USGA & R&A Expected to Make Putter Anchoring Decision Tomorrow Morning

Well, tomorrow is officially D-Day...decision day that is.

The R&A and USGA have announced that they will be holding a joint teleconference with the media at 8:30 a.m. EST tomorrow morning. The purpose of the call was not made public, but one can certainly surmise that future of anchored putters will be the key topic discussed.

The USGA and R&A both made it clear months ago that they would address the issue of belly putters before the end of 2012, which is now just a little over a month away.

Peter Dawson (R&A CEO), Mike Davis (Executive Director of the USGA), David Rickman (Director or Rules and Equipment Standards for the R&A) and Thomas Pagel (Director for Rules for the USGA) will all be on the call tomorrow morning.

The fact that the top dogs for both the R&A and USGA as well as their top rules and equipment directors will all be on the call points directly towards a major rules decision coming within the next 24 hours.

Most expect that the R&A and USGA will not ban long putters per se, but they will ban any form of anchoring a golf club to one’s body during competition.

If that is indeed the case, the R&A and USGA will undoubtedly go into more detail about how they came to this decision and the timeline for the full implementation of this monumental rules change.  

Full coverage of the teleconference can be seen at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow morning on the Golf Channels “Morning Drive.”

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