Eubanks: Putter Ruling Could Lead to Showdown

If you love a good showdown, this one has O.K. Corral written all over it.

Three months after the USGA and R&A announced plans to ban anchored putting strokes, which would effectively eliminate the belly putters used by guys like Keegan Bradley, Ernie Els, Fred Couples and thousands of amateurs, as well as the broom-handle putters that saved the games of people like Adam Scott and Bernhard Langer, Commissioner Tim Finchem declared the PGA Tour in loyal opposition.

“The absence of data or any basis to conclude that there is a competitive advantage to be gained by using anchoring, and given the amount of time that anchoring has been in the game, there is no overriding reason to go down that road,” Finchem said with his best Doc Holliday smile. “On this issue, we think if (the USGA and R&A) were to move forward, it would be a mistake.”

That statement could only be characterized as a warning shot. And while this isn’t six-guns at sunrise, it is as close to a full-blown, high-stakes shootout as we’ve seen in golf in some time.

European PGA Tour Chief Executive George O’Grady will throw his lot in with the USGA and R&A, while the PGA of America has planted its flag firmly with Finchem and the tour in opposition to the ban.

A source inside the Tour told me that many players originally supported the ban, but opinions evolved once it became clear that no data shows anchoring provides a measurable advantage. That fact was known long before the proposed ban was announced, and Tour executives fired plenty of warning flares to let the USGA and R&A know how vigorously players were opposed.

Since USGA Executive Director Mike Davis and R&A Chief Executive Peter Dawson made their hasty announcement, players like reigning U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson have wondered out loud why golf’s grand poobahs would rush to make something illegal that had been around for decades.

Tim Clark made an impassioned and wholly logical presentation during the player meeting at Torrey Pines, a speech several Tour insiders termed a “game changer.” Several players who entered the meeting supporting the ban had a change of heart after listening to Clark.

Then there was Keegan Bradley, who became the first player to win a major with a belly putter (more than 30 years after long putters appeared on tour). Bradley recently told reporters that fans regularly accuse him of cheating, even though he continues to play by the rules as written.

His message was clear: If this had been handled better, knuckleheads would not be impugning his reputation on a weekly basis.

Bradley also tweeted a photo he found hanging in the clubhouse at Riviera during the Northern Trust Open. The picture showed a Riviera member in the late 1920s dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, a tie and a touring cap. He was stroking a ball with the putter anchored squarely in his sternum.

Even with the battle lines being drawn – Colin Montgomerie came out on the side of the R&A and warned that this is becoming “a very dangerous situation,” -- Finchem tried to downplay the inevitable showdown. “We’re all friends,” he said after laying out the Tour’s position.

Maybe so, but friends don’t let friends ruin each others’ reputations. That is clearly where this brouhaha is headed.

There are only three options available at this point: First, the USGA and R&A could back down, coming out with a statement like a replay official in a football game: “Upon further review…”

If the rulemakers let their egos get the best of them and stick to their proposed ban, then the PGA Tour could ignore the rule, creating a de facto bifurcation, or back down and watch as lawsuits fly like pollen in spring.

The third option, and the one that many within the game hope will come about, is some compromise: a generational grandfathering, perhaps, or an anchoring exemption for shots played on the putting green.

No one wants this thing to drag out and get ugly, which is exactly what could happen if institutional egos get involved. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.

Because unlike Wyatt Earp and the legends of Tombstone, a shootout of this sort will leave no one in golf unscathed.