Flashback: Wind Crutch Driving R&A's Push To Ban Anchoring

With a proper wind forecast for the final round of The Open, anchoring Adam Scott holding a four-shot lead and news of the governing bodies making progress on a possible rule change that would preclude bracing the putter in some way, it's worth going back to a previous post on Jim Achenbach's story from February.

The key line from Achenbach's source:

“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.”

Peter Higgs in today's Daily Mail reminds us that this will be a controversial win in R&A circles and that Tiger is not a fan. Here's a Steve Elling post from February quoting Tiger revealing that he has spoken to the R&A's Peter Dawson about how to word a rule change.

"I've talked to Peter about this, Peter Dawson, for a number of years and gone back and forth of how we could word it," Woods said. "My idea was to have it so that the putter would be equal to or less than the shortest club in your bag. I think with that we'd be able to get away from any type of belly anchoring. 

"You can still anchor the putter like Bernhard Langer did, against the arm. But that's still the art of swinging the club, too, at the same time."