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The Anchoring Ban

fastbasser said:
Putter companies have one and only one agenda. To sell more putters and make more money. Corporate greed. You can wipe your butt with their opinion....

:drinks:
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This is overly harsh and arguably unfair. Putter companies will sell putters regardless of the rule, the only question is the length of the shaft on the items they sell.
 
Part of me still thinks it would be ok to have two sets of rules, one for 99.999% of the worlds golfers (us) and another for the tours. Professional world class golfers only make up 0.001% of the worlds golfers, but the USGA and the R&A make changes based only on what the 0.001% are doing. This is the part that bothers me.

On the other hand, golf is unique in the fact there is no difference in rules between us amateur's and the pro's. The same can not be said in most other sports.

On long putters, part of me does not really like em, but part of me thinks they are nother more than evolution, just like bigger driver heads, metal head woods, fancy shafts, spinny balls, balls that don't spin.......the list goes on and on.

What the USGA and the R&A really should be doing is making the rules book thinner, not thicker. The USGA decisions book is three inches thick. There is something wrong about that I think.
 
So, Finchem commented on the PGA's stance regarding this today and said they went with data that showed ~20% of amateurs are using an anchored putter. Where did the data he quoted come from? Can this possibly be right? I'd think that it 1/5 golfers were using one I'd have seen one by now. Yes, that's right... I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN ONE PERSON USE ONE OR HAVE ONE IN THEIR BAG. Maybe it just hasn't caught on in IN/KY area but I hope he isn't making up numbers just to oppose this ban.
 
tgtt said:
So, Finchem commented on the PGA's stance regarding this today and said they went with data that showed ~20% of amateurs are using an anchored putter. Where did the data he quoted come from? Can this possibly be right? I'd think that it 1/5 golfers were using one I'd have seen one by now. Yes, that's right... I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN ONE PERSON USE ONE OR HAVE ONE IN THEIR BAG. Maybe it just hasn't caught on in IN/KY area but I hope he isn't making up numbers just to oppose this ban.
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I've seen a few at my course. Myself included at one time. Maybe 1% of the golfers. If that. Probably less than half that.
 
Smallville said:
I've seen a few at my course. Myself included at one time. Maybe 1% of the golfers. If that. Probably less than half that.
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Interesting.
 
tgtt said:
So, Finchem commented on the PGA's stance regarding this today and said they went with data that showed ~20% of amateurs are using an anchored putter. Where did the data he quoted come from? Can this possibly be right? I'd think that it 1/5 golfers were using one I'd have seen one by now. Yes, that's right... I'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN ONE PERSON USE ONE OR HAVE ONE IN THEIR BAG. Maybe it just hasn't caught on in IN/KY area but I hope he isn't making up numbers just to oppose this ban.
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Maybe we are just in the wrong states or courses, cause like you I've never seen seen one on the course either.

Maybe it's a regional thing or seen more at certain CC's?
 
Smallville said:
I've seen a few at my course. Myself included at one time. Maybe 1% of the golfers. If that. Probably less than half that.
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Exactly. I've only seen less than a handful of people on the course with a belly or long putter. I do agree with Finchem in his opposition of the proposed rule change. Alongside the evidence that on tour it has not really proved to be an advantage, the ruling, if it were to be appropriate, should have come a long, long time ago. They would be better served to focus on slow play, not the anchoring of a putter stroke and its imagined "advantage".
 
i have seen quite a few at my course maybe ten members out of 130 or so is all tho. so still not the 20% i do however think that if someone wants to use one more power to them. a lot of older people shake real bad and have problems putting with a reg putter. i say if it helps them enjoy the game more let them have it.
 
