Jobe's commitment to belly putter makes for challenging club selection

Brandt Jobe has been so frustrated with his putting over the last few months that he stopped having fun. It reached a point at the Deutsche Bank Championship that he decided to use a belly putter in the third round.

This is nothing new for Jobe, who briefly used a belly putter some five years ago. But it had been so long that he didn’t want to make a full commitment, so he kept two putters in the bag for the third round -- his belly putter and the conventional model.

“I’ve been hitting it real good and putting so bad that the last month hasn’t been fun,” Jobe said. “It was getting to the end of the year and I had nothing to lose, but I didn’t want to shoot 80 if it didn’t go well.”

With an extra putter, something had to give to stay at the 14-club limit, so he removed his 4-iron.

Bad move.

“I needed a 4-iron four times today,” Jobe said, laughing at himself.

He figured he would use his hybrid off a couple of tees, and he was counting on the tee at par-3 11th being a 3-iron. But the wind shifted and Jobe was stuck. He used 3-iron on the par-3 eight and went long, and 5-iron on the 11th and came up short.

Even more comical was the belly putter, and his caddie’s reaction.

On the first three holes, Jobe missed a birdie putt from about 15 feet, a par putt from 6 feet and he three-putted his third hole. He drove the green at No. 4, and his caddie handed him the short putter.

“I said, `What are you doing? No, we’re going to stick it out,”’ Jobe said. “And we made eagle.”