Tiger Woods Hates Long Putters, Proving He's a Hero in Sports Once Again

Tiger Woods spoke out this week at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am against a recent epidemic the game of golf: belly putters.

Yes, Tiger hates the belly putter and that makes Tiger a hero the world around. No, I don't think that's overstating the matter. He said: “I believe it’s the art of controlling the body and club and swinging the pendulum motion. I believe that’s how it should be played. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to that.”

I went golfing a while back with my friend, Brian. He took up the game a few years after me and instantly became a better player. I'm a total hack, but I treat the game with the same amount of respect as any scratch golfer, club pro or PGA champion should. There are rules in golf, and those rules are supposed to be followed. 

In my round with Brian, I noticed he was using rather fancy-looking tees. I had the long wooden tees I'm never good at using and the shorter wooden ones I use when I'm teeing off with a hybrid or iron, but I had never seen tees like the ones Brian had. They kinda looked like something you'd use to clean the dirt off your ball, not keep it raised off the ground. 

Brush tees. Brian uses brush tees. He told me they helped him keep the ball higher and straighter off the tee. He said the brush part that holds the ball up is more forgiving than the regular wooden tees, allowing him to hit keep the ball in the fairway while giving him much more distance. Brian smacked the next tee shot 260 some-odd yards down the middle of the fairway. I plunked mine about 90 yards shorter and, most likely, into a tree. I'm a hack, yes. But to me, Brian was a cheat.

Okay, he's not technically a cheat. Technology being what it is, how is it fair to complain about tee technology when we're all swinging clubs made out of composites that didn't even exist 20 years ago? There was just something unsavory about Brian using those tees. There was something unnatural. It may not have been against golf's rules, but it sure felt like it was against golf's code. 

That is where we find the belly putter. It's not against the rules, yet, but it sure feels like it's against golf's code.

Woods calls himself a traditionalist when it comes to the putter, in favor of a shorter club that you can't press against your stomach or, even worse, chest. The fact is, putting the ball is about feel. Putting is a skill mastered by hands, wrists and wits. 

Belly putters take all three of those variables out of the equation. Using a belly putter creates more of an automatic pendulum stroke than using a traditional putter. With a belly putter, a player can use his or her arms and hands as mere facilitators for the rest of the upper body to swing the club. It doesn't make sinking putts too much easier—you still have to read the green and judge the speed of a putt—but it does eliminate a whole heck of a lot of chances for your body (and mind) to screw up your stroke.

I understand the belly putters also help those golfers with bad backs—Ryan Ballengee from the Golf Channel tweeted that Fred Couples had to pull out of a tournament to have "blood-spinning treatment" done on his back—but as much as it helps with injured or older players, we see the belly putters being used more and more with players in fine health, but bad nerves.

Heck, Ernie Els joked about the long putter being cheating and he even started using one last year. Too many players are using them, which is why Woods has asked the R&A to look at a way to limit players from having a putter that's too long.

Woods proposes a rather sensible measure:

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My idea was to have it so that the putter would be equal to or less than the shortest club in your bag. And I think with that, we’d be able to get away from any type of belly anchoring.

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It makes sense, until players start whipping out extra-long wedges just to ensure they can use the extra-long putters. Actually, it's a very sound proposal that a putter cannot be longer than your shortest club. Let's hope the R&A and USGA start listening.

Now if Tiger can get to work on those damn brush tees.