When New England putting maestro Brad Faxon adds a belly bat to his gear, you know there must be something to all this long-stick madness. Or, as the Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson observed on Tuesday, perhaps the lengthy flat stick is simply a tool of the trade for those who know how to wield it.
Like for Vermont’s own Keegan Bradley, whose belly model became the first long putter in the bag of a major champion. Or Adam Scott, who captured the 2011 Bridgestone Invitational with a broomstick stuck to his chest, and Webb Simpson, who, like Bradley, has maneuvered a tummy truncheon to two PGA Tour wins this season.
Even short-game wizard Phil Mickelson has taken up with a left-handed version of Bradley’s Odyssey Sabertooth. In fact, when Mickelson began tinkering with a mallet almost as long as his driver during the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston two weeks ago, his switch from a conventional bat shocked his putting coach, Dave Stockton.
“I fainted,” Stockton jokingly told Golf Channel’s Rex Hoggard on Tuesday.
Like Faxon — who ordered his new toy out of curiosity and contended he would not put it into action on the Champions Tour any time soon — Stockton fiddled with a custom-built archetype to get a feel for the formerly old-school, now trendy, swatter.
Then, of course, there’s Jim Furyk, who tries on new putters almost as often as the rest of us change golf socks. The reigning FedEx Cup champion, with a 30-putt average per round in each of his last three tourneys, credited Bradley with providing some tips on how to cleave the club to his gut.
“Ten years ago, no one ever went to the belly putter unless they couldn’t putt,” Furyk, who ranks 152nd in putting on tour, told CBSSports.com’s Steve Elling last month. “I thought of it as desperation….For me, it was still desperation, but I’ve seen some guys that have gone to it where they are decent putters, but they think it’s a better way.”
Vinny Giles is not one of those guys. Giles, who lost in the second round of U.S. Senior Amateur match play Tuesday, believes long putters are the devil’s plaything and wants the lily-livered powers-that-be to ban the evil apparatus.
“I wish the USGA had the guts to outlaw [long and belly putters],” the 1993 Walker Cup captain said to Golfweek’s James Achenbach. “We should not be able to putt with those things. We shouldn’t be able to putt with anything attached to our bodies.
“Why they’re so gutless, I don’t know,” ranted the winner of the 1972 U.S. Amateur and 2009 Senior Am. “But we, as the USGA, should definitely outlaw those putters. There’s no issue as far as I’m concerned. Nerves are part of the game. Crutches aren’t, and these putters are crutches.”
Perhaps Giles would not have gone on such a toot had he not just frittered away a 2-up lead with two holes to play and lost the contest on the 20th hole with a three-putt — thanks to his very own protracted shillelagh anchored to his abdomen.
“These [long and belly] putters should not be part of the game,” Giles said. “It’s time to take a stand.”
Giles may have a hard time convincing the 20 or so tour golfers who’ve gone over to the dark side (according to Ferguson). But his pleas to the governing bodies to help him help himself made it clear that weighty wands were not for everyone — even some who currently have them in their employ.
“I’m 100 percent in favor of a ban of them,” said Giles. “I wouldn’t say all this if I didn’t believe it so strongly.”
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out on the Waggle Room, Boston Golf Examiner, National Golf Examiner, and GottaGoGolf websites. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
Related posts:
- Long putters not selling despite Bradley
- Invasion of the long putters, Part III: Appleby goes low with belly bat
- Player's Perspective: Long Putters, Curse or Cure?
- Furyk learns ins and outs of belly putters from PGA champ Bradley
- Should the Long Putter be Banned
