlaw anchoring.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Would Ernie have won last year without a broom?  Will there be an asterick next to his victory in future histories?

NO.

YOu can only beat the field that turns up and use legal implements of the day.

No Asterisks for tournaments legally won:
with the old small ball,
when you could carry more than 14 clubs
Sidesaddle putting
etc.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Anchoring was never a component of the golf stroke.

[/quote]

I keep telling you guys: Paul Runyon recommended it as a cure for short putting at least as early as 1971.   

Lawyers will find earlier examples.  This argument on its own, doesn't hold water.

[Jud_T]

My take on this is that the USGA is going to render themselves irrelevant, which will be sad.  The PGA tour after all does not have to follow the rules put forth by the USGA or the R & A.  What if they simply say, "no...even though the USGA has banned the long putter, we're still going to allow it"...(which they have the right to do...it's their golf organization).  What will happen if the best players in the world are allowed to use it, but the hacks of the world (if they want to follow the "rules" of the USGA) are not? 

TS

Ted.  This will never happen IMO.

[Garland Bayley]

"Anchoring was never a component of the golf stroke. "



I keep telling you guys: Paul Runyon recommended it as a cure for short putting at least as early as 1971.  

Lawyers will find earlier examples.  This argument on its own, doesn't hold water.

Sorry, I was not more specific. I did mean back when players were literally whacking the ball to get it to the hole. As the green speeds went up, anchoring became more and more feasible. Do you think lawyers will find that correlation false? To argue that this argument doesn't hold water doesn't hold water.

Try not to take a statement out of context short stuff!

[David_Tepper]

"Anchoring was never a component of the golf stroke. Why? Because there never used to be agronomic practices that made it even imaginable that anchoring would be a useful method. It was only the increasing of green speeds that made this perverted stroke useful."

Garland B. -

I think you are confusing coincidence with causation. Golfers have been suffering from the yips for as long as the game has been played. Leo Diegel, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Johnny Miller, et. al. all developed the yips when green speeds were in the single-digits, not the low teens.

Sam Snead, unlike Ben Hogan, decided to do something about it. He developed alternate techniques for putting. Charlie Owens developed/introduced the broomstick putter more than 30 years ago, well before green speeds reached double-digits.

As someone who has yipped his fair share of putts, I can say that putting on fast greens is easier in the sense that you can get away with taking a much shorter stroke.

DT  

      

[Garland Bayley]

"Anchoring was never a component of the golf stroke. Why? Because there never used to be agronomic practices that made it even imaginable that anchoring would be a useful method. It was only the increasing of green speeds that made this perverted stroke useful."

Garland B. -

I think you are confusing coincidence with causation. Golfers have been suffering from the yips for as long as the game has been played. Leo Diegel, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Johnny Miller, et. al. all developed the yips when green speeds were in the single-digits, not the low teens.

Sam Snead, unlike Ben Hogan, decided to do something about it. He developed alternate techniques for putting. Charlie Owens developed/introduced the broomstick putter more than 30 years ago, well before green speeds reached double-digits.

As someone who has yipped his fair share of putts, I can say that putting on fast greens is easier in the sense that you can get away with taking a much shorter stroke.

DT  

      

I'm not addressing causation. I'm addressing enabling. Can you tell me that Bobby Jones could have used an anchored putter with any effectiveness that would have remotely been useful. Old Tom Morris? They could not, because they had to strike the ball with more force than reasonably possible to do consistently with an anchored club. Can you hit 40 yard pitches with an anchored wedge? As well as with a traditional wedge?

[Sean Leary]

Watson not winning that year still haunts me to this day. Most disappointed I have ever been at the end of a golf tournament....

[David_Tepper]

"Can you tell me that Bobby Jones could have used an anchored putter with any effectiveness that would have remotely been useful. Old Tom Morris?"

Garland -

Yes, I can.

Had the belly putter existed in 1900 or 1925, a golfer could have used it in the un-anchored mode (a la Angel Cabrera) for long putts and anchored (a la Keegan Bradley) for short putts. A resourceful golfer could also have used a standard length putter for lag putts and an anchored putter for short putts.  

That being said, 100 years ago the whippy-ness of hickory shafts were likely a bigger obstacle to the usefulness of long/anchored putters than slow green speeds.

P.S. I have seen golfers in Scotland use anchored putters from 20 to 40 yards off the green and 100' to 200' from the hole.

DT  

[Garland Bayley]

David,

You're older than I thought! Now I know why tee it forward has your approval.

What we need is a empirical test of my hypothesis vs. yours. Doubt we'll get one though. The slower the greens the sooner the anchored putter fails to keep up in accuracy IMO.

I was hoping you would offer a video of you hitting those 40 yard anchored wedge shots.

[David_Tepper]

Garland -

Anchoring might not work for pitching (because you need some wrist cock), but it certainly does for chipping.

Have you ever seen the training club with an extended shaft that is used to help improve one's chipping? It has the head of a 9-iron and the shaft is long enough to reach thru the left arm-pit (for a right-handed player). It keeps the hands in front of the clubhead and prevents "flipping" at impact. Further proof that anchoring (of a sort) works!

Here is a variation of such a training aid: http://www.chip-n-pitch.com/contact.html

and it even works for pitching! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyLZMVsBoe8

DT  

[JESII]

For what it's worth, my memory of the Watson Open, other than the crushing disappointment of the 8 iron and the 8 foot putt, was that Watson made several cross green putts during the first three days. The belly putter is a great advantage on shortish putts but becomes a detriment as speed becomes more important than line...all simply in my opinion of course...

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