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Posted April 2, 2012, 6:55 pm
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Longer putters finding more fans

  • Article Photos
    Longer putters finding more fans
    Photos description
    Webb Simpson lines up a putt on the 18th green during Monday's practice round. He had more putting success after going to a belly putter in college.
  • Article Photos
    Longer putters finding more fans
    Photos description
    Adam Scott practices with his long putter.
  • Article Photos
    Longer putters finding more fans
    Photos description
    Adam Scott practices with his long putter.
  • Article Photos
    Longer putters finding more fans
    Photos description
    Adam Scott practices on the green with his long putter. "I putted last year at the Mas­ters the best I've ever putted in a week," he said.
  • Article Photos
    Longer putters finding more fans
    Photos description
    Adam Scott putts on No. 18 during Monday's practice round. He started using a long putter a few weeks before last year's Masters, in which he tied for second.

Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer are against the use of the belly putter. Jack Nicklaus, in his words, doesn’t see what the big deal is.

Woods, Palmer and other opponents of the belly and long putters believe they should be outlawed. They say because the clubs are anchored to the body, it is not a true golf swing, and doesn’t conform to the rules of golf.

The United State Golf Association and the R&A, the rules-making bodies for golf, are studying the issue.

In early February, Mike Davis, the executive director for the USGA, said the group was taking a “fresh look” at what is called “anchoring.”

There will be a number of players in this week’s Masters Tournament using the belly putter, including 2011 PGA Champion Keegan Bradley, the first person to win a major championship with one.

Others using what is sometimes called “alternative” putters are 2011 Masters runner-up Adam Scott, 2011 FedEx Cup champion Bill Haas and Webb Simpson, who finished second to Haas in the FedEx Cup race. All those players are in their 20s or early 30s and have won PGA Tour events with these longer putters.

Woods is against the belly putters because he feels the hands should control the club during a pendulum motion. He said putters should be no longer than the shortest club in the bag, which would be a sand wedge.

At his recent Arnold Palmer Invitatonal, Palmer said he wasn’t “a fan of long putters. I just think that there shouldn’t be a place in the game for anchoring a club against the body, which is what the long putter does.

“So, technically, and principally, I am against it.”

Nicklaus weighed in on the subject in early March.

“I’m not offended by it,” he said. “You’ve still got to knock it in the hole. That’s the only way I look at it.

“I always feel like the game is a game that is a very difficult game to start with. You try to figure out, how do you get the ball in the hole. As long as you’re using a legal stroke and a legal club ... I don’t have an issue one way or the other with it. I just don’t see the big deal about it.”

Paul Azinger was the first player to use the belly putter on the PGA Tour. He’s also the first one to win an event with one – in the 2000 Sony Open.

Since then, the numbers have continued to grow. Seven of the 30 players in last year’s Tour Championship used a belly or long putter. At the end of last season, five of the last seven winners went alternative, and eight of the 24 competitors in the Presidents Cup used them.

The pace has slowed this year, at least in terms of wins. Of the 15 tournaments prior to the Masters, Haas is the only winner who used a long putter.

Scott wasn’t surprised when Bradley became the first major championship winner with a belly putter in his bag.

“That had to happen,” Scott said. “As more and more guys use them, they’re going to win tournaments.”

Scott said he employed a long putter – which is anchored to the chin instead of the belly – just a few weeks before playing in the 2011 Masters. The result? His best finish ever in a major.

“I putted last year at the Masters the best I’ve ever putted in a week,” Scott said. “Obviously, that had a big impact on my result there. I played fantastic the year before last there and really struggled on the greens. So that was the difference.”

Going to a long putter was considered a desperation move once players started struggling on the greens. That’s not always the case now.

Simpson was always a good putter, but once he went to the belly putter early in his college career, he had more success, and has stayed with it.

“Putting has always been my strength, ever since I was little, even at the time I switched,” he said. “When I grabbed the belly putter, honestly when I first grabbed it, it was more of a joke. I’m like, this thing looks terrible, I would never use it. I took it out on the putting green, messed around, made a few putts and took it to the back nine with my dad that day and made everything.

“I almost put it back; I can’t switch to that. But I stuck with it and started putting a lot more consistent than I was that first semester at Wake (Forest). Since then, I haven’t switched putters.”

Geoff Ogilvy believes youngsters will soon be starting the game with a long putter.

“At some point, they’re going to start selling junior sets with belly putters and then it will just go,” said Ogilvy, who is against the use of belly putters. “We’re getting the first wave of guys who that it is the only putter they’ve used at a high level, in college those guys are putting it in play. Soon it will be juniors putting it in play.”

Martin Laird, who used a belly putter to win the 2011 Arnold Palmer Invitational, disagrees with Ogilvy. If he had a son, he said, he wouldn’t start him off with a belly putter.

“I feel like if you started a kid with a belly putter, he’d probably never be able to go the other way, go back,” Laird said. “It would be tough to go back to a short putter; whereas you start a kid with a short putter and he’s a good putter, then you can leave him.

“It’s not like when you’re 12 years old, you’re concerned about your kid missing 6‑foot putts for par,” Laird said. “It’s something that you know when they get older, they are going to either go one way or the other, and I would definitely start with a short putter for sure.”