Sports

New USGA rule to ban anchored putting

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It started when a major champion couldn’t putt, so he walked into a pro shop in Florida where a chest-high putter made for a much shorter man sat lonely on the used rack.

“I stuck it in my belly button,” Paul Azinger said yesterday, “and I hit every target in the pro shop. Then I took it out on the course and it was like magic.”

Now that magic will be gone forever.

Yesterday the U.S. Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club banned “anchored” putting of all kinds, including what Azinger made up, now called the belly putter. Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, said that for the next 90 days it will hear arguments for and against the new rule, but unless something drastic happens it will go into effect in 2016.

Both the USGA and the R&A edit their rules just once every four years.

“The idea that now [13] years into this belly putter [being used], all anyone said for [12] years was nobody would be able to win a major with a belly putter,” Azinger said. “It was a little embarrassing to use it.”

What changed was that three of the past five major champions — Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and Ernie Els — have won with a putter anchored in the stomach. And it’s that proliferation, whether either governing body wants to admit it, that has made them think action was necessary.

“In no way does the USGA and the R&A want to stifle creativity,” said USGA Executive Director Mike Davis. “What the change is going to do is clarify the game and describe what a stroke should be.”

The proposed new rule Rule 14-1b will prohibit “strokes made with the club or a hand gripping the club held directly against the player’s body, or with a forearm held against the body to establish an anchor point that indirectly anchors the club.” That also eliminates the older “broomstick” putter, which is anchored into the chest (or chin) of the player.

Davis went on to make a point that this is not an equipment issue, performance issue or aesthetic issue. That means that long putters are not banned (as long as they’re used properly), that they are not trying to restrict people from scoring better (there were no solid studies on anchored putters saving strokes), and it is not a rule made because it looks unconventional (like they did with croquet-style putting).

Adam Scott, whose career — and bank account — has benefitted after he switched to the broomstick putter in 2010, can’t understand the rule change.

“There is no proof that putting with an anchored style putter is easier, better or stops nerves,’’ he wrote in an email to FoxSports … “My opinion is that the governing bodies are in place to protect the integrity of the game not the traditions of the game.’’

One of the many vocal opponents of the belly putter is the sport’s most popular player. Tiger Woods spoke to reporters at his offseason tournament in California that begins today and fully supported the decision.

“The art of putting is swinging the club and controlling nerves and having it as a fixed point,” Woods said. “As I was saying all year, it is something that’s not in the traditions of the game.”

The PGA of America, which consists of 27,000 pros around the country, also asked the two ruling bodies to reconsider the rule for the future of the game, while the PGA Tour is precariously withholding judgment for now.

“We are asking them to seriously consider the impact this proposed ban may have on people’s enjoyment of the game and the overall growth of the game,” said PGA President Ted Bishop in a statement.

And Azinger, who won the 1993 PGA Championship with a conventional putter but hasn’t played competitive golf in three years, now looks at the effects of such a rule for both the future and the past.

“What I do wonder is what is wrong with Bernhard Langer, Fred Couples and Ernie Els prolonging their careers?” Azinger said of three older players whose careers were reborn with the long putter. “Wouldn’t you have loved to see Hogan play for five more years?”