What to do about the Belly Putter?

Belly Putter Ban

According to recent newspaper articles, the R & A are set to make a decision on the use of Belly Putters in the professional game.  While it is believed that they will wait to make a formal vote in around March of next year there is some speculation that they may make the somewhat quick decision to ban them immediately, beginning in tournament play in January 2013.  This will affect a lot of the top players and unfortunately it may have quite a damning affect on some of the worldwide favourites.  Ernie Els, for example, while a very popular winner of The Open earlier this year will undoubtedly be the first to attribute it to the Belly Putter.  The use of the Belly Putter has also rejuvenated the games of Vijay Singh, Adam Scott and Retief Goosen; it is also of course a very popular method on all the senior tours as well.  It is, therefore, a justified fear that banning them will cause some of the most beloved and popular players to drift further away from the winner’s circle.  However this judgement, perhaps, comes at an important time.  Juniors have, reportedly, been encouraged and coached into using the Belly Putter from the beginning and this seems a little too much, them having been designed primarily to help those older golfers who still wish to compete and combat the dreaded “yips”.  I myself have never used one and am told that they can take some while to get used to, but I have seen success in the amateur game in both young and old; while I think some distinction needs to be made between the amateur and pro game, starting juniors with them seems a tad excessive.   As mentioned, the Belly Putter and indeed the Broom Handle have transformed the declining games of some of the world’s top pros and the same is true in the amateur scene however my personal views on the so called “ cheat sticks” differ quite significantly when comparing the impact on the pro and amateur games.  I am not a proponent of their use in Pro events and tournaments, players should be made to use similar equipment.  Not all players use putters of the same length, Garrigus famously using a 27” putter when he came on tour- rather ironically now using a belly putter – but most pros that still use the conventional putter tend to range between 32” and 36”.  Belly putters clearly make a significant difference to that part of the game which we all know is most important and it is therefore perhaps even more crucial that pros should use standardised equipment.  However the impact of the Belly Putter in the amateur game is not so important and perhaps there should be separate rules governing its use in the amateur circle.   

While we all want to see birdies, the powers that be seem to be trying their hardest to toughen up courses and change equipment so that not everybody can hit the ball 350 yards, and spin it from the rough.  This is perhaps most commonly seen at the US open every year when a score very close to par and sometimes above it wins.  They recently changed the grooves on wedges, something that will affect us mere mortals in a couple of years, but they have been very reluctant to change this rule on putters.  Maybe it’s because so many people are using them, maybe the pros calling for their ban are the ones not using them who aren’t winning so regularly anymore.  When Miller started using one in the 80s people laughed, said they would never catch on and for 20 years they really didn’t but now 3 of the last 5 major winners have used one and unless the rules change pretty soon one of two things will happen.  One scenario is that everybody will use one and the problem of standardised equipment will be solved, or they will be banned and there will be some uproar in the amateur game as many people will struggle without them.  I personally think that they should only be banned for the Professional circuit, not amateurs because at the end of the day the Belly Putters don’t make as much difference in the hand of an 18 handicapper as they do in the hands of a Pro and at worst somebody might win some extra cash of his friends each week or maybe one or two monthly medals each year and there really isn’t much harm in that. 

Please let me know your thoughts on this, it is quite a contentious topic and would be interesting to hear what other people’s views are on it.  Do you use a belly putter? Do you think they should be banned? Do you not really understand what all the fuss is about?  Maybe you agree with me that there should be different rules governing the pro and amateur games.  Whatever your views are about this or any other topic that I write about I would love to hear them.   

FF