Dawson Clarifies Where Anchoring Discussions Stand

Doug Ferguson reports on Peter Dawson, R&A Chief Executive, speaking at today's post-Open press conference.

Dawson's comments in their entirety:

The situation is that the R&A and the USGA are ‑‑ do have this subject firmly back on the radar.  We appreciate that there is much speculation about this and that we need to clarify the position as soon as possible.  And I think you're going to see us saying something about it one way or the other in a few months rather than years.

There are still further meetings to be had, so we're just going to have to be patient I'm afraid and wait and see the outcome.  But as you know, it is under active discussion.

Q.  Could you share at least who's involved in these meetings?

PETER DAWSON:  Well, the initial determination has been that we are examining the subject from a method of stroke standpoint rather than length of putter standpoint, and that takes it into the area of the rules of play, the rules of golf, rather than the rules of equipment.  And therefore it's the rules of golf committees of the R&A and the USGA who are looking at this in detail, and then they have to make their recommendations to the boards of each organisation.

And later on...

Q.  Some would say if Adam Scott won, it would have been the lesser of the two evils, using that broom handle putter.  Is it fair to say it is anchoring more than anything, and if action is going to be taken it would be more against belly than broom handle?

PETER DAWSON:  No, anchoring is what we're looking at, method of stroke, and it's all about putting around a fixed pivot point, whether that fixed pivot point is in your belly or under your chin or on your chest.  I don't distinguish between the two.  It's a matter of stroke issue.

Adam Scott, The Long Putter And 36-Holes To Go

The dreaded, seemingly non-conforming long putter and the act of bracing it against the torso is 36-holes away from capturing the third leg of its dreamed of Grand Governing Body Headache...errr Slam.

But for John Huggan, that's reason enough to root for someone other than Adam Scott.

Still, it is all but impossible to blame Scott for going down the long-putter alley, no matter how dark it might be. Before making the switch from short to long, the 31-year old Australian was approaching basket-case status on the greens. Now, he is a man transformed, someone who scoffs at even the slickest downhill left-to-right four-footer.

"My putting has improved out of sight," he admitted after his opening round of 64 here at Royal Lytham. "Two years ago I was 180th on the tour and now I'm pretty good. Better than average, I would say. So that's a big difference. A shot or two on average makes a big difference to my scorecard."

The ESPN highlights from round 2 and Scott's post round interview:

Second U.S. Open Question: Where Does Webb's Win Leave The Putter Anchoring Debate?

Does winning mean they expedite discussions about a ban on anchoring the putter to your torso, or does yet another major win ensure the governing bodies will not touch this one?

I lean toward the latter option.

Put The King Down In The Anti-Anchoring Camp

Craig Dolch with one of the highlights from Arnold Palmer's pre-Bay Hill sitdown with the scribblers:

“I’m not a fan of long putters,” Palmer said. “I suppose if I were playing, and a long putter, being totally legal, would help my game, I might use it. But I’m opposed to it, personally. 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.”

R&A's Dawson: Belly Putter "Fresh Look" News To Me!

Nick Rodger of the Scottish Herald talks to R&A Executive Secretary Peter Dawson about an array of subjects and it seems we have a miscommunication?

At the United States Golf Association's recent agm, Mike Davis, Dawson's counterpart across the Atlantic, injected the whole affair with renewed vigour when he suggested that there was "a new ban-the-belly movement within the R&A".

Over to you, Mr Dawson. "I wasn't quite sure where that came from, to be honest," confessed the chief executive of the game's ruling body.

So good to see the governing bodies are on the same page!

He also talked about bifurcation. And bifurcators. Which is just a little too close to defecator, no?

"I haven't met a bifurcator yet who could tell me where it ended going forward, they are guessing what will happen," he said. "Golf is golf and that's a major strength of the game. If you want to go and invent another game, that's fine. But golf is golf. You could imagine down the road if there's one rule for the amateurs and one for the pros, then TV companies may say 'well this 18 holes business is taking up too much time let's just have 15 hole rounds'. You could get all sorts of things. It's good for golf to have one set of rules. Let's all be playing golf."

And on slow play he sounds a bit more eager to act...

