When it comes to maneuvering the belly putter, there’s none better at the moment than PGA Tour rookie Keegan Bradley, of the New England golfing Bradleys. Perhaps that’s why reigning FedEx Cup titleholder and PGA Tour Player of the Year Jim Furyk sought out the 2011 PGA champ for some advice on how to handle the long-handled flat stick.
“[Bradley] gave me, like two or three tips,” Furyk was telling reporters gathered Tuesday for The Barclays, this week’s start to the four FedEx Cup playoff events, before an earthquake interrupted him.
Furyk, who famously purchased a used, $39 conventional Yes! putter from Joe & Leigh’s Discount Golf Pro Shop in South Easton, Mass., during last year’s Deutsche Bank Championship, also used a long wand for three rounds at TPC Boston, site of the second leg of the playoffs. He has made a few changes since then to his grip as well as to the club he uses to drop the ball in the hole but conceded he was never fully at ease with any of his approaches.
After waiting for the tremblor to subside, Furyk continued chatting about the help he received from Bradley and provided an abbreviated history of the controversial mallet that’s suddenly all the rage on tour.
“Ten years ago, no one ever went to the belly putter unless they couldn’t putt,” Furyk said of the type of hammer Webb Simpson used to clinch last week’s Wyndham Championship, at which at least eight golfers employed long putters, according to CBSSports.com’s Steve Elling. “So I didn’t really think of it as unfair. I thought of it as desperation.”
Furyk tinkered with long putters about eight years ago and fiddled with belly and Adam Scott-like broomstick models during July’s Canadian Open, the first round of which he played with Bradley.
As the self-described “worst” putter in his group “every damn day,” Furyk sought out Woodstock, Vt., native Bradley — who’s of a similar tall and slender build as the 41-year-old Furyk — for some putter-to-putter counsel.
“He gave me a couple of tips. It helped and I understand more what I’m supposed to do with it,” Furyk said. “Some of the tips were opposite of what I was trying to do before, and it kind of makes sense now and [in] my mind it feels better.”
Bradley, for his part, was “awestruck” that Furyk would ask him for advice, he told Elling. He also suggested that the many vocal critics of the big stick might want to dial back the hysteria about a club that, so far, conforms to all USGA and Royal & Ancient standards.
“Unfortunately, those purists out there are going to have serious problems in about 10 years,” Bradley said to Elling, “when about 50 percent of the guys on tour are using them.”
(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.)
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