Tiger Woods is Right: Ban Anchoring Sooner
Ryan Ballengee May 21, 2013 5:59 PM
COMMENTARY | Why wait? Two-and-a-half years is a long time for anchoring to continue to be legal under the Rules of Golf.
Tiger Woods has a solution: enact as soon as possible the ban that was formally announced Tuesday, rather than waiting until Jan. 1, 2016 for it to take effect.
"Anchoring should not be a part of the game," Woods said Monday at Congressional C.C., site of his AT&T National, played June 27-30. "I've always felt that in golf you should have to control your nerves and swing all 14 c
lubs, not just 13. And as far as the PGA Tour, I hope they do it as soon as possible to be honest with you."
He's not entirely right, but he's close. The ban of the anchored stroke -- which will fall under Rule 14-1b in the next edition of the Rules of Golf -- should begin two years sooner, at the start of 2014.
Like the timetable to implement new grooves specifications that were announced in 2008, pros should have to deal with them first, then high amateurs, then the bulk of the 26 million Americans that play golf.
Pros had to start using clubs with grooves that jived with the new rule at the beginning of 2010. High amateurs will have to convert next year. The rest of us? We have until 2024 to swap out our sticks. That's a 14-year difference between pros and everyone else.
The ban should start Jan. 1, 2014, but only for professionals. It should start earlier for the simple reason that the likes of Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and other players that anchor their putter now will be subject to fan heckling for another 30 months. That's far too long for guys who have done nothing wrong under the current Rules of Golf to be looked at as cheaters for something that isn't even illegal yet.
Bradley already had to deal with an unruly fan. Days after the proposed ban was announced, a fan yelled "Cheater!" at the 2011 PGA champion while playing in Tiger Woods' World Challenge event in California. The USGA had to issue a statement condemning the fan -- a messy situation.
Starting the ban next year would be as close as it will get to good timing for the guys on the PGA Tour, as the schedule will go to a wrap-around calendar after this season. In essence, accumulating FedEx Cup points will never end. Every tournament will offer them. The Tour's brief Asia swing will now offer big money that counts toward the money list. A player can fall behind very quickly when the year never ends. Bumping up the ban forces players to make a conversion they may hold off in doing until four months into the 2015-2016 season.
PGA Tour veteran Bob Estes suggested to me last November that the success rate of adopting the anchored stroke is already low because there's little time for his struggling peers to learn over several months without putting their livelihood in jeopardy. The same would likely be true going back to a traditional stroke.
There will be no perfect time for the pros to have to switch, but if everyone is forced to do it at the end of this calendar year, there are no holdovers or stubborn stalwarts that could be accused of clinging to their advantage longer than anyone else on the PGA Tour.
Bumping up the ban impacts a couple-thousand players worldwide. The USGA said Tuesday that just about 2 percent of recreational golfers anchor the putter. Of 26 million American golfers, then, just about 300,000 anchor. They're sparse. Why not let this dinosaur of a stroke, then, die quietly over a long span?
Give amateurs until 2030, or some other outrageous date in the distant future, to ditch the anchored stroke. Players who have leaned on the anchored stroke -- literally -- to keep enjoying the game without back problems will have two more decades to do just that.
Meanwhile, most young kids that may have taken up the anchored stroke early, akin to what 14-year-old Chinese amateur Guan Tianlang did, will have ample time to change how they putt before they get to the collegiate or professional level.
A select group of teens would fall through the cracks. Current college recruits that anchor the putter, though they are rare, might have their futures negatively impacted by the proposed, drawn-out adoption time frame. Coaches will be uncertain if these otherwise brilliant talents will be able to make a successful swap to a traditional stroke. That impacts players that are not only on the doorstep of college, but for three more classes.
Ending the practice of anchoring for players that could someday go on to join the paid ranks of professional golf would help remove any doubt college golf programs might have in making an investment in developing an up-and-coming kid who just so happens to anchor the putter.
Why put off until tomorrow what can be done today? It's a great outlook for life and one that applies to the anchoring ban. Do it now. Rip off anchoring like the Band-Aid that it is for so many and let the game move on to other critical issues, like mediating a truce between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia. Or maybe slow play, how far the golf ball travels and developing a more robust drug-testing program.
Ryan Ballengee is a Washington, D.C.-based golf writer. His work has appeared on multiple digital outlets, including NBC Sports and Golf Channel. Follow him on Twitter @RyanBallengee.
