Anchors Away, PLEASE

I think the engraving on the claret jug was still hot when the long putter debate kicked off.

You fall in to two categories when it comes to the devils tool, for or against.

Taking full advantage of twitter I conducted a wee survey on twitter, simple question ban them or not, the results? 95% would ban them!

But, if being honest, I would not ban them, I will give you a minute to re read that.

Yes I would not ban them.

What I would ban is anchoring.

In golf we talk about swings and strokes, if you anchor a club you do neither.

On Sunday I played the stunning Royal Aberdeen with my son-in-law, now Scott is a very very good player, but he uses a belly putter, so in the interests of science I thought I would try a few putts with the Devils Tool.

To be frank I am a good putter, not brilliant but good, in 14 years I have had 4 putters. I honestly find putting is by far and away the easiest part of golf. Maybe because if this I could not get it, by it I mean what was so special about the darn thing.

But I can see why it has become, or rather had, a refuge for so many.

Anchoring cuts out any sudden jerks or twitches as you basically rotate round your axis, I would honestly say it would be impossible to stab a putt with it.

Under our current rules is it cheating? No.

BUT is it against the spirit of the game? Most definitely.

In golf we still call penalties against ourselves, even if we are uncertain we will take the penalty rather than the guilt that we might have done something wrong, well the majority of us do anyway, I feel anchoring is cheating.

Broom handles on the other hand, as used by Adam Scott and Maria Hjorth, I would leave alone.

With a broom handle you are still having to produce a stroke and not anchoring it.

Is it pretty to watch? No! But if turn up for a match play event and see your opponent with a broom handle you feel like you are 1 up before you tee off! And I guarantee you that if your opponent does have one you will not concede a single putt to them!

As I said earlier the belly putter was once the refuge of the bad putter, but not now. Now you see kids starting off in the game using a belly putter from the get go, that is simply wrong.

You see twenty something’s on mini tours using them, college kids using them, its simply wrong, wrong, wrong.

As a training method I have no issue with belly putters, it will quieten your hands, wrists and shoulders, it will help you elongate your back swing and follow through.

But lets leave it as a training tool eh.

One of the oldest sayings in golf is “drive for show, putt for dough”.

Belly putter take the skill out of putting and ease the mental anguish of bad putters.

All the R&A and the USGA have to do is just make a rule that says “anchoring of any club is deemed to be illegal”, its not rocket science guys.