Long putters, both belly and broomstick, have been the catalyst of many an argument in the recent past, especially since four of the last five champions on the PGA Tour have won using the long flatstick.
Webb Simpson was the latest champion to use a long putter, winning the Deutsche Bank Championship yesterday, which has also seen him top the FedEx Cup playoffs ranking with just two events left. Simpson was also the third in a row to win a tournament with the long putter – following Adam Scott at the WGC Bridgestone Championship and Keegan Bradley at the US PGA Championship – when he won the Wyndham Championship three weekends ago.
The down side of long putters
But as great as all of these wins have been, there has also been plenty of negative opinions about the long putter, with many golfing gurus claiming that using one is in fact cheating, considering that you anchor the butt of the club to your body, therefore making a more stable pendulum movement and removing all degrees of freedom in the stroke.
Frank Thomas, a former USGA chief technical advisor and creator of Frankly Golf, is one of those people who agrees with the argument against long putters and recently issued a statement on his website, ww.franklygolf.com, where he writes:
“During my 26 years with the USGA I must have made about 6,000 decisions on the legality of golf equipment. I recommended that the long putter be disapproved because it is a more efficient implement. The reason for this is that it eliminates the degrees of freedom from the putting stroke. If you remove a degree of freedom, you remove the errors associated with it and the stroke will be more efficient. I was overruled and the putter was approved, for various reasons.
“In retrospect, I think the long and belly putters that have been used in Major events recently are a band-aid approach to a deeper underlying problem with the putting stroke mechanics and mental side of putting. The very best putters in the world do not have these putting problems and don’t need the long putter. This does not mean that now and again some crucial putts or some good rounds will not happen using a long or belly putter.” Writes Thomas.
Nevertheless, the counter-argument to this has been that many of these younger players who have been winning with the long putters have grown up using them and therefore don’t see them as a fix for bad putting, but rather as just another club in the bag. This is certainly not the case for the likes of Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson who was seen gaming a belly putter this last week.
What’s your take on the long putter?
Have you ever tried to use a belly or broomstick putter? In our August 2011 issue Hermanus Golf Club professional Julian Shaw provided tips on how to correctly use a long putter. Check out the tip and test one for yourself, otherwise give us your opinion on long putters.
