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AUGUSTA NATIONAL will be turning its best side to the camera this week with the dreamiest backdrop in sport brightening millions of British living rooms, but there will be something ugly scarring the view. Adam Scott.
Not Scott himself – he is as near as men’s golf manages to a pin- up – but the beastly broomstick putter he will be wielding at the Masters.
Scott’s decision to abandon his short putter experiment after three tournaments and go back to a method that will be outlawed by this time next year is a crying shame.
No one can argue that anchored putting has served the Australian well. In 39 Majors with the short putter, Scott fi nished in the top 15 fi ve times; in 16 Majors with the long one he has done so 13 times, winning the 2013 Masters.
But seeing such a classy swinger of a club leaning on a nose tickler jars when the welcome trend is strongly in the opposite direction.
Scott is within his rights, as the rules stand, to use the broom handle but he should never have been allowed the choice. The decision to kick away the crutch was taken by the R& A on May 21, 2013, but implementation was delayed until January 1, 2016. If the governing bodies decided anchored putting constituted cheating, then why should it still be allowed?
It is like bank robbery being ruled illegal but perpetrators told they can pull a few more jobs before the police get involved. The reason given for the delay was to allow players to become accustomed to conventional putting again but even the R& A’s explanatory document questioned the lag.
“Just as golfers did not need years to transition from making non- anchored strokes with a shorter putter to making anchored strokes with a longer putter, they should not need years to transition to a non- anchored style. The 2016 date provides more than enough time for whatever transition steps are deemed desirable and necessary,” said the R& A at the time. It is more than enough all right. Golfers have remodelled swings, worked their way through an ABC of coaches and full alphabet of caddies in such an elongated period.
Other long- handled Major winners have bitten the bullet. Ernie Els is back with a short putter, so too Keegan Bradley and Webb Simpson, who has countered returning to the long one by snapping it.
Scott enjoyed a great start with the conventional putter when he fi nished fourth at this year’s Cadillac Championship but suffered doubts after missing the cut in his next event. After a 35th at the Arnold Palmer Championship, he switched back following a practice visit to Augusta.
“I am only playing by the rules,” said Scott. “People can think what they like but it’s part of the game. “It just seemed like the sensible thing to do. I hadn’t practised with the short putter at all, I just took it out and played and there were mixed results.
“My putting was great with the long putter and I am not here to just see what happens, I am here to get the job done . ”
There is a logic at play – last season on the PGA Tour Scott was ranked 55th in the ‘ strokes gained putting’ category; this season he sits 184th.
But something will not look – or more importantly feel – right if he wins the Green Jacket again with a putting stroke living dubiously on borrowed time.