Anchoring Ban Polling: Ban And Ban It ASAP
/We've had some nice response numbers for various anchoring polls and while those on this site would never be called scientific, they are nonetheless revealing. With last week's prior to the PGA Tour player meeting, I thought it'd be worth revisiting the various polls.
Golfdatatech found that 60% of golfers support the ban.
In one GeoffShackelford.com poll before the anchoring ban announcement, 69% were in favor of anchoring from 974 votes.
The number slightly dropped to 65% of 1,346 votes after the proposed 14-1b announcement.
And you may recall way back when asking about the possible rule change, bifurcation was on the polling table and 31% of 605 votes were for bifurcation.
When the question was posed about timing of the anchoring ban, 41% of 723 votes were for an October 2013 start (when the 2013-'14 season starts). 31% were for bifurcation, presumably to let average golfers to anchor while pros lost the privilege.
And last week 80% of you out of over 500 votes were in favor of a ban applying to the PGA Tour, with a 2013-14 start for Tour play edging 2016 43% to 37%.
Just based on these numbers, it's hard to see how the governing bodies come out of the "comment period" without solid feedback to reiterate their stance. I'm sure Nate Silver has a word for this, but I'm not far enough along in his book to tell you what it is!