With only a few weeks left before a decision on long putters, British Open champion Ernie Els hopes that golf officials change their minds.
The US Golf Association and Royal & Ancient Golf Club have proposed a new rule that would outlaw a stroke in which the club is anchored to the body.
Els used a belly putter when he won last summer at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, becoming the third winner in the past five majors to use a belly putter.
“Hopefully, they don’t ban it,” Els said on Wednesday at the Northern Trust Open.
“There’s no data that really confirms that they have to ban it.
“If there were 90 per cent of the guys using it, or if the guys using it were top of the putting ranks … give me something to go by to really make me believe that you have to ban it.
“But I can’t see them having a really great way of explaining to me why they would want to ban it.”
The topic is so sensitive that the governing bodies allowed for a 90-day comment period on the proposed rule.
That period is over at the end of the month.
The US PGA Tour hasn’t said whether it would go along with the rule, which would become effective in 2016.
When they announced the proposed rule in November last year, USGA executive director Mike Davis and R&A chief executive Peter Dawson have said there was no empirical data to suggest a long putter made golf easier.
They said the ban wasn’t related to performance, rather defining what a golf stroke should be – swung freely, away from the body.
Their research showed a spike among PGA Tour events of players using a belly putter or broom-handled putter that is anchored to the chest, with as many as 25 per cent of the players using the long putters in some tournaments.
Els believes his win at the British Open, just a month after Webb Simpson won the US Open with a belly putter, was a huge influence on the proposed rule.
“Before Webb Simpson won … I saw a quote of Mike Davis saying that they don’t see the great benefit … that they don’t see that there’s any importance of banning the putter,” Els said.
“And then Webb wins, and I win, and then the next thing is they want to ban the putter.”