"It is a huge worry," stated Dawson. "At club level, fourball golf is killing the pace of play. In the pro game, some of the players are so slow something has to be done. We are going to give this a lot more attention at our amateur events this year and our championship committee has determined itself to do something about it and apply the policy more strictly. We will put people on the clock and give penalty shots.

Don't tell the Don of the Ponte Vedra Tattaglias that, he doesn't like penalty shots. They are brand damaging!

"The coaches have to think about this. They do tend to teach these young players to have pre-shot routines where they don't start until the other player has played his shot and so on. It can be terrible. The tour golf needs to be speeded up too. It's difficult to know what to do about it unless field sizes are considerably reduced and I don't think that's going to happen. I'm not going to say less pros in tour events. What I've said is simple mathematics and that's the tricky bit. The whole field goes as slowly as the slowest player. I don't pretend I have the answer. The administrators aren't the ones playing."

Lehman In Long Putter Lash-Out: "What I do know is that the USGA and their testing with the ball...fell asleep at the wheel"

Asked at the Ace Classic by Adam Schupak about the long putter and anchoring...nothing like a good rant!

TOM LEHMAN: My thought is they've picked the wrong thing to fight against and they've done it about 15 years too late. To make an issue about this when they should have made an issue about the balls or clubs 15, 20 years ago is ridiculous. That's my opinion. I think it's just fine.

If there were this method of putting where it was foolproof and you couldn't miss and it just turned this whole game into a joke because it was so simple and so foolproof, I would say, you know what, that's probably worth looking at. The long putter, the belly putter have helped guys who have struggled to keep their careers intact or bring them back from the depths, but it's not a foolproof way.

Q. Did you ever think you would see so many guys on the PGA TOUR, young guys, using it, the belly?

TOM LEHMAN: I hadn't really thought much about it. To me it's a nonissue. It really is. I don't think it's an issue at all. If I were the head of the USGA, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. I wouldn't. That's how strongly I feel about it.

But there are people who feel strongly the other way. I respect that. It's not traditional. Whether or not anchoring a club to your body in some way is breaking a rule, I don't think it is or else it would have been outlawed a long time ago. It's a matter of opinion. What I do know is that the USGA and their testing with the ball and that stuff a long time just completely fell asleep at the wheel and let it get out of control. There you have it.

Q. When you first started using a longer putter, what type of reaction did you get out here?

TOM LEHMAN: No reaction. You know, there was no big deal. I don't mean -- look, I don't know because I don't read the magazines, but I don't believe there's a whole bunch of players out there going crazy and hooting and hollering because some guy's using a belly putter. I don't think. I think it's more made up with maybe the press and the USGA or whoever, but I don't see a lot of players out there picketing, I'm not going to play if the belly putter's allowed this week. I don't see it. Maybe it's there, I just don't know. Maybe you can tell me. Are there a lot of players upset about it? Maybe there are. There aren't, are there?

Q. No, the guys who used the belly putter or long putter on the TOUR last year who won, the best (inaudible) was like 55th.

TOM LEHMAN: That's my whole point right there. This is such a nonissue in my opinion that it's almost comical to be debating.

"Clubmakers, instructors and best players on planet will tell you that belly putters are here to stay"

This Gary Van Sickle compilation of quotes and look at the belly putter's evolution is stamped February 2, just days before the USGA suggested they were taking a "fresh look" at the legality of such putting.  Either way it's a great primer on the topic with some quotes I hadn't seen before.

One of the key reasons the USGA took notice, according to new USGA President Glen Nager, is the spike in sales. Something Van Sickle touched on:

Scotty Cameron Putters is expecting a huge year. Before Scott’s run at the Masters, Cameron says his company would sell 500 to 1,000 alternative putters a year. By the end of ’11 the number was 10,000. Cameron is gearing up to move 15,000 to 20,000 this year.

Instead of simply adding length to conventional models, for the first time TaylorMade designed its alternative putters to perform at belly- and long-putter lengths. Last year, according to Michael Fox, a TaylorMade product-marketing manager, the company sold four times as many alternative putters as in 2010, and he expects to double 2011’s sales this year. “We were back-ordered 30 days at one point last year,” says Fox.