Senior Open using a long putter. Previously one of the worst putters on the Champions Tour, Moody became one of the best almost immediately after switching to the long putter, sparking rumors the club may be banned. To inhibit a golfer's individual style would take some of the fun out of the game. Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup teams. Inspired by Singh, year-old Trevor Immelman wins on the European Tour with a belly putter, which he had been using for only two weeks. He would lose in a playoff to Padraig Harrington.
Although longer than the standard putter, Cabrera uses it conventionally and does not anchor the putter to his body. It's not as if all the junior golfers out there are doing this. No one's even won a major using one of these things anchored to themselves. So we don't see this as something that is really detrimental to the game.
Paul Runyan, winner of two PGA Championships in the s and a renowned short game teacher, wrote a story for Golf Digest in where he described the technique of belly putting, of anchoring the butt end of the shaft to the waist. It was something he first discovered in the s. He described how he had tested the technique for short putts and how superior he felt the method was.
Owens used it, he said, because he had a dreadful case of the yips on short putts. That same year Mark Lye became the first regular tour player to use the long putter. But the long putter and its technique were not widely accepted in the tradition-bound world of golf.
Ernie Els, three times a major winner, also criticized long putters and those who used them, yet became far more flexible on the subject when his putter sputtered. Nerves and the skill of putting are part of the game. The United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Society of St Andrews, the self-appointed world-wide makers and keepers of the Rules of Golf, have not banned the long putters or the technique of anchoring the club against the body.
The croquet style was ruled illegal on rather sketchy aesthetic terms rather than on competitive terms. The sidesaddle technique was considered appropriate by the powers that be, though it was interesting that no other players adopted the method. For elite players, the appeal can be instant. Nick Price, three times a major winner and now a Champions Tour player, took to it quickly when he first tried it two years ago.
I spent a week practicing with it and put it right into play. I immediately putted better with it. Your address, alignment, posture are all more consistent. It just simplifies things. When I practice with it, I feel like I get better. For Price, who has seen and done about all in the game over the last three decades, putting is a very personal thing. And using a longer putter is just tailoring the putting stroke to the equipment, not unlike using different shafts in clubs.
The claw grip got popular a few years ago. Tom Lehman, the Champions Tour player of the year last season, went to the broomstick putter in , but for a slightly different reason. Bunkers Paradise. I thought I would capture a little history of the long putter before it is most likely banned from golf altogether starting January 1, Johnny Miller was the first professional to use the long putter, even for a limited time to help with his less than good putting stroke. With a bad case of the yips he was ready to quit golf.
The long putter has been used on all the different tours. It does not have the same popularity on the PGA Tour as it does on other tours but that could easily change. You can do it in your basement, garage or back yard. Without any balls at all to get in the way, visit these first three points and re-learn or re-confirm your skill set. Focus on fundamentals, check your grip pressure, and tempo and make lots of practice swings. Then hit some balls with this refreshed set of fundamentals.
The last thing I highly recommend is that you begin and end each pre-round warm-up with these short chips and pitches. Hit enough of them to feel really good about your technique and attitude as you take it to the course. Michael Croley is a writer and a teacher. Without too much trouble, you can find his collection of yarns, Any Other Place: Stories or his magazine-published essays. What he teaches, is writing. When you interview a writer, you resist being the child of impulse, who tosses out the simplest, mundane inquiries.
Instead, you do your level best to come up with questions that compel the subject to sit back and ponder their intricacy, if only for a while.
He grew up in the southeastern portion of the commonwealth with an older brother, now deceased, who he adored. In a piece that he wrote for Golf Magazine, Mr. In truth, it was older brother Tim who always would be his favorite baller. While doing a bit of research on Corbin, I came across two items of interest. The first is the geographic location of the burg on interstate 75, smack dab between Lexington and Knoxville.
The second was a bit funnier. Listed among the most famous people to emerge from the home rule-class city was one Jerry Bird. Also a basketball player, but not nearly as famous as Larry. Golf prose is the better when great writers choose to write about golf. Not great golf writer, mind you, but great writers. Wodehouse, Bernard Darwin, and their ilk.
Fortunately for golf and for us, Michael Croley writes about golf. His connection with our game, of course, is connected to his brother and their bond. MC: A little of both, right? RM: Was golf a part of your life while growing up in Corbin, Kentucky? If so, elaborate. MC: Not at all. I found the game in my early twenties when my older brother took it up. It was a way for us to spend time together.
RM: In one of your articles on golf, you reveal the pride you felt in watching your brother hit golf shots high in the air, straight at the target.
How did the sharing of golf enhance your relationship with your brother? MC: It was just a way for us to continue playing and competing with each other as we did when we were boys.
As we got older and had families, the golf trip was a way for us to turn out some noise and we built our year around it. RM: Is there a golf club in your bag that you rarely use? If so, which one, what do you fear, and why is it still there? MC: I rarely keep the 4-iron in the bag. RM: As a sometimes-writer on golf, do these story proposals find you, or do you begin with a notion, then seek an outlet or venue?
I try to think of which venues will best support the story. RM: What type of golf characters would populate your theoretical volume of stories on the game? MC: The same ones that populate the fiction I write now, I suppose.
Folks struggling to figure out who they are. RM: There are at least two general sorts of golf writers: those whose dedication has been to tell the story of golf over the years, and others who are creative writers first, but cannot resist the siren call of golf. Do you have any to recommend, from either camp? I came to golf writing because I wanted, in part, to tell some stories about architecture and learn more about how golf courses are designed and built.
RM: In one of your articles, you mention the sect of golfers that studies the architecture of great courses. Talk a bit about this, about your entry into the coven, and the impact it had on how you played and enjoyed golf.
MC: That was due in part to my brother. He was really enamored with the work of Tom Doak as as I started playing golf I started paying more attention to how courses are built. For bonus points, where would you play? The first would be my late brother who passed away in May of Might be fun to pick his brain for a round. Driver: Titleist TSi2 10 degrees 9. Connect with us.
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