Wind Putting Key For R&A In Anchoring Re-examination?

Jim Achenbach features more of Mike Davis' quotes about the USGA's interest in belly putters and also shares some insights into the R&A's thinking on the matter.

USGA officials declined to offer details, but an informed Golfweek source said Davis, Nager and USGA equipment standards chair Dan Burton have committed themselves to participating with the R&A in a top-to-bottom examination of belly putting and chest putting.

The source talked at length about the influence of British weather.

“The R&A do not like the fact that golfers can steady themselves by using a putter as a crutch in windy, rainy or cold weather,” the source said. “In essence, they are steadying themselves with the putter. This was never intended under the Rules of Golf. They are using the putter for something other than a traditional stroke.”

And there was this which probably seemed obvious to most of us for some time. But they move slowly in the R&A world...

“Nobody (within the ruling bodies) wants children to know nothing else but sticking putters in their bellys,” the source said. “It now seems possible that an entire new generation of golfers could learn to putt this way and never use the traditional method that has been the bedrock of putting for hundreds of years.”