After watching me use an anchored putter, nobody at the course wanted to use one. They thought it was broken.
 
krank78 said:
i have seen quite a few at my course maybe ten members out of 130 or so is all tho. so still not the 20% i do however think that if someone wants to use one more power to them. a lot of older people shake real bad and have problems putting with a reg putter. i say if it helps them enjoy the game more let them have it.
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Isn't this what they're concerned about? Not the old people, of course. But the touring pro who, down the stretch of a big tournament, gets the nervous shakes. With a regular putter, you have to deal with that. With this, you just stick in your belly or your chest and those nervous shakes are not as bad, all of a sudden. Or so the argument goes.
 
yeap thats the argument there using. personally i dont think it should be allowed in pro tournaments. but that should have been taken care of years and years ago. at this point idk what is the best thing for them to do.
 
krank78 said:
yeap thats the argument there using. personally i dont think it should be allowed in pro tournaments. but that should have been taken care of years and years ago. at this point idk what is the best thing for them to do.
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But the majority of pro tournaments are won using a standard length putter. If there was an actual advantage using the long putter, everyone using one would be winning, in bunches.
 
I'd be lying if I said I could still play w/o anchoring. My wrist injury won't seem to heal and putting with a short putter is very painful after about 4 holes. Very happy the PGA took this stance.
 
robn311 said:
Isn't this what they're concerned about? Not the old people, of course. But the touring pro who, down the stretch of a big tournament, gets the nervous shakes. With a regular putter, you have to deal with that. With this, you just stick in your belly or your chest and those nervous shakes are not as bad, all of a sudden. Or so the argument goes.
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I believe it boils down to one argument - it isn't a real golf swing - and one concern - that youth are taking up the belly putter too extensively (which really comes back to an integrity of the game issue). Note that there announcement says something like there's a 600 year history of swinging the club freely, which of course is false.

I applaud the PGA for taking this position. There are far greater things to worry about instead of this, pace of play, affordability, etc
 
yea i honestly dont see it as an advangtage for the pros. maybe in the senior tour or something. these guys do it all the time unless they have health problems it shouldnt affect them. i think it may be a slight advantage from six ft in but also a slight disadvantge on longer putts. because you cant seem to control the distance as well.
 
krank78 said:
yea i honestly dont see it as an advangtage for the pros. maybe in the senior tour or something. these guys do it all the time unless they have health problems it shouldnt affect them. i think it may be a slight advantage from six ft in but also a slight disadvantge on longer putts. because you cant seem to control the distance as well.
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The real problem is that if the USGA bans it then it screws over the average player (If it was the other way around and the tour would ban them it wouldn't be as much of an issue). Like tequila said there are much more important things for the PGA to care about.
 
c0ncept said:
I'd be lying if I said I could still play w/o anchoring. My wrist injury won't seem to heal and putting with a short putter is very painful after about 4 holes. Very happy the PGA took this stance.
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If your wrist hurts too much to putt, how do you handle full swings?
 
Jersey Nate said:
But the majority of pro tournaments are won using a standard length putter. If there was an actual advantage using the long putter, everyone using one would be winning, in bunches.
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Yes, because: driving, irons, chipping, pitching, and course management become irrelevant when one puts a belly putter in their bag?!?
 
tgtt said:
Yes, because: driving, irons, chipping, pitching, and course management become irrelevant when one puts a belly putter in their bag?!?
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Not at all, however without good putting all of those ARE irrelevant.
 
tgtt said:
Yes, because: driving, irons, chipping, pitching, and course management become irrelevant when one puts a belly putter in their bag?!?
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That's a great argument why anchored putters are not that big of a deal. The putting statistics on tour also show that anchored putter don't artificially make people better golfers
 
i think the usga will go along with pga and end up not going thru with the ban. i may go to my pro tomorrow and try a belly putter out that fits me. maybe with a lesson with it i could putt better lol. i have tried the long putter i didnt like it at all.
 
I've never seen a long putter in the wild. I'm guessing that in those serious amateur and junior programs the long putter uptake is much higher as the PGA or USGA suggested. It's hard to imagine it actually works better than a standard putting stroke seeing as all the resources of the golf associations couldn't produce any evidence of it. I agree with a lot of people here; there are many many more serious problems in golf that should be dealt with before we even discuss this again.
 
What a sad state of affairs. It's all personal preference, just leave it alone!!
 
I agree Bully. The USGA is at risk of separating themselves from reality, especially if the PGA Tour continues with the belly putter.
 
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