Rory McIlroy isn’t happy with how the putter ban is being dealt with in the PGA.
McIlroy is in favor of getting rid of anchored putters, but the No.1 golfer in the world said that the rule has to be universal.
McIlroy said:
“I saw what Tim Finchem had to say and it seems like the European Tour is going to go a different way … I read a thing Monty (Colin Montgomerie) said that this divide isn’t good for golf and I don’t think it is. We either need to all be on one side or the other. It’s up to the governing bodies at the end of the day to decide. I sort of think it was a bit of a knee jerk reaction to how much success people were having with it.”
CNN reports that the Golf’s governing bodies, the Royal & Ancient (R & A) and the United States Golf Association (USGA), plan to ban the anchored putter starting in 2016.
The PGA Tour has come out against the ban, and commissioner Tom Finchem said that there was no “competitive advantage to be gained by using anchoring.”
McIlroy, however, believes that the anchored putters make the game easier, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“I’m all for people enjoying the game and trying to make the game as easy as possible and bringing people to the game, and if that means they should allow anchored putters to make it easier for the general public then that’s a good thing. But then they talk about bifurcation, whether you should have one set of rules for us and one set for the amateurs and it’s just a bit of a mess and opened a can of worms.”
Do you think the stomach putter should be banned? Do you agree with McIlroy that putting rules should be universal?