the return of the Belly Putter

Match Play, Ko and the return of the Belly Putter Conundrum

Lydia Ko

Lydia Ko made a valiant effort 2 weeks ago to become the youngest player to record back to back victories, eventually settling for third in the Ladies Australian Open.  She had gone into the final round tied for the lead with eventual winner Jiyai Shin but failed to produce her best on Sunday. However the question on everybody’s minds surely must be when is she going to turn Professional?  It was very comforting to hear such great advice from Michelle Wie, the former teen star, who said that doing so is a very personal decision, this was matched by the less subtle tones of 7 time Major winner Karrie Webb, who tweeted “ Hurry up and turn pro already!”  criticisms over whether turning Pro is best for Lydia Ko are circulating, after all she wouldn’t be the first star amateur to win and then fade into obscurity when joining the Pro ranks ( Danny Lee anybody?).  The golfing world will simply have to wait to hear a verdict on this one.

Match Play

Last week, the PGA tour took the 64 best players in the world and put them head to head in the Accenture Match Play Championship, with American Matt Kuchar, the last one standing.  We all know that Match Play is the most unpredictable of formats, if nothing else; the Ryder Cup showed us that, but few would have bet on Bubba Watson being the only top ten player left by round three where he made his exit to Jason Day.  Ian Poulter, a proven Match Play specialist and former winner of this Tournament was the highest ranked player in the Semi Finals at No. 12 where he lost to last year’s winner Hunter Mahan.  Hot favourite, Woods, lost to Charles Howell III in round one, and McIlroy succumbed to compatriot Shane Lowry in the same round.  Mostly following the coverage on Twitter, it was surprising how many people expressed their distaste for the format especially after seeds 1 and 2 went out early, one unhappy tweeter wrote “ this is why there aren’t more Matchplay events, TV stations don’t want to lose Woods and McIlroy, there is no point in watching it anymore”.   Match Play events, while perhaps not as lucrative for TV and sponsors do make a nice change and I for one would like to see more of them.  There is more to golf than Tiger and McIlroy

Belly Putters

This week belly putters have made their way back into our golfing news feeds with some fresh incite from tours and players alike.  Perhaps the most unlikely twist in what is turning out to be a prolonged saga is that PGA Tour chief Tim Finchem has told the governing bodies that they will not support the proposed ban on belly putters.  Tim Finchem explained that studies had shown that the belly putter provides no measurable advantage and therefore there was no reason to enforce a ban on anchoring.  However, as a staunch advocate of the ban I would argue that more and more players are using them, more and more players are winning with them and no Professional golfer would change equipment unless it provided some benefit; so if there is no advantage, why are so many players changing to anchoring.  McIlroy and Poulter have already expressed fears that this announcement from the biggest and most lucrative Tour in the game may cause a rift in the sport.  McIlroy also changed his stance somewhat on the matter, claiming that he doesn’t mind if the ban goes through or not, backing away from his earlier statement “it will be a fair game in 2016, can’t wait”.  Keegan Bradley, the first winner of a Major with the controversial method has always been opposed to the ban and has now revealed that he is fed up with being called a cheat.  While the anchoring method is controversial at best, until this ban goes through, Bradley is no more a cheat than any other player on Tour. 

     The three month deliberation on the ban on anchored putting methods was set to finish today (28^th February) so the decision will soon be announced.  I for one hope that the right decision is made for the benefit of golf whatever that happens to be; my fear is that we will soon see how much influence the PGA Tour has had.