Carl Pettersson and Webb Simpson, with a USGA-mandated ban on long putters looming, are fiddling around with flat sticks of a more conventional length. Meanwhile, President Obama isn’t having much luck on the greens on Martha’s Vineyard with his blade.
Webb Simpson, Carl Pettersson bide their time with long putters
There’s still time for golfers to drop their anchored putting strokes, but Carl Pettersson and Webb Simpson, at least, are in no hurry to make the switch.
Pettersson, a sweeper of the broomstick for 16 years, employed a shorter wand during the British Open and a few other rounds earlier this season and pronounced himself satisfied with the experiment. Still, the winner of five PGA Tour events switched back to the tried-and-true for this week’s Wyndham Championship.
“But I’m back to my long and I just wanted to test it really for the ban coming up in a couple years,” Pettersson told the PGATour.com’s Helen Ross on Wednesday from Greensboro, N.C. “I’m more comfortable with long putters but my testing went well.”
The Swede joked that, given the long history between him and his Nike Method prototype belly model, he would not rush into anything.
“I want to give it another couple years,” he quipped.
As of 2016, when the USGA and R&A ban on anchored putting goes into effect, Pettersson, Simpson, and a slew of other tour golfers will have to go to Plan B on the greens of official tournaments. Simpson told Ross he was comfortable with the practice sessions he’s had with less lengthy putters but would also wait until the date drew nearer to make the change.
“I got a lot of time coming up that I won’t be playing so I’ll be working with it a little bit,” the 2011 U.S. Open champ and winner of the 2011 Wyndham Classic said. “I’ve tried different putters and I like what I’m seeing. I just need some time to kind of grow into it and get used to it.”
As for POTUS, his regulation-length putter was doing him no favors earlier this week as he scuffled around the greens of Farm Neck Golf Club during his vacation on the Massachusetts island off Cape Cod. Though the First Duffer often plays golf beyond prying eyes, press photographers were able only to chronicle his first hole, the latter part of which did not go at all well.
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