When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Credit weight loss Tweeter Alex Miceli with the scoop that Mike Davis confidentially told the PGA Tour Policy Board how the governing body intends to act on anchoring putters this fall, only to have the player members blab away about the specifics of what sounds like an upcoming ban on the act of bracing a long putter against the torso.
Davis' appearance before the Policy Board indicates the USGA expects opposition when it makes an announcement, which the association has said would be by the end of the year.
According to Goydos, Davis’ presentation indicated that the USGA has received overwhelming support in letters and e-mails from the general public to ban anchoring. Davis Love III, a Sea Island resident and the recent Ryder Cup captain, expects a different sentiment from the Tour's rank and file.
“I don’t know what (the Tour) would do,” Love said. “I told Mike Davis, ‘We are going to have 10 guys who are vehemently against, and then 10 guys who are vehemently for you, and then the rest of them are just going to go play.’ That’s the way it is on any issue.”
Love’s only concern was whatever the USGA and Royal & Ancient do, they should move quickly and avoid dragging a potential rule change out.
“If they said today, ‘We met with the Tour we’re going to change putters,’” Love said. “Keegan Bradley is going to get himself a different (conforming) putter and he’s still going to be a really good putter. He’s just going to have to make a change, but you’d rather not talk about it for three years and have it be a distraction.”
It's amazing Tim Finchem doesn't have any grey hair when you know he gets reactions all the time like this one from Paul Goydos. Back to Miceli's story:
If the verdict is to ban anchoring in 2016, then Goydos thinks other issues – foremost, integrity – will emerge.
“If a player who has played with a belly putter decides to switch to a regular putter in 2014 and plays poorly, they will be looked at as a player that has cheated before,” Goydos said.
Davis counters by noting that Bobby Jones and Sam Snead used equipment and strokes eventually banned, but Goydos dismisses that point.
“That was a different world, 1930 to 2013,” Goydos said. “The USGA has a responsibility to make sure they are not labeled cheaters.”
And what exactly would you propose they do? A special non-cheaters wing to the Anchoring Hall Of Fame?
Rex Hoggard gets another confirmation from the USGA's Mike Davis that a decision on anchoring putters is coming soon: "We do plan to make some kind of announcement, as promised, later this year.”
Most feel a decision has already been made and language has been developed by the governing bodies banning anchoring a putter against your torso, with a likely implementation date in January 2016.
So the initial poll question is not very deep, but there are so many elements to the notion of an anchoring ban that it'd be informative to start off with a simple, completely unscientific poll: Yes or No on anchoring. (I'd like to save the question of bifurcation or long putters or length of club for later on.)
So for now...
Hey, I wasn't there. I just copy and paste the stuff. For Immediate Release from the R&A, which is to be confused with the Royal And Ancient Golf Club which has a new Captain.
NEW CAPTAIN DRIVES IN
The traditional driving-in ceremony for the new Captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews took place on the first tee of the Old Course today.
Pierre Bechmann began his year in office with a drive at precisely 8am as a cannon fired alongside the tee. A large crowd gathered to witness the ceremony and saw Mr Bechmann hit a long drive down the middle of the fairway running to around 30 yards short of the Swilcan Burn.
And I know from the summer they've had, these are not drought-stricken fairways.
Mr Bechmann becomes the first Captain of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club from Continental Europe. His role will see him representing The R&A and supporting its work in developing golf around the world. He will attend R&A Championships in the professional and amateur games and assume an ambassadorial role for the Club.
But of course, the R&A is totally separate from the Royal And Ancient Golf Club.
After hitting his tee shot, a relieved Mr Bechmann said: “It is a daunting prospect teeing off in front of such a large gallery but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I am greatly looking forward to my year in office and hope I can contribute to the important work The R&A does for golf around the world. I have been heavily involved in supporting the development of talented young players and I look forward to continuing that work in my new role.”
Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris in 1957, Mr Bechmann is particularly active in amateur golf, sitting on the Executive Committee of the French Golf Federation and the Championship Committee of the European Golf Association.
A lawyer and member of the Paris Bar, Mr Bechmann has been President of his home club, Golf de Chantilly, since 2010. He is a former member of the R&A’s General Committee, and has served on the Championship and Rules of Golf Committees as well as The R&A Coaching Panel. In 2008/09 he was Captain of Royal St George’s Golf Club. Mr Bechmann lives in Chantilly and plays to a handicap of nine.
In the past, the Club Captaincy was bestowed on the winner of the annual Challenge for the Silver Club but by the early 19th Century the Captaincy had become an elected office.
Part of the tradition is that a gold sovereign is paid by the new Captain to buy his golf ball back from the caddie who successfully retrieves and returns it.
Why do I keep picturing the Judge tipping Danny a quarter after Caddyshack's thrown putter scene?
This year’s recipient of the sovereign was Scott Bechelli. The 44 year old from St Andrews said: “I have been caddying here since I was 13 years old and this is a real honour for me. My brother received the sovereign in 2008 so it’s nice to follow him.”
Jaime Diaz pens a Golf World column wondering aloud about the origins of the USGA/R&A's move toward a ban on anchoring putters, with the announcement likely this fall.
