Els rehashes old arguments on proposed anchoring ban
The proposed rule to ban anchoring in golf is still not set in stone. A 90-day comment period on the proposal finishes at the end of this month and it seems Ernie Els is making as many comments as possible.
I’m a massive fan of Ernie Els. Hey, who isn’t? The guy is an out and out legend of the game and I’m told has a heart of gold. While my personal view on the anchoring ban proposal has softened a little over the past few months, I think a lot of Els’ recent comments are just a rehash of all the old arguments which frankly, don’t hold a lot of water.
“There’s no data that really confirms that they have to ban it. If there were 90 percent of the guys using it, or if the guys using it were top of the putting ranks, guys making more putts from 20 feet, more putts from 4 feet … 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.”
“Before Webb Simpson won — you guys correct me if I’m wrong here — but 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,”
“And then Webb wins, and I win, and then the next thing is they want to ban the putter. So in all honestly, I’m not too sure what their whole reason is behind this whole thing. Because as I say, there’s a handful of guys using it. It’s helped some careers. Some guys cannot putt another way, so there’s some stuff that you have to follow through.”
“As long as it’s legal, I’ll keep cheating like the rest of them.”
I think what he is saying here is that some guys cannot putt very well another way. And for this, I have no sympathy.
Smashing drives takes some skill but making putts and controlling the nerves when the body wants to twitch and squirm is a major part of our game, especially the professional one. It allows for finesse and control among the booming golf that has only arrived in our game over the past 40 years.
“The major argument to ban the belly putters is the perceived advantage they give in pressure situations. The physics of the system takes out a few twitches and therefore, changes in putter head orientation that arise when golfers are attempting to make putts under pressure.”
And there is the problem with this entire proposed ban. Perceived. There is zero truth to this. The nerves are EXACTLY the same between the two different putting styles. In fact, from my years of use between the long putter and the short putter, I would say it is in fact the opposite.
You should also try taking a look at Ernie Els’ putting stats for his British Open win last year. The putter did not win it for him. He ranked at the bottom of the half of the field for the week (as did Adam Scott). Tiger Woods and Brandt Snedeker were only in contention because they ranked in the top 20 in putting.