With Webb Simpson notching the third consecutive PGA Tour win by a golfer with a long putter, the big bat scorned by traditionalists was making its way into the bags of more and more professionals. Despite its increased currency on tour, however, everyday golfers have apparently yet to feel the love for the heavy hammers that 2011 winners Simpson, Adam Scott, and Keegan Bradley maneuver with such success.
Simpson was the latest with an elongated stick to cash in, winning the Wyndham Championship on Sunday by three strokes. The 26-year-old North Carolinian has been an advocate of belly putters for some time (he employs Ping’s G5i Craz-E B Belly) and believes Bradley’s PGA Championship triumph illustrated the usefulness of a tool that purists decry.
“It’s been seven years now I’ve used the same putter and…it seems like a lot more guys are using it,” Simpson told reporters following his victory Sunday at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C. “Keegan Bradley being the first guy to win a Major with the belly putter is encouraging to us belly putter users.”
Despite an increasing number of pros — the young guys as well as oldsters like Ernie Els and Jim Furyk — picking up the lengthy baton, retailers and manufacturers of flat sticks have not witnessed a boost in sales for the longer and weightier putting tools.
“We’ll have to wait and see how ‘long putters’ trend, but we don’t expect a huge surge in demand as we near the end of the golf season late this summer,” Matt Corey, Golfsmith’s chief marketing officer, told us in an e-mail.
While the sales of some gear spike immediately after a big-name golfer uses it (see: Fred Couples wearing Ecco Golf Street shoes in 2010), Corey said there had been no “real sales movement and/or trends” following Bradley’s PGA Championship win earlier this month.
For Massachusetts-basedTitleist, which makes the Scotty Cameron Studio Select Kombi type that Adam Scott used to win the Bridgestone Invitational in early August, order rates for mid- (42″- 44″) and long (48″ and 50″) putters had shown some movement but lagged far behind those for traditional modes.
Acceptance of belly and sternum putters “does not seem to be a huge trend as of yet and the 33-36″ putters still dominate,” Joe Gomes, Titleist’s communications director, said in an e-mail. “We do not plan to add more models at this time as we feel we have a good offering of mid to long putter options available already.”
It may take longer than usual for average golfers to adjust to long putters, but a spokesperson for Callaway Golf said weekend duffers may be about to open their wallets for the unconventional clubs.
Tim Buckman, senior director of global communications with Callaway, which makes the Odyssey White Hot XB Sabertooth belly putter that’s in New England Bradley’s bag had no sales figures to share but was upbeat about the future of the long wands.
“Early indicators are pointing towards an increase in their popularity among consumers,” Buckman said.
(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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- Should the Long Putter be Banned
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- Long putter is no help to Michelle Wie, who misses cut at Evian Masters