But the point here is the USGA is using its de facto authority, vested or not, to clean up a mess. It knows it will be reneging on a 23-year old decision, which alone doesn't seem fair. It admits that sympathy for players desperate for a "last resort" method is the main reason anchoring has continued to be allowed. But with more players without overt putting problems choosing to switch to the broomstick or belly, there's a threat that in 50 years everyone will be using them. Very simply, widespread use of long putters is not the way the USGA and the R&A want the game to look.
And as much as I support doing away with anchoring, I still have to go back to Webb Simpson's remarks about the modern, 460cc driver's impact on the game versus anchoring. It's not even close which development has changed the game for the worse.
That's what Gordon Brown was quoted as saying by the Scottish Daily Record in a speech at the Scottish parliament festival of politics in Edinburgh Friday.
The Guardian's Severin Carrell also had this quote:
"If the golf club in Augusta can admit women, then shouldn't St Andrews? If they can do it in South Carolina, can we not do it in Scotland?"
South Carolina, Georgia-schmeorgia. We know what you meant. Those bastions of progressivism to all kind of bleed together.
They've said it before and post-Augusta, they've made the call again, this time from Shona Robison, the Minister for Sport. From an unbylined Star story:
"The First Minister is on record in saying that all clubs should be open to women members but then there is nothing we can do to force them," said Robison.
"However the direction of travel now is clearly to admit both men and women members and hopefully we will see an end to not allowing women to become members."
Thanks to reader Jim for noticing Judge Sam Sparks' ruling in the Lance Armstrong case, as quoted in Juliet Macur's story.
USGA legal might want to take note of this:
Judge Sam Sparks of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, in Austin, who acknowledged that the case had “troubling aspects,” said that the United States courts should not be involved because the antidoping agency’s arbitration rules were robust enough to deal with the matter. He also said Armstrong had agreed to be governed by those rules when he signed for his cycling license.
“Federal courts should not interfere with an amateur sports organization’s disciplinary procedures unless the organization shows wanton disregard for its rules, to the immediate and irreparable harm of a plaintiff, where the plaintiff has no other available remedy,” Sparks said in his ruling. “To hold otherwise would be to turn federal judges into referees for a game in which they have no place, and about which they know little.”
A PDF of the entire ruling is here.
Lawyers and those who think they are, thoughts?
There is an unbylined piece posted by the R&A analyzing the 339 rules incidents handled by the "international team of referees" at the 2012 Open Championship, with a numerical breakdown of the Rules situations that arose.
One of the most commonly used Rules in golf is the unplayable ball Rule (Rule 28). In total, 32 unplayable ball rulings were dealt with at the Championship, including Phil Mickelson’s drop after he found the deep rough above a bunker on the 8th hole. Click here to read more.
The weather, of course, can have a big impact on the Rules and 2012 was no exception. Due to the unusually wet weather that Britain has experienced this summer and, in particular, following a heavy rainfall on the Thursday night of the Championship, no less than 58 casual water rulings were overseen by referees. Of these, 37 related to casual water in a bunker where Rule 25-1b(ii) was applied. Click here to read more.
There's just so much to love in this R&A press release, starting with the special notation for the Scots in the quarters, and spiraling from there!
SCOTS PAIR REACH THE QUARTER FINALS OF THE BOYS AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
17 August 2012, Nottingham, England: Scotland’s Alasdair McDougall claimed two fine wins on his way to battling through to the quarter finals of the 86th Boys Amateur Championship at Notts (Hollinwell) Golf Club near Mansfield.
The diminutive 17 year-old international
Diminutive is so much better than the alternatives...so go on...
from Elderslie defeated leading qualifier, Romain Langasque from France, by 2 & 1 in the third round and then dispatched Italian Renato Paratore, winner of the recent European Young Masters tournament in Hungary, by one hole in an engrossing fourth round match.
McDougall, who represented Scotland in last week’s Boys’ Home Internationals at Co. Louth, will face Championship favourite, Austrian Matthias Schwab, losing finalist in this year’s Amateur Championship, in tomorrow’s first quarter final match.
The Scot will be joined in the last eight by his compatriot, Jamie Savage, who also won twice on a blustery day marred by intermittent showers. The 17 year-old from Cawder, who turns 18 next week, gave himself an early birthday present when he defeated James Rooney from West Lancs by 2 holes in the morning and then beat Liam Cox, from Burhill, by 3 & 2 in the fourth round.
Earlier in the day, Cox had been awarded his third round tie after his opponent, Adam Chapman from Windermere, was disqualified for contravening the Championship’s policy governing the use of distance measuring devices.
He contravened the championship! It sounds like he smuggled in drugs. Well, almost. And there's more...
McDougall arrived in Robin Hood country fresh from scoring 2 ½ points out of 5 for Scotland in last week’s Boys’ Home Internationals in Ireland and he was quickly in command against his impressive 17 year-old opponent from Rome.
The Scot won three out of the first four holes and was still three ahead when Paratore reduced the deficit with a birdie from 10-feet on the 414-yard par-4 10th. The Scot then lost both the 14th and the 15th to pars before sealing the match in somewhat bizarre circumstances down the last where he secured a par four after his opponent had been penalised one stroke for picking his ball up in the rough.
I'm guessing attending a rules seminar wouldn't have helped these lads much.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
