Long Putters Will Not Be Outlawed; Anchoring Another Story

Alex Miceli gives us an idea what is being discussed inside the meeting rooms at Lytham, Olympic and Augusta over the last few months and it appears any kind of change to the rules that excludes elongated putters will not happen.

However, the same can't be said for anchoring, though a decision is likely in the coming months.

“I think it's incumbent on us to make our position reasonably clear in months rather than years," Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A, said about the anchoring issue while attending the Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club.

Mike Davis says the complication of defining the act is the current topic for discussion.

According to Davis, who became the USGA's seventh executive director in March 2011, equipment is off the table and the focus is solely on the stroke itself.

“If you want to ban something, what do you want to ban? Because you just say the word anchoring, it can mean a lot of different things,” Davis said in outlining the difficulty of any rules change. “And it's not just putting, either. There are clubs that come out that you can literally put – people that have yips with the pitch shots – there are clubs now where you can anchor a club underneath your armpit and pitch that way. The point is, there's a lot more to this than just somebody with a belly putting.”